Brad Ahrens, Developer in Lisbon, Portugal
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Brad Ahrens

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Web Developer

Location
Lisbon, Portugal
Toptal Member Since
September 9, 2019

Brad is a senior web developer who’s managed small teams of developers and about 160 different websites. He’s an expert in PHP technologies such as Laravel, along with best practice front-end web technologies. In his downtime, Brad enjoys developing automated apps in Python and sites in Laravel and React.

Portfolio

Why Bravo Pty Ltd T/A Outbound
Laravel, Laravel Spark, Vue, Laravel Nova, Amazon EC2, Amazon S3 (AWS S3)...
Riess Group
Laravel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Vapor, Angular, React, Vue, JavaScript...
Gambling.com Group
CSS, HTML, Bootstrap 3, Bootstrap, Vue, Laravel, Amazon Web Services (AWS)...

Experience

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Tailwind CSS, Vue, Laravel, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), MacOS, React, Next.js

The most amazing...

...project that I've worked on has generated the company over 1 million euros.

Work Experience

Full-stack Laravel Developer

2021 - 2023
Why Bravo Pty Ltd T/A Outbound
  • Went through security analysis and implemented security measures such as removing insecurities in Vue components, removing cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities, improving content security policy headers, and much more.
  • Led a team of one junior developer and a designer and worked with a project manager using Scrum methodology on ClickUp.
  • Worked with HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, and Zapier integrations.
  • Managed a gamification platform with over 150 clients and 1,500 users.
Technologies: Laravel, Laravel Spark, Vue, Laravel Nova, Amazon EC2, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Amazon RDS, Web Development

Laravel Developer

2021 - 2021
Riess Group
  • Created project using Laravel's Vapor (AWS serverless) to scan, activate, void, and check the balance of gift cards.
  • Connected custom gift cards controller for the Shopify store.
  • Integrated Auth0 passwordless login for a series of clients.
Technologies: Laravel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Vapor, Angular, React, Vue, JavaScript, Web Development

Web Developer

2020 - 2021
Gambling.com Group
  • Implemented Redis caching to improve the page load speeds by 90 percent.
  • Applied console commands to implement new features faster in new projects.
  • Started coding best practices to share with colleagues.
  • Introduced test suites to help us test and prevent errors from our custom CRM built on Laravel Nova.
Technologies: CSS, HTML, Bootstrap 3, Bootstrap, Vue, Laravel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), JavaScript, SEO Tools, Web Performance Optimization (WPO), Web Development

Senior Web Developer

2019 - 2020
Kwanko
  • Created Laravel-based internal tools, which mainly focused on validation, building custom rules, and internationalization.
  • Built APIs to allow publishers to inject data directly into our database.
  • Developed the corporate website, Kwanko.com in WordPress.
  • Managed a small team of developers and oversaw code reviews.
  • Created an automation tool using Python to help salespeople generate more leads.
Technologies: Python, Laravel, Vue, JavaScript, jQuery, Sass, CSS, HTML, Web Development

Web Developer

2018 - 2019
Kwanko
  • Created dozens of marketing websites for an international clientele.
  • Updated boilerplate code to align ourselves with the changing regulation enforced by GDPR.
  • Contributed to projects using a custom PHP boilerplate with HTML, CSS, jQuery, and Sass.
  • Improved the team workflow by providing teammates with tools and shortcuts such as Sublime snippets.
  • Connected to multiple CRMs and APIs such as Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Mailchimp, as well as other REST and SOAP APIs.
Technologies: SQL, jQuery, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Web Development

Vybera

https://vybera.com/
Vybera is a non-custodial crypto wallet for currencies, NFTs, and other collectibles. I built the website for the company in Next.js with MUI components, integrated the contact form with AWS Lambda, SES, and an API gateway, and hosted the project with AWS Amplify.

Albergo di Ieri

http://albergodiieri.com/
Built a website for a local bed and breakfast in Serravalle di Chienti, Macherata, Italy.

I used the following languages to develop this project:
Next.js, AWS Amplify, AWS API Gateway, AWS Lambda, and Tailwind CSS.

My Personal Website

https://bradahrens.com/
I designed the website using Sketch and built it with Vue, Tailwind CSS, and a serverless architecture on AWS S3 with AWS Lambda functions on the back end. The site shows my projects and my YouTube channel hosting programming tutorials.

Student Housing

I built this website to make it easier for people to find student housing within Portugal. It was built with Laravel and PHP on the back end, VueJS on the front end, servers on AWS, Google Maps API, and Python.

Kwanko | Corporate Website

https://www.kwanko.com/
I developed Kwanko.com using WordPress. I built my theme from scratch, along with a few plugins.

