Ahmed Elkady, Developer in Toronto, ON, Canada
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Ahmed Elkady

Verified Expert  in Engineering

iOS Developer

Location
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal Member Since
January 13, 2021

Ahmed has been a passionate iOS developer since his internship days in 2014 while studying computer engineering at the University of Waterloo. He has done six internships, most notably at Compass in New York and LinkedIn in San Francisco. After graduating, Ahmed worked at an edtech company called Top Hat for three years, then moved on to Coffee Meets Bagel for two and a half years. He holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois.

Mobile ApplicationsAppsMobileGitGitHubiOS Native LibrariesXcodeiOSSwiftObjective-CCocoaPodsMobile DevelopmentiOS SDKRealmUIKit

Portfolio

Coffee Meets Bagel
VIPER Architecture, Model View Viewmodel (MVVM), SDWebImage, CocoaPods...
Top Hat
VIPER Architecture, Nimble-Snapshots, SDWebImage, PromiseKit, SnapKit...
Top Hat
Open Source, VIPER Architecture, Nimble-Snapshots, SDWebImage, SnapKit...

Experience

Agile Software Development - 8 yearsGit - 8 yearsSwift - 6 yearsiOS - 6 yearsXcode - 6 yearsCocoaPods - 6 yearsObjective-C - 6 yearsSwiftUI - 2 years

Availability

Full-time

Preferred Environment

Agile Software Development, Algorithms, Git, Objective-C, Swift, iOS, Xcode

The most amazing...

...project I've built is called RichTextView—an open source iOS project starred at least 1000x that can render HTML, Markdown, LaTeX, and YouTube videos.

Work Experience

Senior iOS Developer

2021 - 2023
Coffee Meets Bagel
  • Delivered the most successful revenue experiment in the company's history by building a new multi-screen upsell flow that increased D7's total revenue per user by 9.5%.
  • Integrated Twilio into the app to build a robust video chat experience that more than 15% of our weekly users use.
  • Refactored the app's onboarding flow from Objective-C to Swift, making the code more stable and increasing the app's Swift code by 10% relative to Objective-C.
  • Worked with a team of five other iOS developers to fix, improve, and build upon the CoffeeMeetsBagel dating app.
  • Participated in refactoring various app components, such as the "Me" avatar screen, to move closer to Swift and MVVM/VIPER architecture.
  • Implemented better team processes, including a release rotation.
Technologies: VIPER Architecture, Model View Viewmodel (MVVM), SDWebImage, CocoaPods, Teamwork, Agile Software Development, Git, Swift, iOS, Xcode, SwiftUI, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, Apps, LiveStream, Streaming, iTunes Connect, Alamofire, AVFoundation, Video Codecs, Realm, Video Streaming, UIKit, Core Image, iOS Frameworks, Lottie, Lottie-iOS, Firebase, Figma, UI Animation, Core Animation, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Apple, Subscriptions, Apple Subscriptions, Apple Pay, Core Data, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Architecture, OpenAI GPT-4 API, Cocoa Touch, Cocoa, Entertainment & Leisure, GitHub, TestFlight, Stripe, PSD to Swift, Swift 4, SDK Development, Scalability, Abstraction, REST APIs, AVPlayer, App Design, iOS Native Libraries

Mobile Team Lead

2020 - 2021
Top Hat
  • Expanded my responsibilities by taking on a leadership role within the Android and iOS teams, growing the number of direct reports under me to seven in total.
  • Responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by rallying the team to build support for our new virtual classroom experience on iOS and Android, enabling professors to continue to deliver lectures to their students remotely.
  • Transitioned the mobile team from OKRs as a way to do project planning to the shapeup and cycle process as part of a department-wide effort to transition all the engineering teams.
Technologies: VIPER Architecture, Nimble-Snapshots, SDWebImage, PromiseKit, SnapKit, CocoaPods, Teamwork, Agile Software Development, Git, Swift, iOS, Xcode, Team Leadership, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, Apps, LiveStream, Streaming, iTunes Connect, Alamofire, AVFoundation, Video Codecs, Realm, Video Streaming, UIKit, Core Image, iOS Frameworks, Firebase, UI Animation, Core Animation, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Apple, App Store, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Architecture, Cocoa Touch, Cocoa, Sockets, Socket.IO, Networks, GitHub, TestFlight, PSD to Swift, Swift 4, SDK Development, Scalability, REST APIs, AVPlayer, App Design, iOS Native Libraries, Sensor Data

