Antonis Christofides, Developer in Lefkada, Greece
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Antonis Christofides

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Software Developer

Lefkada, Greece

Toptal member since May 16, 2017

Expertise
PythonPostgreSQLUbuntuDjangoAnsibleGitApacheJavaScriptDelphiNginxCloud EngineeringSQLWindows Development
Bio

Antonis has over 20 years of experience writing software and administrating servers. He's written scientific desktop software in Delphi and various web-accessible databases with Python and Django, even making minor contributions to the Django platform itself. Excellent at writing, Antonis has authored a book on Django deployment and co-authored several scientific papers.

Portfolio

GRNET - National Infrastructures for Research and Technology
Ansible, Grafana, Elasticsearch, Nextcloud, Jitsi, Logstash, Ubuntu, Git...
Cognitera
Python, Django, Django REST Framework, PostgreSQL, Git, Azure, Keycloak
Cognitera
Django, Django REST Framework, GeoDjango, Ansible

Experience

  • Apache - 20 years
  • Debian - 17 years
  • PostgreSQL - 15 years
  • Python - 15 years
  • Django - 10 years
  • JavaScript - 10 years
  • Ansible - 6 years
  • NGINX - 5 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, Debian

The most amazing...

...thing I've coded is Hydrognomon—hydrological time series processing desktop software which its users have loved for its simplicity and efficiency.

Work Experience

Senior Developer and DevOps

2022 - PRESENT
GRNET - National Infrastructures for Research and Technology
  • Installed Nextcloud for use by a company division as an alternative to Google Drive.
  • Created dashboards using Logstash, Elastic, and Grafana.
  • Installed Matrix/Element and Jitsi as alternatives to Google Drive/Calendar, Slack, and Zoom.
Technologies: Ansible, Grafana, Elasticsearch, Nextcloud, Jitsi, Logstash, Ubuntu, Git, Documentation, SQL

Team Lead

2023 - 2023
Cognitera
  • Worked at Cognitera, a company that maintains the "Single Application for aid" Django application, where Greek farmers submit their application for EU subsidies. In 2023, the functionality had to be extended with "ecoschemes," and I oversaw the addition of this feature.
  • Oversaw the development of "ecoselector", a Django application to help "Single Application for aid" users select appropriate ecoschemes.
  • Suggested alternatives for hosting. For example, I wrote a report comparing Hetzner to Azure for the purposes of the company.
Technologies: Python, Django, Django REST Framework, PostgreSQL, Git, Azure, Keycloak

Senior Developer

2023 - 2023
Cognitera
  • Managed a team of six tasked with designing and developing an application.
  • Designed and developed a decision support system to help fill out a complex form related to EU agricultural subsidies.
  • Proposed and implemented several company procedures.
Technologies: Django, Django REST Framework, GeoDjango, Ansible

Software Engineer (Independent Contractor)

2017 - 2019
ETME
  • Developed a Django application for chemical water measurements management.
  • Installed and managed GeoServer.
  • Developed the OpenLayers front-end for a migration to GeoServer.
Technologies: Bootstrap, OpenLayers, GeoServer, Django, PostGIS, Gunicorn, Leaflet, SQL, GeoDjango

Senior Python Developer

2017 - 2018
Poder.io (via Toptal)
  • Created and maintained microservices for an analytics data pipeline.
Technologies: Apache Kafka, Redis, Asyncio, Python

Ansible Consultant

2017 - 2017
Pulse and Opinion SA
  • Wrote Ansible code to scale the company infrastructure.
  • Trained staff.
Technologies: Ansible

