Chris Dobson
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Chris is an experienced full-stack developer and entrepreneur bringing recent experience as the CTO of a NextAI-funded startup and as director of engineering (developer matcher) here at Toptal. He is comfortable working independently or as a team member or leader. His qualifications include over 10 years of software development experience, several launched products, a computer science degree from the University of Toronto, and industry certifications from Apple and Amazon.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Serverless, AWS Lambda, React, Node.js, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
The most amazing...
...experience I've had was the year I spent on the Toptal core team, matching enterprise client jobs to skilled developers.
Work Experience
Freelance Developer
Toptal Clients
- Worked with Toptal clients to implement high-fidelity mockups into functioning React applications.
- Identified issue root-causes and avoided technical debt through full-stack troubleshooting.
- Provided informed opinions and guidance in various architectural decisions, at the clients' request.
- Worked remotely with professional, frequent, and open communication.
Digital Strategy Architect
Dobson Partners
- Became a Google partner certified to resell Google Workspace (formerly Google Apps/G Suite) products for business.
- Developed websites and online presence for clients using the Squarespace CMS platform.
- Created custom software for clients, including an event registration application for a charity supporting 800 guests across ten organizations.
- Worked with multiple nonprofits for consolidating and modernizing their online presence through a managed services agreement.
- Worked with a leading Toronto private school to redevelop their library's internal web presence and make academic research and the school's resources more accessible to students.
- Implemented and managed data-driven analytics and optimizations for over a dozen clients.
Founder
Bidbuzz.com
- Managed a team of three developers to coordinate the development of a mobile app, serverless back end, and data analysis functionality. I managed the backlog and task prioritization to ensure that features were delivered on time and within budget.
- Architected and developed a scalable lambda-function-based back-end system that minimized costs while scaling to handle peak traffic loads.
- Focused on reusing existing technologies, including AWS Amplify and Segment.com to avoid reinventing the wheel for common functions.
- Designed the wireframes and full-fidelity mockups in Adobe XD, which were then provided to the front-end team.
- Supervised a junior React/Redux developer to ensure that the UI was implemented cleanly and efficiently, with a focus on performance and Redux best practices.
- Planned the data strategy to ensure that all key end-user activities are recorded and can be used to optimize purchase conversion and feature prioritization.
Enterprise Director of Engineering
Toptal (Core Team Member)
- Worked directly with some of the world's largest enterprises, including several fortune 500 companies. I was the expert responsible for identifying the key requirements of a job and then selecting the best developer from Toptal's pool of experts.
- Developed a very wide understanding of key technology trends in enterprise, across application development, DevOps, high availability, large-scale computing, machine learning, and other challenges in large companies.
- Developed a model of talent rate distribution over skills, time, and global geography to help guide/support the matchers' growth and the sales team's understanding regarding best-supported skills, supporting Toptal's best opportunities for growth.
- Worked with our cloud partnerships team to educate the sales team about various cloud functionality (with a focus on AWS) and helped to promote industry-standard certifications within the Toptal talent pool.
Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Operant.ai
- Worked with enterprise clients to establish business requirements and functionality with many stakeholders.
- Created an end-to-end data ingest processing pipeline.
- Made end-user-specific insights available over a UI and API.
- Designed, developed, and deployed a React and TypeScript user interface.
- Mentored a direct-report data scientist in React-based user interface development and scalable Node.js applications.
Founder
Real Deal CRM
- Worked with end users to identify their business and workflow goals.
- Planned and scheduled a medium-scale project with conflicting goals and priorities.
- Developed a SQL database schema that supports object version to track changes across CRM revisions.
- Developed a React-based spreadsheet-like browser interface for inputting and tracking customers.
- Implemented a team roll-up permission structure so that team leaders can see and edit all user's data in one place but the individuals only have access to their respective data.
Experience
City Pulse Project
Skills
Languages
TypeScript, Python 3, JavaScript, TypeScript 2, HTML5, Python, SQL, HTML, CSS, Java, R
Frameworks
Express.js, OAuth 2, AWS HA, Serverless Framework, React Native, Selenium, Redux
Libraries/APIs
React, Node.js, Keras, Passport.js, Segment.io, Socket.IO, NumPy, Shopify API
Tools
Git, AWS IAM, AWS Fargate, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Google Analytics, Postman, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), GitHub, NPM, G Suite, BigQuery
Paradigms
REST, Web Architecture, Database Design, Agile Workflow
Platforms
Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MacOS, Amazon EC2, Docker, Shopify, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), AWS Lambda, Arch Linux
Storage
PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MySQL Server, Amazon DynamoDB, Redis, MariaDB
Other
Ubuntu Server, Software Development, Web Scraping, Data Architecture, SaaS, APIs, TCP/IP, Security, Web App Security, Software as a Service (SaaS), Squarespace, Full-stack, Google BigQuery, Amazon Route 53, Serverless, Google Data Studio, Internet of Things (IoT), Shopify Customizations, Shopify Design
Education
Bachelor of Science Degree with Honors in Computer Science
University of Toronto - Toronto, Canada
Certifications
AWS Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services
Apple Certified Macintosh Technician
Apple Inc.
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