iOS Team Lead

2019 - 2020
Top Hat
  • Managed and mentored a mix of junior and senior developers as well as remote contractors in a team of three iOS developers.
  • Delivered an all-hands speech in front of the whole company highlighting the progress we made in the iOS app rewrite, specifically the classroom experience.
  • Rewrote the entire guidebook experience and analytics architecture on the iOS app, making the code more scalable, maintainable, and stable.
  • Created Top Hat's first iOS open source project (Richtextview.com), an iOS UI TextView (UIView) that properly displays LaTeX, HTML, Markdown, and YouTube/Vimeo links, amassing 200 stars and 8 forks within the first week of the first release.
Technologies: Open Source, VIPER Architecture, Nimble-Snapshots, SDWebImage, SnapKit, PromiseKit, CocoaPods, Teamwork, Agile Software Development, Team Leadership, Objective-C, Swift, Git, Xcode, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, Apps, iTunes Connect, Alamofire, Realm, UIKit, Core Image, iOS Frameworks, Firebase, UI Animation, Core Animation, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Apple, App Store, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Architecture, Cocoa Touch, Cocoa, Sockets, Socket.IO, Networks, GitHub, TestFlight, PSD to Swift, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Swift 4, SDK Development, Scalability, REST APIs, App Design, iOS Native Libraries, Sensor Data

Senior iOS Developer

2018 - 2019
Top Hat
  • Participated in an entire iOS app rewrite, moving 30% of the project's code to Swift within the first six months.
  • Championed a week-long project to streamline and standardize our dependency management system, moving from a mixture of Carthage and static dependencies to CocoaPods, removing approximately 100,000 lines of code in the process.
  • Contributed to the rewrite of the entire question experience on iOS to Swift, improving the app's weekly crash-free rating from an all-time low of 96.5% to 99.5% and the App Store rating from 3.2 to 4.5 stars out of 5.
  • Established the team's accessibility standards and Swift code style guides.
Technologies: Carthage, VIPER Architecture, Nimble-Snapshots, SDWebImage, SnapKit, PromiseKit, CocoaPods, Teamwork, Agile Software Development, Objective-C, Swift, Git, Xcode, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, iTunes Connect, Alamofire, Realm, UIKit, Core Image, iOS Frameworks, Firebase, UI Animation, Core Animation, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Apple, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Architecture, Cocoa Touch, Cocoa, Sockets, Socket.IO, Game Development, Gamification, Networks, GitHub, TestFlight, PSD to Swift, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Swift 4, SDK Development, Scalability, Abstraction, REST APIs, App Design, iOS Native Libraries, Sensor Data

iOS Developer

2017 - 2018
Top Hat
  • Led the technical planning around re-architecting the entire student classroom experience on iOS.
  • Participated in a complete overhaul of our iOS network engine, moving from Objective-C and RestKit to Swift, Codable, and PromiseKit.
  • Championed a week-long project to standardize and streamline our UI/UX process on mobile, including colors, font sizes, and images.
  • Worked with the rest of the department to bring a vast array of web features to our iOS app, including tournaments, Top Hat Test, and third-party questions.
Technologies: Carthage, VIPER Architecture, Nimble-Snapshots, SDWebImage, SnapKit, PromiseKit, Teamwork, CocoaPods, Agile Software Development, iOS, Objective-C, Swift, Xcode, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, Apps, Alamofire, Realm, UIKit, Core Image, iOS Frameworks, Firebase, UI Animation, Core Animation, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Apple, Mobile, Cocoa Touch, Cocoa, Sockets, Socket.IO, Game Development, Gamification, Networks, GitHub, TestFlight, PSD to Swift, Swift 4, SDK Development, Scalability, Abstraction, REST APIs, App Design, iOS Native Libraries, Sensor Data

iOS Developer

2016 - 2016
Compass
  • Worked with a team of three developers to manage five iOS applications for the luxury homes market, developing features that led to an 80% engagement rate on our apps.
  • Utilized polygon drawing and correction algorithms to enable users to draw custom boundaries on a map, in order to filter particular regions in a real estate search.
  • Architected major portions of the agents app, adding the ability for agents to see and interact with their clients, as well as view their own listing and search history.
  • Strengthened the Swift API layer in our apps to better communicate with and translate Thrift data structures coming from our servers.
Technologies: Model View Viewmodel (MVVM), Nimble-Snapshots, SDWebImage, SnapKit, Carthage, Teamwork, Agile Software Development, Objective-C, Swift, iOS, Xcode, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, Apps, Alamofire, Realm, UIKit, Core Image, iOS Frameworks, Google Maps SDK, UI Animation, Core Animation, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Apple, Core Data, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Cocoa Touch, Cocoa, GitHub, TestFlight, PSD to Swift, Swift 4, SDK Development, REST APIs

iOS Developer

2016 - 2016
LinkedIn
  • Worked on the messaging portion of the flagship iOS app with eight other iOS developers and approximately two dozen other developers, project managers, and designers.
  • Developed a feature that allowed LinkedIn employees to message their coworkers and add them to group conversations, working with an Android and back-end developer.
  • Enhanced the messaging experience by enabling users to see the content of URLs sent in the app by showing a basic image, title, and description along with inline YouTube videos.
  • Enriched the user experience by modernizing the loading animation across messaging.
Technologies: Model View Viewmodel (MVVM), Teamwork, Agile Software Development, Objective-C, Swift, iOS, Git, Xcode, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, Apps, UIKit, Core Image, iOS Frameworks, UI Animation, Core Animation, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Apple, Core Data, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Cocoa Touch, Cocoa, Instant Messaging, PSD to Swift, Swift 4, SDK Development, Scalability, REST APIs

