Afzaal Ahmad
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Toptal member since October 8, 2021
Afzaal is a software engineer who has built products, support, and infrastructure for distributed systems while working with remote and dynamic teams. He creates solutions with modern, open-source technologies that increase business and developer success. Afzaal is well-versed in Agile methodologies, adept in startups and other fast-paced environments, and excels in self-starting cultures with a "get work done" attitude.
Portfolio
Experience
- JavaScript - 5 years
- Node.js - 5 years
- Express.js - 5 years
- React - 5 years
- TypeScript - 5 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 5 years
- NestJS - 2 years
- MongoDB - 2 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Slack, MacBook, GitHub, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
The most amazing...
...thing I've developed is a bot, using Puppeteer to join Google Meet and Zoom calls to record and transcribe them.
Work Experience
Front-end Engineer II
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Implemented CSRF token using SHA-256 algorithm to enhance the AWS Marketplace seller portal's security and eliminate cross-site request forgery.
- Upgraded the seller portal to new UI/UX using React to implement new business goals.
- Developed and launched a new front-end microservice to integrate the AWS marketplace with AWS Partner Central to provide a feature for partners to co-sell their listings.
Senior Back-end Engineer
Toptal
- Developed a CMS-based back-end system for static websites to generate client leads.
- Worked on static websites to optimize load times using server-side rendering.
- Contribute to the payload of a CMS open source project to implement features required by the static website's management tool.
Team Lead/Senior Software Engineer
Fireflies.ai
- Led a team of six to refactor and shift a dashboard app from Meteor to Next.js, which reduced load times.
- Increased the scalability of monitoring by using New Relic alerts with PagerDuty for automated incident reporting.
- Improved monitoring by integrating Slack into microservices for the customer support team to debug.
- Developed microservices using Puppeteer to record and transcribe meetings with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
- Increased monitoring by using Heap to enable the customer support team to analyze growth based on real-time analytics.
- Implemented a landing site using Next.js and React, which led to a 20% increase in lead generation.
- Upgraded the dashboard app from React version 15 to version 17. Reduced loading times by four times.
- Reduced steps in the error lifecycle by integrating Sentry in the monitoring infrastructure.
- Implemented payment processing using Stripe for recurring monthly and annual payments.
- Introduced Google Pub/Sub in microservices to insert data into MongoDB. Resulted in zero information loss as compared to sockets.
Team Lead | Front-end Engineer
OfficeTour
- Created a containerized microservice architecture with a focus on scalability and reusability.
- Set up a CI/CD pipeline using Heroku to improve the delivery of application versions.
- Implemented a data insertion queue using Bull and Redis to record user sessions through rrweb.
- Created a custom hook.io-based microservice boilerplate using React with a focus on reusability.
- Implemented a multitenant architecture using subdomains to enhance customizations.
- Enabled theming by using styled-components to customize user interfaces.
- Enhanced web conference calls by using Daily.co to improve the virtual tour experience.
- Installed a customized editor using Quill to write formatted descriptions.
- Implemented payment processing using Stripe for recurring monthly and annual payments.
- Tuned a webpack configuration using customize-cra to reduce load time by 5x.
Software Engineer
Online Staffing Company
- Developed REST API-based microservices from scratch using MongoDB and NestJS.
- Integrated GitHub, Slack, and Trello APIs using OAuth for an in-house product.
- Increased monitoring by integrating Sentry with the monitoring infrastructure.
- Set up a CI/CD pipeline using Jenkins to improve the application development process.
- Created a mail delivery service using Amazon SES, which reduced mail delivery time to one minute.
- Created reusable components using React with a focus on reusability and the single responsibility principle (SRP).
- Integrated a REST API using Axios with cancellation tokens to reduce the network load of repetitive calls.
- Implemented custom Hooks using closures to reuse stateful behavior between different components.
Experience
OfficeTour
https://officetour.comEducation
Bachelor's Degree in Software Engineering
National University of Sciences and Technology - Islamabad, Pakistan
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Node.js, React, REST APIs
Tools
Slack, GitHub, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon CloudFront CDN, Webpack, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Sentry, Jenkins, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
Languages
TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, C++, C, CSS, Java, ECMAScript (ES6)
Frameworks
Redux, Express.js, NestJS, Next.js, Tailwind CSS
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, Heroku
Storage
Databases, MongoDB, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), PostgreSQL, MySQL
Paradigms
Agile Software Development, Software Testing, Microservices
Other
Web Programming, APIs, Amazon Route 53, Front-end, Algorithms, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Responsive Design, MacBook, Waterfall Methodology, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Software Testing Lifecycle (STLC), OAuth, API Integration, CI/CD Pipelines, Axios, Content Management Systems (CMS), Strapi
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