Ben Zhang, Developer in Shanghai, China
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Ben Zhang

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Software Engineer Developer

Shanghai, China

Toptal member since April 24, 2021

Expertise
API DesignRubyRuby on Rails (RoR)RSpecDatabase DesignPostgreSQLMySQLJavaScriptSidekiqReactRuby on Rails 5GrouponSenior Web
Bio

Ben is a software engineer and engineering manager with 11 years of Ruby on Rails experience with eight of those years in Silicon Valley. Notable clients include Groupon, Netflix, and Gusto. He excels with consumer-facing, internal, and business-facing apps. At Netflix, he improved test coverage from less than 50% to over 90%. As tech lead at Groupon+, Ben architected the credit card reward platform and scaled Groupon+ to over three million users and over 10,000 merchants.

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

MacBook, MacOS

The most amazing...

...product I've built was Groupon+, Groupon's flagship credit card reward platform.

Work Experience

Engineering Manager

2020 - 2021
Gusto
  • Guided junior engineers enabling two junior engineers to receive promotions.
  • Owned team engineering roadmap and defined team processes.
  • Oversaw the merging of two teams. Built a high-performing team that owns multiple large domains including Gusto's entire public API.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), React

Senior Software Engineer

2018 - 2020
Netflix
  • Improved back-end performance of key endpoints by three times.
  • Improved test coverage from less than 50% to over 90%.
  • Delivered a wide range of features to the submission management system including submission versioning and smart drop-downs.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails 5, PostgreSQL

Senior Software Engineer/Tech Lead

2013 - 2018
Groupon
  • Architected the back end of Groupon+, Groupon's credit card reward platform.
  • Scaled Groupon+ to over three million users and over 10,000 merchants.
  • Led the integrations with Visa and Mastercard API for user credit card transaction data subscriptions.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails 5, PostgreSQL, API Integration

Web Developer

2012 - 2012
Thoughtbot
  • Assisted a healthcare startup focused on diabetes to develop their web app using Rails.
  • Owned the administrative interface to surface user insights to the site admins.
  • Assisted a banking startup to develop their mobile web app with PhoneGap.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR)

Groupon+

https://www.groupon.com/occasion/groupon-plus
I developed Groupon's flagship credit card reward platform allowing many different types of offer rules. It supports Visa and Mastercard and the user gets real-time notifications upon spending money at participating merchants.
2006 - 2010

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering

Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island

Libraries/APIs

Sidekiq, React

Tools

RSpec

Languages

Ruby, JavaScript

Frameworks

Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby on Rails 5

Paradigms

Database Design

Storage

PostgreSQL, MySQL

Other

API Design, API Integration, Website Performance

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