Chris Cauley
Verified Expert in Engineering
Front-end Developer
Philadelphia, PA, United States
Toptal member since June 16, 2021
Chris is a full-stack developer with more than ten years of experience. He specializes in building scalable web applications with Django, React, and Vue, with an emphasis on rapid prototyping, multi-tenancy, and complex user roles. He has worked in a wide variety of industries, including medical devices, real estate, online media, shipping, education, and non-profit. In his spare time, he writes board games and other side projects to keep his programming skills sharp.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Ubuntu, Emacs, Git, Bash
The most amazing...
...thing I've developed is a makerspace website which coordinated students, instructors, volunteers, classes, and facility and tool access.
Work Experience
Lead Front-end Developer
Proscia
- Rewrote Proscia's digital pathology platform from scratch using Vue 3 and OpenSeadragon.
- Tracked and fixed bugs in Jira and documented the product design in Matrix Requirements.
- Wrote integration, unit, and visual regression tests.
Senior Developer
Blue bite
- Removed technical debt, decreasing the code base by 40% while simultaneously adding features.
- Implemented a site-wide redesign via Zeplin designs.
- Increased unit test coverage from 0% to 50%, with an emphasis on ensuring core functionality was covered.
- Added end-to-end test coverage via Cypress and refactored existing tests to improve availability.
Tech Lead
Underdog.io companies
- Optimized and maintained email relay service, an email forwarding service for anonymous communication between the candidate and company.
- Created a dashboard for viewing messages between candidates and companies, which was synchronized with the user's email inbox.
- Unified Node.js and Python build processes for eight microservices and upgraded service from Python 2 to Python 3 and Node.js 6 to Node.js 12.
Software Developer
Promptworks
- Developed web applications using Django, React, Postgres, and Heroku.
- Integrated with a wide variety of third-party services, including Paypal, Stripe, Hubspot, Zendesk, Nest, Alexa, and Xapian.
- Worked closely with clients from discovery to shipment to ensure satisfaction.
Full-stack Developer
Self-employed (Contractor)
- Served as a sole developer and designer for the web app and digital infrastructure of a large makerspace. The web portal was used for class scheduling, building access, machine permissions, and membership options. Used Django, Riot.js, and Postgres.
- Did a major redesign and rebuild of thegamesupply.net, a website for buying and selling digital goods (MMO accounts). Most notably, I integrated several APIs to automate product building.
- Worked one on one with both technical and non-technical clients.
Full-stack Developer
Six Foot
- Created the Go back end for an online RTS game as well as the Django web app used for user profiles and social interaction.
- Created an educational video game using HTML Canvas.
- Built websites for local companies using Linux, PostgreSQL, Django, JavaScript, and many other technologies.
Experience
Hive Game
http://hive.unrest.ioThe app is designed to function in both online and offline modes. It uses WebSockets for multiplayer and chat functionality. I am currently working on adding a replay system.
TXRX Labs Web Portal
https://apps.txrxlabs.org/classes/During my tenure at TXRX Labs, I volunteered as the vice president and taught several dozen classes in rapid prototyping, 3D printing, CNC manufacturing, Python, JavaScript, and more. The makerspace grew from a few dozen people in a 4,000 square foot space to a 40,0000-square-foot multi-building teaching 3,000+ students yearly. The web portal I made helped ease the administrative burden of coordinating the various roles in the organization. I am confident that the lab could not have undergone 10x growth in two years without the web portal and associated infrastructure.
Proscia's Online Slide Viewer
https://proscia.com/concentriq-platform/Because the API team was simultaneously rewriting the back end for the app, I wrote the application to function in standalone mode. The API connection could be disabled via the feature flag. This meant the front end could function independently from the API, storing all information in RAM only. Developing with both online and offline capabilities reduced the overhead of not having to run the full stack during development which allowed for faster development, easier debugging, and an overall more stable product.
During this process, I upgraded the platform to Vue 3, standardized the data store, and built a custom component library. I also built functional, snapshot, unit, and integration tests for the application and created a detailed list of user stories and acceptance criteria to make future development more stable.
Nico Web App
As the primary developer, I had to make many feature flags that would work in any combination. The app had to work with multiple CRMs, payment processors, and other third-party APIs. This meant that our database was not the source of truth for most of the data on the site, and most data was cached or fetched on the fly.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry
University Of Utah - Salt Lake City, UT
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Vue.js, React, Vue 2, Vue 3, Node.js, Riot.js, Stripe API, Authorize.net
Tools
Git, Emacs, OpenSeadragon, MATLAB, NGINX, Canvas, Docker Compose
Languages
Python, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Python 3, Bash, Go, PHP, CoffeeScript, Sass, Ruby
Frameworks
Django, Flask, Bootstrap, Tailwind CSS, Redux, NestJS, Express.js, Cypress, Jest
Paradigms
Responsive Web Design (RWD), Object-oriented Programming (OOP)
Platforms
DigitalOcean, Ubuntu, HubSpot, Raspberry Pi, Django CMS, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Industry Expertise
Teaching, Analytical Chemistry
Storage
MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis
Other
APIs, Full-stack, 3D Printing, Philosophy, Payment APIs, WebSockets, Medical Software, Recruitment, CNC, PayPal, User Flows, RFID, OpenSCAD, Digital Payments, User Roles, User Permissions, Hardware Integration, Front-end, API Integration
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring