Allen Lai, Developer in Dallas, TX, United States
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Allen Lai

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Front-end Developer

Location
Dallas, TX, United States
Toptal Member Since
August 3, 2021

Allen is a software engineer with several years of experience in full-stack web development. This experience includes delivering solutions for enterprises like Microsoft and Booz Allen Hamilton (a Fortune 500 management and IT consulting firm) as well as teaching programming at the Make School. In his free time, Allen makes frequent open-source contributions to Mattermost and GitLab. Before focusing on web development, Allen built and launched a few of his iOS apps on the App Store.

Portfolio

Microsoft
Angular, .NET, C#, JavaScript, Node.js, TypeScript, JSON Web Tokens (JWT)...
Booz Allen Hamilton
React, JavaScript, Node.js, TypeScript, CSS, Google Cloud, Jest, GitHub...

Experience

Availability

Full-time

Preferred Environment

MacOS, Git

The most amazing...

...contribution that I've made was to an open-source project, Mattermost; I was recognized as the MVP of the month and invited to their conference in the Bahamas.

Work Experience

Software Engineer

2019 - 2021
Microsoft
  • Used Angular/TypeScript, .NET Core/C#, and Azure to build web apps for Microsoft Enterprise Services relationship managers to better support and deliver professional services to their enterprise customers.
  • Implemented event-based communication with Azure Service Bus to maintain data consistency across teams.
  • Worked closely with customer support to respond to issues for users and fix them in a permanent and scalable way.
Technologies: Angular, .NET, C#, JavaScript, Node.js, TypeScript, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), OAuth, Full-stack Development, Software Architecture, Technical Leadership, Back-end, Full-stack, Software Design

Software Engineer Consultant

2017 - 2019
Booz Allen Hamilton
  • Built the front end of a prototype web app with React to demonstrate the business value derived by a serverless cloud data lake, which resulted in winning a $500,000 option to further build the demo and being awarded an 18-month contract.
  • Developed a front-end application for the USCIS (the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to help them manage their DevSecOps.
  • Constructed front-end prototype web apps to win government contracts for Booz Allen.
Technologies: React, JavaScript, Node.js, TypeScript, CSS, Google Cloud, Jest, GitHub, Full-stack Development, Software Design

iOS Summer Academy Lead Instructor

2017 - 2017
Make School
  • Directly mentored a group of 13 students and managed their projects from brainstorming to App Store launch.
  • Taught students the fundamental of programming and iOS development skills.
  • Encouraged students to keep learning despite a quite steep learning curve.
Technologies: iOS

Software Engineer Intern

2016 - 2016
MicroStrategy
  • Created an object tagging feature prototype similar to macOS Finder’s file tagging feature with OS X programming for their enterprise software product.
  • Tracked and fixed bugs in Jira to improve their product for Q4 2016 release.
  • Created a tagging similar to one on Finder on their file management system.
Technologies: Swift, Java 8, HTML

Social Benefits Navigator

https://socialbenefitscalculator.web.app/
A web app for users in LA to calculate their benefits and tax credits. The tool will show you what benefits are available to you, how to access them, and how they will change if your household experiences a change in earned income.

Mattermost: Open-source, Self-hosted Slack Alternative

https://developers.mattermost.com/contribute/mvp/
Tasks Accomplished:
• Contributed by taking on 15 GitHub issues to merged PRs using React, React Native, Redux and Go.
• Was recognized as an MVP contributor and won the following award: https://developers.mattermost.com/contribute/mvp/
• Wrote unit tests with Jest for React components, E2E tests with Cypress, and Testify with Go.

GitLab Open-source Contribution

• Contributed by taking on five issues with merge requests; the Merge Requests were used and deployed to production.
• Worked with staff using Vue.js/Vuex, Apollo/GraphQL, and Ruby on Rails.

Project URL:
• https://gitlab.com/dashboard/issues?scope=all&state=closed&assignee_username=allenlai18

Word by Word

https://word-by-word-70ccf.web.app/
A web application for rapid serial visual presentation reading. It has several features, including hosting to let users signup, create a profile, and save text entries.

Technologies: React, Redux, Firebase Cloud Functions

Languages

JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, HTML, CSS, C#, GraphQL, Java 8, Swift, TypeScript 3, Java

Frameworks

Redux, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), .NET, React Native, Ruby on Rails 5, Jest, Angular, gRPC, Express.js

Libraries/APIs

React, Node.js, REST APIs, React Redux, Protobuf

Other

Full-stack Development, OAuth, Software Architecture, Technical Leadership, Back-end, Full-stack, Software Design, Leadership, Front-end, Programming, Firebase Cloud Functions, Apollo, Scraping

Tools

Git, GitHub, Mattermost, BigQuery, Cloud Dataflow, Apache Beam, Webpack

Paradigms

Desktop Web Design

Platforms

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Storage

Google Cloud, Google Cloud Spanner

2014 - 2017

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

University of Maryland, College Park - College Park, MD, United States

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