Chad Gruka, Developer in Celebration, FL, United States
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Chad Gruka

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Microsoft Developer

Location
Celebration, FL, United States
Toptal Member Since
December 19, 2013

Chad is a top developer for solutions based on Microsoft's technology stack, and he has experience building a wide variety of business applications. He is particularly interested in client/server and mobile applications using ASP.NET MVC, Web API (REST), SQL, HTML5, XAML, jQuery, and Windows Azure.

CloudData AnalyticsScalabilityC#HTML5SQLCSSMicrosoft Visual Studio.NETSQL Management StudioMicrosoft SQL ServerAgile Software DevelopmentjQueryASP.NET MVCJavaScript

Portfolio

Health Fitness
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), SSAS, ASP.NET MVC 4, Microsoft Azure...
Health Fitness
ASP.NET MVC 4, Microsoft Azure, .NET 4, Cloud, API Integration, Architecture...
Disney Vacation Club
C#, Microsoft SQL Server, Entity Framework, ASP.NET MVC 3, ASP.NET, .NET 4...

Experience

C# - 12 yearsHTML5 - 12 yearsSQL - 12 yearsCSS - 12 yearsMicrosoft SQL Server - 10 yearsEntity - 4 yearsAzure - 4 yearsASP.NET MVC - 3 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

TFS, SQL Management Studio, Visual Studio

The most amazing...

...thing I've coded is a data compression process, written in TSQL, processing 100M+ records in under five minutes.

Work Experience

Senior BI/Database Developer (Consultant)

2015 - PRESENT
Health Fitness
  • Aided the development of a fully automated data mart for OLAP based reporting.
  • Implemented SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) for cube deployments.
  • Architected reporting cubes, leveraging Kimball methodology using star schemas.
  • Assisted with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) package debugging, tuning, and optimizations.
  • Led the migration of a Backbone JS reporting front-end solution to an ASP.NET MVC application.
  • Built high-performance data compression queries in T-SQL. Achieved a 98% compression ratio on 100M+ records in under five minutes.
  • Developed APIs for sending reports via HighCharts.
Technologies: SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), SSAS, ASP.NET MVC 4, Microsoft Azure, .NET 4, JavaScript, Azure, Data Analytics

Senior .NET Developer & Team Lead (Consultant)

2012 - 2015
Health Fitness
  • Developed a large-scale social networking solution utilizing Windows Azure (Cloud Computing) and Kentico CMS. The Windows Azure based solution used .NET 4.5, ASP.NET MVC 4, and Entity Framework 6.0 technologies. The solution employed inversion of control (IoC) and dependency injection (DI).
  • Created data integration into SQL Azure and Azure blob storage. Used the repository pattern with generics.
  • Leveraged EF 6.0 multi-tenant abilities to reduce the number of databases required to support multiple data domains and multiple DbContext objects.
  • Implemented Microsoft’s automated unit testing solutions and leveraged continual integration (CI) builds.
Technologies: ASP.NET MVC 4, Microsoft Azure, .NET 4, Cloud, API Integration, Architecture, Leadership, Scalability, APIs, Software Design

Senior .NET Developer (Consultant)

2011 - 2012
Disney Vacation Club
  • Led the migration of two desktop-based VB6 applications to web-based ASP.NET. New solutions implemented .NET 4.0, ASP.NET MVC 3, Entity Framework 4.3, and SQL Server linked server technologies to access DB2 for source data. The solution implemented inversion of control (IoC), dependency injection (DI), and the repository patterns.
  • Led the development of conversion and upgrades to a large-scale VB.NET WinForms application to C#. This application will eventually replace DVC’s enterprise system that is currently based in RPG and DB2 on AS400.
  • Designed an application to use Aspose.Words component for merging data from dynamic, web service-based data sources with Microsoft Word templates.
  • Designed a proof-of-concept application to provide asynchronous replication of data changes between SQL Server 2008 R2 and iSeries DB2 databases using SQL Service Broker, SSIS packages, and an external activator.
Technologies: C#, Microsoft SQL Server, Entity Framework, ASP.NET MVC 3, ASP.NET, .NET 4, Visual Basic 6 (VB6), iSeries

Senior .NET Developer (Consultant)

