Albert Portnoy, Developer in Chicago, IL, United States
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Albert Portnoy

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Full-stack Developer

Location
Chicago, IL, United States
Toptal Member Since
June 23, 2022

Albert is an experienced software engineer with 5+ years of full-stack development on scalable SaaS applications and open source projects. He specializes in MERN—MongoDB, Express.js, React, Node.js—and utilizes TypeScript to provide readable, well-documented code. Albert enjoys contributing to GitHub repositories and highly scalable bot and communications applications from the ground up.

Portfolio

codETHS
TypeScript, Node.js, MongoDB, Svelte, Rust, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Google API...
Self-employed
TypeScript, Node.js, MongoDB, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Discord Bots, OAuth...

Experience

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

MongoDB, Express.js, React, Node.js, TypeScript, MacOS, GitHub, Google API, Discord Bots, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

The most amazing...

...thing I've developed is a Discord chatbot that integrates with TikTok, which was used by over 15,000 communities.

Work Experience

Lead Software Engineer

2018 - 2022
codETHS
  • Designed a web app that consistently accommodated 85,000 views per week from active users.
  • Planned a development roadmap, defined schedules, assigned tasks, and tracked progress.
  • Managed the application in production and ensured 99.99% uptime.
  • Coordinated with the clients to incorporate feedback and prioritize issue resolution.
  • Adjusted the development plan quickly to prioritize unexpected requirements changes, delivering substantial new logic within a week.
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js, MongoDB, Svelte, Rust, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Google API, OAuth, Front-end Development, Front-end, Responsive UI

Software Engineer

2020 - 2021
Self-employed
  • Grew the application to over 15,000 user groups and converted 100 customers to paid subscription service through a steady schedule of feature releases and usability improvements.
  • Designed the web scraping capabilities to retrieve data from TikTok without being blocked, with over 250,000 requests per day.
  • Collaborated with customers to troubleshoot issues, give guidance on usage, fix bugs, and implement requested features, with a target SLA of 12 hours or less.
  • Leveraged a combination of free and paid promotions and optimized SEO to increase customer acquisition rate.
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js, MongoDB, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Discord Bots, OAuth, Front-end Development, Front-end, Responsive UI

Kable

A Discord bot providing integration with TikTok.

I utilized web scraping to retrieve information from the TikTok website and designed a proxy management system to avoid being blocked. As the sole developer, I talked with users to fix bugs and implement requested features.

ETHSBell (via codETHS)

ETHSBell tells students when the current period will end. It's beneficial since the school has multiple bell schedules depending on the day, and it can be hard to remember all the start and end times. In addition to the website, a Chrome extension provides easy access to the current period and schedule information. It also has an API to allow for other projects to integrate with it, such as the PE Board.

I primarily worked on the front-end website and Chrome extension, but I also helped with the back end.

PE Board (via codETHS)

The PE Board tells ETHS students which gym their class will be in. Staff can input their locations in a Google Sheet and what students need to bring to class. It uses ETHSBell to display the current period. The board is shown on a monitor at the entrance to the gym, and students can access it on their Chromebooks or phones.

Kitcoin (via codETHS)

Kitcoin is a digital currency for students at ETHS. Staff can send Kitcoin to students, which they can spend at the school store. Its Google Classroom integration makes it easier for teachers to send Kitcoin to students in their classes. Students can see their balance, transaction history, and what items are available in the store.

I worked on all project parts, including leading a team of five other developers.

Guess the Salary

Guess the Salary is a game for the Hoya Hacks 2022 hackathon to spread awareness of wage inequality. The game's goal is to guess the average job salary in a given city.

I worked on the back end and front end with one other developer to complete this project.

Guess the Color

Guess the Color is a web game where you guess which color matches the given hex color code. There are three different modes, with higher difficulties having more similar-looking colors. There is a singleplayer version (https://albertp.dev/guess-the-color/) and a multiplayer version (https://albertp.dev/guess-the-color/multiplayer) where once a person can see the color options and other people have to describe the color from the hex code. I was the sole developer on this project.

Languages

TypeScript, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bash, Rust, Python, SQL

Frameworks

Express.js, Svelte

Libraries/APIs

Node.js, React, Google API

Tools

GitHub

Platforms

MacOS, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Ubuntu

Storage

MongoDB

Other

Discord Bots, Front-end Development, Front-end, Responsive UI, OAuth, Chrome Extensions, WebSockets

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