
Brad Ahrens
Verified Expert in Engineering
Web Developer
Lugano, Switzerland
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 and best-practice front-end web technologies. In his downtime, Brad enjoys developing automated apps in Python and sites in Laravel and React.
Portfolio
Experience
- Web Development - 7 years
- JavaScript - 5 years
- HTML5 - 5 years
- Laravel - 5 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 5 years
- Vue - 3 years
- Next.js - 1 year
- React - 1 year
Availability
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.
Work Experience
Full-stack Laravel Developer
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.
Laravel Developer
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.
Web Developer
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.
Senior Web Developer
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.
Web Developer
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.
Experience
Vybera
Albergo di Ieri
http://albergodiieri.com/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/Student Housing
Kwanko | Corporate Website
https://www.kwanko.com/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/Egor Jobs
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
Kwanko Referrals
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
Orange Poland
API Integrations
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
Engie MyPower
Toptal React Academy
Education
Master's Degree in Management
Nova School of Business and Economics - Lisbon, Portugal
Bachelor's Degree in International Business
University of the Incarnate Word - San Antonio, TX, USA
Certifications
Toptal React Academy Graduate
Toptal, LLC
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services
Full-stack JavaScript
Team Treehouse
Front-end Web Development
Team Treehouse
Skills
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, Google Maps API, Vue, Facebook API, Mailchimp API, Salesforce API, React, AWS Amplify
Tools
Gulp, Webpack, Sketch 4, Sentry, Papertrail
Languages
HTML, CSS, CSS3, HTML5, Sass, JavaScript, PHP 7, PHP 5, SQL, Python, Curl Language, XML
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
Frameworks
Laravel, Tailwind CSS, Bootstrap, Bootstrap 3, Laravel Livewire, Vapor, Angular, Next.js, Material UI, Laravel Spark
Storage
Microsoft SQL Server, Amazon S3 (AWS S3)
Industry Expertise
Marketing
Other
Web Development, Front-end, User Interface (UI), Landing Pages, SEO Tools, SOAP, CSV, PDF, Amazon API Gateway, Laravel Nova, Amazon RDS, Business
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