2010 - 2011
SeaWorld
  • Maintained key financial systems at the park and corporate levels.
  • Maintained data warehousing solution for financial reporting.
  • Initiated weekly architectural design meetings among developers.
  • Developed SSIS packages for ETL processing of financial data into the corporate data warehouse centered on SQL Server 2008.
  • Integrated security between the corporate security system and MICROS point-of-sale (POS) systems.
Technologies: ETL, SQL Server 2008

Infrastructure Applications Architect

2009 - 2010
University Hospitals
  • Architected the overall infrastructure and handled custom in-house development and vendor-supported installations.
  • Provided guidance for in-house development teams, both .NET and SQL, to move the environment forward from architectural, technological, and security perspectives.
  • Led the development of upgrades to the existing intranet environment from a two-tier, ASP.NET 1.1 environment to an N-Tier platform that features service-oriented architecture (SOA) based on ASP.NET 3.5 utilizing the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).
  • Implemented role-based security for WCF service methods using custom authentication and authorization. This custom method will enable both Windows (Kerberos/NTLM) and non-Windows (form based) authentication.
  • Designed and implemented a .NET 3.5 C# object library and website to integrate data from a SQL database and Cisco’s IP Phone Services (VOIP). The application provided basic search functions of the Corporate Directory and enabled direct dialing of listings found.
Technologies: Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), ASP.NET, SQL, .NET

SQL Database Administrator

2006 - 2009
University Hospitals
  • Administrated over seventy SQL servers, both clustered and non-clustered, running Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005, and 2008.
  • Designed, created, and optimized databases and complex queries to support intranet based web applications.
  • Oversaw the standardization of database access for applications by implementing a custom built database access layer (DAL), a key component in delivering a corporate level, reusable code library.
  • Provided data loss prevention and recovery for all SQL servers.
  • Maintained and enforced SQL database standards and practices guidelines with developers and DBAs, both onsite and global.
Technologies: Microsoft SQL Server, SQL

Web Developer II

2005 - 2006
Ceres Group
  • Owned the architectural redesign of the new agent websites. These sites utilized Microsoft SQL Server 2005, ASP.NET 2.0, and AJAX technology through the use of Telerik Controls.
  • Developed a unified DAL across all new projects to decrease development and maintenance cycles. The DAL included a common class structure across all business objects which gain access to stored procedures to select, insert, update, and delete records from the database through the use of Microsoft’s Enterprise Library. Creating the DAL utilized CodeSmith Studio to automate changes for both database and class objects.
  • Built a lightweight document management system. Written in C#, this .NET 2.0 library was created to allow other systems to centrally store documents for multiple systems. Both views and recursive functions were used to maintain a normalized database. Documents were stored using SQL BLOBs.
  • Created self-aware ASP.NET 2.0 data controls to increase designer productivity and centralize user response data. Each control was capable of transmitting its contents to the database automatically across each page post-back.
  • Installed and configured Microsoft SharePoint Services for the Team Foundation Server. This provided project managers and business analysts’ access to real-time tracking of project timelines and tasks.
Technologies: C#, Ajax, ASP.NET, Microsoft SQL Server

HealthFitness - BioVia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y3F_XDZB9s
Senior Developer on this project for delivering a web-based health management application for HealthFitness's clients. Note: link is a YouTube video that describes the application as it is not publicly available.

Languages

C#, HTML5, SQL, CSS, JavaScript, Visual Basic 6 (VB6)

Frameworks

Entity, ASP.NET MVC, .NET, MVVM Light Toolkit, ASP.NET, .NET 4, ASP.NET MVC 3, ASP.NET MVC 4

Libraries/APIs

jQuery, Twitter API, SendGrid API, Twilio API, Entity Framework

Tools

Microsoft Visual Studio, SQL Management Studio, TFS, SQL BI Development Studio, Visual Studio, SSAS

Paradigms

Agile Software Development, Design Patterns, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), ETL

Platforms

Azure, Windows

Storage

Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Other

Internet Information Services (IIS), IIS 7, Software Development, Front-end Development, Cloud, API Integration, Architecture, Scalability, APIs, Software Design, Data Analytics, Leadership, Ajax, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Microsoft Azure, iSeries

2003 - 2004

Bachelor's (Incomplete) Degree in Computer Science

Rochester Institute of Tehnology - Rochester, NY

2002 - 2003

Associates Degree in Information Systems

Monroe Community College - Rochester, NY

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