We needed the flexibility of WordPress so that the marketing team could adjust content without the need for a developer. I also created shortcodes for them to use so they didn't need to write any code.

Kwanko — 360

https://360.kwanko.com/
I developed a multilingual site used for marketing purposes with Laravel i18n and validation.

Egor Jobs

I developed this website for a client who was looking for potential candidates to hire. We used several questions to screen out candidates and passed the data to the client.

The site was built in Laravel with the idea of having multiple, yet similar pages done by using blade templating as well as using the internationalization feature for different language positions.

CrediViável

I built this landing page to help CrediViável get hair transplant clients. The landing page asks the user a series of questions and then they are requested to fill out a form. We then submit this information per lead as well as send the client a daily summary. Basically, I translated this from an Adobe XD design into a website.

Kwanko Referrals

I made a multilingual site that helped us attract more publishers to the Kwanko network. I built this in Laravel to take advantage of its internationalization and validation aspects.

On the front end, we built the site in Bootstrap 4. I also developed a back office for internal use. (Unfortunately, I can't share this as it has private information.) It also shows the data for each lead as well as a summary.

I also created the emails that are sent out to the user with pixels inside of them. So, I can track the open rate for the emails as well as which links were clicked. In these links, I am passing information to the next site, not only UTMs but also the entity number, which is critical to the referral system.

WebHelp Jobs

I built this landing page for a client looking to hire multilingual customer service workers. It is a multi-stepped form and multilingual. It is also GDPR compliant.

Orange Poland

I built this very small landing page quickly with the client. They needed the design to be done quickly and sent me their proprietary JavaScript code to be able to directly inject the leads from the site to their database without passing by us first. This is an example of how I can adjust my code to the client's needs.

API Integrations

I have integrated sites with several APIs using various technologies like SOAP, Curl, XML, and WSSE to create CSV files and PDFs as handling click-to-call integrations. I'm also familiar with creating cron jobs to send data at a later date or in a format more suitable to the client.

APIs:
• Salesforce
• Mailchimp
• Pipedrive
• E-Goi
• Shopify
• Libax
• SugarCRM
• Swiss Dental Services
• Showroom Prive
• Teleperformance
• Crédito Digital
• SICOPWEB
• Wisecom
• ENGIE
• Pluricall
• Klaviyo
• Heartland
• Sentry
• Papertrail
• AWS (S3, SES)

Interhome Trip Page

I built this mini-site for Interhome, which is similar to Airbnb in France. It was holding a competition on Instagram and needed a site that was able to host a vote. We fulfilled all the client's needs and drove in traffic and passed along the data to the client.

Engie MyPower

This project involved a landing page with a form that sends relevant data to the client. The back end was a bit more interesting. Daily I created a CSV file and then using FTP, I inserted it into the client's server so that they have the leads directly.

Toptal React Academy

The Toptal React Academy is an exclusive learning program that teaches the React framework to select members of the Toptal network. After a month of study, all graduates are tasked with completing a 30-40 hour final project to build and deliver a React app from scratch.

Languages

HTML, CSS, CSS3, HTML5, Sass, JavaScript, PHP 7, PHP 5, SQL, Python, Curl Language, XML

Libraries/APIs

jQuery, Google Maps API, Vue, Facebook API, Salesforce API, React, AWS Amplify

Paradigms

Responsive Web Design (RWD), Web Performance Optimization (WPO), UI Design, UX Design, Management

Platforms

AWS Elastic Beanstalk, WordPress, MacOS, AWS Lambda, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Shopify, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Amazon EC2

Other

Web Development, Front-end, User Interface (UI), Landing Pages, SEO Tools, Laravel Livewire, Mailchimp API, SOAP, CSV, PDF, Amazon API Gateway, Laravel Nova, Amazon RDS, Business

Frameworks

Laravel, Tailwind CSS, Bootstrap, Bootstrap 3, Vapor, Angular, Next.js, Material UI, Laravel Spark

Tools

Gulp, Webpack, Sketch 4, Sentry, Papertrail

Storage

Microsoft SQL Server, Amazon S3 (AWS S3)

Industry Expertise

Marketing

2013 - 2014

Master's Degree in Management

Nova School of Business and Economics - Lisbon, Portugal

2004 - 2008

Bachelor's Degree in International Business

University of the Incarnate Word - San Antonio, TX, USA

OCTOBER 2021 - PRESENT

Toptal React Academy Graduate

Toptal, LLC

FEBRUARY 2020 - FEBRUARY 2023

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Amazon Web Services

DECEMBER 2016 - PRESENT

Full-stack JavaScript

Team Treehouse

NOVEMBER 2016 - PRESENT

Front-end Web Development

Team Treehouse

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