Developer | DevOps | Researcher

1993 - 2017
Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, National Technical University of Athens
  • Developed Enhydris: free server software for the management of meteorological data through the web.
  • Contributed to various research projects with responsibilities such as database design, software development, and environmental assessment.
  • Developed and maintained software and web-accessible database for the storage and management of documents and research projects.
  • Developed and maintained software and website for online weather data.
  • Administered DNS, emails, and the web.
  • Developed Hydrognomon: a free desktop software for hydrological time series processing.
  • Maintained Hydronomeas: a hydrological simulation tool.
Technologies: Samba, BIND9, BIND 9, Apache, Bash, C, Django, Python, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, Debian Linux, HP-UX, Delphi, PostGIS, Gunicorn, Documentation, Writing & Editing, Subversion (SVN), Exim4, Mercurial, LDAP, Travis CI, Leaflet, Django REST Framework, Selenium, Windows, SQL, GeoDjango

Developer

2013 - 2015
Department of Agricultural Technology, Technological Education Institute of Epirus
  • Designed and co-developed a system to provide irrigation advice to the farmers of the plain of Arta; it comprises Python command-line applications that perform spatial integration of meteorological variables and calculation of evaporation.
  • Developed a Python/Django web application that calculates water balance and advises the end-user when and how much to irrigate.
Technologies: Pandas, NumPy, MapServer, GeoDjango, Django, Python, PostGIS, Gunicorn, Documentation, Writing & Editing, Leaflet, Selenium, SQL

DevOps

2012 - 2014
Vorgründungsgesellschaft GridMind Ivan Fernando Villanueva Barrio EU
  • Set up highly available PostgreSQL with replication.
  • Installed continuous integration.
  • Designed and implemented scaling, failover, and failback.
  • Designed and implemented backup and recovery.
  • Wrote recovery plans.
Technologies: Lsyncd, uWSGI, NGINX, PostgreSQL, Puppet, Django, Python, SQL

Junior Engineer

1995 - 1996
Transeuropean Consulting Unit of Thessaloniki (currently called TREDIT)
  • Prepared and supervised surveying teams in a parking survey.
  • Processed the collected data and developed some software for this processing.
Technologies: Surveying, Data

Experience

Enhydris

https://github.com/openmeteo/enhydris
Free server software for the management of meteorological data through the web. Powers the site (http://openmeteo.org/).

Hydrognomon

Free desktop software for hydrological time series processing and is written in Delphi.

Aira

http://github.com/openmeteo/aira
A system to provide irrigation advice to the farmers of the plain of Arta. I supervised its development.

Simpletail

https://github.com/aptiko/simpletail
A small Python library to read a file backwards.

Django-selenium-clean

https://github.com/aptiko/django-selenium-clean
A small library to make Django Selenium tests easier and cleaner.

Deploying Django on a Single Debian or Ubuntu Server

A book on Django deployment.

Resolving Conflicting Objectives in the Management of the Plastiras Lake: Can We Quantify Beauty?

http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/683/
A scientific paper investigating some of the deeper assumptions of decision analysis.

Education

1999 - 2000

Master of Science Degree in Computer Science

University of Manchester, School of Computer Science - Manchester, UK

1988 - 1994

Diploma in Civil Engineering

National Technical University of Athens, Faculty of Civil Engineering - Athens, Greece

Skills

Libraries/APIs

Leaflet, Asyncio, OpenLayers, Pandas, NumPy

Tools

Ansible, Git, NGINX, Apache, uWSGI, Travis CI, Subversion (SVN), Puppet, Mercurial, Exim4, Grafana, Logstash, Keycloak

Languages

Python, JavaScript, SQL, Bash, Delphi, C

Frameworks

Django REST Framework, Django, GeoDjango, Bootstrap, Jest, Selenium

Platforms

Ubuntu, Debian, MapServer, HP-UX, Debian Linux, Oracle, Apache Kafka, Windows, Azure

Storage

PostgreSQL, Nextcloud, Redis, GeoServer, PostGIS, MySQL, Elasticsearch

Paradigms

Continuous Integration (CI), Samba

Other

Documentation, Writing & Editing, Release Management, BIND9, Gunicorn, BIND 9, Lsyncd, Data, Surveying, Computer Science, LDAP, Jitsi

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