Alexander Milchev Petkov, Developer in Sofia, Bulgaria
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Alexander Milchev Petkov

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Software Developer

Location
Sofia, Bulgaria
Toptal Member Since
December 24, 2018

Alexander is an experienced back-end developer specializing in Ruby on Rails projects. He has experience in outsourcing and leadership, and has seamlessly contributed to team initiatives, taught programming to university students, and authored articles and e-learning course materials.

RubyRuby on Rails (RoR)REST APIsRSpecTest-driven Development (TDD)SQLPostgreSQLSidekiqCucumberCapybaraGitAgile Software DevelopmentJSONCircleCIDocker

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, Pry, Oh My Zsh, Docker, Linux

The most amazing...

...critical feature of mine was a one-click importation of genealogical data into SM timelines. Demoed at a global event, it resulted in a company partnership.

Work Experience

Lead Back-end Developer

2016 - 2018
Famicity
  • Managed the majority of all back-end work for a private family social network using Ruby on Rails.
  • Implemented external API integration with the largest family network in the world, importing genealogy data and personal media into Famicity.
  • Added complete video support using FFmpeg, Carrierwave, Fog, Sidekiq, and Redis.
  • Implemented premium subscriptions using Stripe API.
  • Used RSpec and Cucumber for TDD as well as Capybara, SitePrism, and Selenium for end-to-end testing.
  • Interviewed and mentored a junior Ruby on Rails developer, served as scrum master, and collaborated closely with the product team on technical details.
Technologies: PostgreSQL, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby

Full-stack Developer

2015 - 2016
Plotaverse
  • Researched and did a PoC of image warping algorithms using OpenCV and ImageMagick (triangular mesh warp, Shepard warp).
  • Implemented an MVP of a fully functional image warping tool based on selecting points in an image and dragging the points to define animation (used for powerful ad visuals).
  • Collaborated closely with the project CEO to incrementally improve the UX and functionality in the desired direction.
Technologies: MongoDB, Node.js, Angular

Full-stack Developer

2014 - 2015
LiveList
  • Researched and implemented an MVP for a music recommendation engine based on collaborative filtering on top of the graph database OrientDB.
  • Helped rewrite an obsolete PHP web application into Ruby on Rails and Angular.
  • Integrated Elasticsearch for fuzzy search functionality (front and back).
  • Implemented key features like sign-up, sign-in, and password recovery (front and back).
Technologies: Angular, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby

Full-stack Developer

2013 - 2014
GPII
  • Developed the first version of Personal Control Panel, a tool for controlling OS accessibility settings with one click. See https://wiki.gpii.net/w/Personal_Control_Panel.
  • Integrated Personal Control Panel with the rest of the GPII infrastructure, such as Flow Manager (https://wiki.gpii.net/w/Flow_Manager).
  • Collaborated with an international team from Canada, Spain, and Greece, and participated in an annual technical workshop in Athens.
Technologies: jQuery, Node.js

Famicity

https://www.famicity.com
A private family social network, managing genealogical data (family tree) and classic social media publications together.

LiveList

A platform suggesting live streams of concerts by your favorite musicians.

Plotaverse

An image manipulation tool for creating powerful animations for ad campaigns.

GPII Cloud4All

https://gpii.net/
Global accessibility platform, funded by the EU

Medium FreeCodeCamp Writer

https://medium.com/@alex.petkov
I've published a few Medium posts within the FreeCodeCamp platform which ranked well in Google and Medium and currently have a total of almost 1 million views.

I got congratulated by Quincy Larson, FreeCodeCamp's founder, as months later one of my articles still gets shared on popular dev threads such as inside.com (https://inside.com/campaigns/inside-dev-2018-09-28-8801)

Online Course Author

I created an online material helping junior developers build their portfolio. The course explained an implementation of the Min-Max algorithm in a Ruby console game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

Simple Programmer Article

https://simpleprogrammer.com/start-successful-side-project/
I published an article in Simple Programmer about starting a side project. It was in the top 10 articles for that month in their platform

Languages

Ruby, SQL, JavaScript, CSS, Bash

Frameworks

Ruby on Rails (RoR), Capybara, Angular, AngularJS, Selenium, OAuth 2, Bootstrap, Express.js

Libraries/APIs

ActiveRecord, REST APIs, Sidekiq, CarrierWave, Node.js, Stripe API, OmniAuth, FFmpeg, jQuery

Tools

RSpec, Cucumber, Oh My Zsh, Pry, CircleCI, RuboCop, Git

Paradigms

RESTful Development, Test-driven Development (TDD), Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Microservices Architecture, Agile Software Development, Scrum, Kanban

Storage

PostgreSQL, MySQL, OrientDB, Neo4j, MongoDB, JSON, Redis, Elasticsearch, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), OVH

Platforms

Linux, Docker, Mixpanel, Kubernetes

Other

Cordova, Puma, WebSockets, Bcrypt

2011 - 2015

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

Sofia University - Sofia

SEPTEMBER 2008 - PRESENT

Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE)

Cambridge Assessment

Collaboration That Works

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