Mobile Application Developer

2015 - 2015
Autodesk
  • Used iOS Objective-C, Lua, and C++ to develop a contest feature for Sculpt+, a 3D-intensive social media app where users could share self-created 3D models.
  • Updated the Android app to be Gradle-based, reducing build speeds by up to 50%.
  • Improved the internal Kalpana 3D framework which was used by multiple Autodesk apps.
Technologies: Gradle, C++, Lua, Objective-C, Xcode, Java, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, Apps, UIKit, Core Image, iOS Frameworks, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Android, iOS Camera, Camera API, Android SDK, Entertainment & Leisure, Metal

Software Developer

2014 - 2014
Metroland
  • Used the Appcelerator framework to work on the Save.ca hybrid mobile application, part of Canada’s largest online shopping savings and deals ecosystem.
  • Used JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Android Java, and jQuery to develop a new method of favouriting flyers and redesign the camera module, increasing the app’s rating by 0.3 stars over the course of my employment.
  • Performed routine bug fixes and updated the app to iOS 8 and Android Lollipop.
Technologies: Appcelerator Titanium, Hybrid Apps, Java, Mobile Development, iOS SDK, Apps, Mobile, Android, iOS Camera, Camera API, Android SDK

RichTextView

https://www.richtextview.com
This is an iOS open source project that takes any kind of text—HTML, LaTeX, Markdown, and even YouTube/Vimeo links—and turns it into a UIView that can be used to visually display these different kinds of "rich text" properly.

As the sole developer, I was involved on the ground floor of this project, from creation to deployment to maintenance, as well as putting it in the CocoaPods Specs repo so that anyone can integrate it into their projects.

Liven

https://www.liven.love/
Liven is a mobile app for restaurant-based rewards. I worked as a freelance iOS developer for four months on this app, from April to August 2021. I converted the remainder of the Objective-C code in the app to Swift, moving the project from 88% Swift (and 10% Objective-C) to 98% Swift (and 1% Objective-C).

Interactive Computer Graphics Course Project

http://www.ahmedelkady.xyz/uiuc-cs418-aelkady2/
This is my end-of-course project for my interactive computer graphics course for my master of computer science degree. It is a WebGL webpage that includes a rendering of a teapot and a plane that uses geometry processing, smooth per-pixel shading, diffuse reflectance, specular highlights, surface texture, reflective surface, procedural texture, and bump mapping.

Languages

Swift, Objective-C, Swift 4, Java, Lua, C++, JavaScript, HTML

Frameworks

SwiftUI, iOS SDK, UIKit, iOS Frameworks, Core Data, Cocoa Touch, Cocoa, Android SDK, Metal

Libraries/APIs

CocoaPods, PromiseKit, SnapKit, SDWebImage, Alamofire, Core Image, REST APIs, iOS Native Libraries, Nimble-Snapshots, Google Maps SDK, Core Animation, Apple Subscriptions, Camera API, Sockets, Socket.IO, WebGL, Lottie-iOS, Stripe

Tools

Xcode, Git, GitHub, TestFlight, iTunes Connect, Gradle, Appcelerator Titanium, Figma, AVPlayer

Paradigms

VIPER Architecture, Mobile Development, Agile Software Development, Model View Viewmodel (MVVM), Gamification

Platforms

iOS, Firebase, Apple, Mobile, Android, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Storage

Realm, Database Management Systems (DBMS)

Other

Teamwork, Apps, App Store, Mobile Applications, Architecture, SDK Development, Scalability, Abstraction, Algorithms, Carthage, LiveStream, Streaming, AVFoundation, Video Codecs, Video Streaming, UI Animation, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Subscriptions, Apple Pay, iOS Camera, App Design, Open Source, Team Leadership, Hybrid Apps, Compilers, Computer Graphics, Data Visualization, Data Cleaning, Lottie, OpenAI GPT-4 API, Game Development, Entertainment & Leisure, Networks, Instant Messaging, PSD to Swift, Web UX, Full-stack, Sensor Data

2021 - 2022

Master's Degree in Computer Science

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign - Remote

2012 - 2017

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering

University of Waterloo - Waterloo, Canada