Daniel Nakhla, Developer in New York, NY, United States
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Daniel Nakhla

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Software Developer

New York, NY, United States

Toptal member since July 17, 2014

Bio

Daniel is a technology consultant, architect, and manager with over 15 years of experience leading enterprise development initiatives, including emerging technologies and blockchain. He specializes in system architecture, design, and development, leveraging modern web technologies and frameworks.

Portfolio

The Action Network
Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Lambda, Hapi.js, React, APIs, Architecture
Mindful Education
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Vue, React, Node.js, APIs, Technical Leadership...
NDA
PostgreSQL, Redux, React, APIs, Architecture, Technical Leadership

Experience

  • JavaScript - 10 years
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 10 years
  • MySQL - 10 years
  • PHP - 7 years
  • Node.js - 6 years
  • AWS Lambda - 5 years
  • React - 3 years
  • Redux - 3 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

JavaScript, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Node.js, React, Svelte, Serverless Architecture, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Python 3, Large Language Models (LLMs)

The most amazing...

...thing has been working on an international technology team, leading a team of five offshore developers in a stack's migration, implementation, and development.

Work Experience

Consultant

2018 - 2018
The Action Network
  • Extended the back-end API on Hapi.js.
  • Created a dynamic image processor for use in targeted ads built on AWS Lambda.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Lambda, Hapi.js, React, APIs, Architecture

Lead Developer

2017 - 2018
Mindful Education
  • Led the development of website projects for Mindful Education.
  • Updated VLE using React and Express.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Vue, React, Node.js, APIs, Technical Leadership, Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Principal Engineer

2016 - 2017
NDA
  • Built an education and testing platform in the financial sector.
Technologies: PostgreSQL, Redux, React, APIs, Architecture, Technical Leadership

Senior Front-end Developer

2014 - 2017
Hearst Corporation
  • Worked on the international technology team, leading a team of five offshore developers in the migration, implementation, and development of a universal technology stack.
  • Launched products in six countries that have helped expand our brand reach (Cosmopolitan, Sugarscape, and Elle) and increase advertising options.
  • Handled architecture, training, hiring, code reviews, sprint planning, and PHP/JavaScript development.
  • Developed a non-blocking distributed system data migration tool in Node.js and AWS.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), eZ Publish, WordPress, Grunt, Sass, JavaScript, PHP, APIs, Architecture, Technical Leadership

Senior Developer

2013 - 2014
Ammirati Creative Agency (acquired by IBM)
  • Developed Jerry Seinfeld’s responsive comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com in collaboration with Sony’s Crackle.
  • Developed prolofinder.com on AngularJS with a Laravel RESTful API back end and OAuth2.0 as a standalone SaaS application.
  • Completed a delivery.com/Yelp integration system, which allowed users to place orders directly on Yelp through delivery.com on mobile and desktop. The system was built using CakePHP, Backbone.js, Underscore, and Handlebars.
  • Completed various projects for clients like Sweet’N Low and Forex in WordPress and PHP.
Technologies: REST APIs, RESTful Development, AngularJS, Underscore.js, Laravel, CakePHP, APIs, Architecture

Front-end Lead

2012 - 2013
Thrillist Media Group (Thrillist/JackThreads)
  • Coded a new content delivery site for Thrillist.com running on CakePHP and using SOLR as its data source for high speed reads, while still allowing admin users to use Drupal as the back office CMS for content creation and management.
Technologies: CakePHP, JavaScript, Solr, Git, APIs, Architecture

Consultant, Developer

2010 - 2012
NorthPoint Solutions (acquired by Ernst & Young)
  • Developed on-site at Hearst, Inc. for the Car & Driver and Elle brands.
  • Succeeded in more than tripling the site speed for ~80% of visits and increasing the Google PageSpeed by ~20 points.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Git, CruiseControl, Memcached, APC, Akamai, jQuery, JavaScript, Solr, MySQL, WordPress, PHP, Zend Framework, Scrum, APIs, Architecture

Founder, Developer

2009 - 2012
Closetbank
  • Founded and developed closetbank.com on top of a LAMP stack.
  • Used Ajax and jQuery UI elements to create a virtual closet application with special consideration towards interaction design using Google Web Optimizers and Analytics.
  • Worked alone on all aspects of design, development, marketing, and maintenance of the website.
  • Featured in the New York Times and the Art Institute as well as on various blogs.
  • Attracted thousands of daily users before being eventually decommissioned.
Technologies: LAMP, Ajax, PEAR, ImageMagick, MySQL, jQuery UI, JavaScript, PHP, APIs, Architecture

Web Producer

2007 - 2010
The Council on Foreign Relations
  • Handled Cfr.org and Foreignaffairs.com as well as associated production tasks and projects.
Technologies: WordPress, PHP, JavaScript, CSS

Analyst

2007 - 2007
AT&T
  • Contributed to a rotational in-house consulting and analyst program.
  • Worked primarily on web design, Java development, and test support for UAT/JST environments on a central database project.
Technologies: MySQL, Java

Experience

Prolofinder

http://prolofinder.com
Prolofinder.com, developed on AngularJS and a Laravel RESTful API back-end with OAuth2.0 as a standalone SaaS.

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Worked with the Crackle.com team to build Jerry Seinfeld's personal web series website.

Jerry Seinfeld

http://jerryseinfeld.com/
Jerry Seinfeld's personal website.

Bcorporation.net

https://bcorporation.net/
One of my clients at Ammirati

Car & Driver

My team and I developed a Zend-based C&D site and hosted it in the cloud using Amazon’s EC2 service with autoscaling and load balancing. The project utilized Zend, WordPress, MySQL, various APIs, jQuery, Solr, Memcached, APC, Akamai, CruiseControl, and SVN/Git. We more than tripled the site speed for ~80% of visits and increased the Google PageSpeed by ~20 points.

Elle Magazine

https://www.elle.com
Another example of one of the Hearst products I've worked on.

Cosmopolitan UK

http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/
Example of one of the Hearst products I've worked on.

Thrillist

https://www.thrillist.com/
Led the development and architecture of a front-end layer for Thrillist.com. The project involved a migration from Drupal to CakePHP, with an API on Solr. Through the change in architecture, we made the site scaleable, decreased the site load time by orders of magnitude, redesigned and updated the UI/UX, established better separation of concerns, and modularized the site for faster development. I also worked on the sister site Jackthreads.com in a similar capacity.

New Worlder

A food blog and website built on Angular

Bitcoin Run Super Bowl Pool

https://medium.com/@danielnakhla/https-2018squares-com-one-bitcoin-pool-75ed82a7fb13
Created an online "superbowl boxes" game that used bitcoin for payment and was built on Vue.js.

GrowTogether.app

I build a community events PWA using Gatsby/React and Firebase for a co-living brand based out of France.

Education

2003 - 2007

Bachelor's of Science Degree in Computer Science

Siena College - New York

Skills

Libraries/APIs

Amazon EC2 API, Node.js, jQuery, ImageMagick, React, jQuery UI, Underscore.js, REST APIs, Vue, React Redux, Socket.IO

Tools

Git, AWS SDK, Solr, Grunt, Vim Text Editor, GitHub, Jira, Trello, Slack, Webpack 2, NPM, Atom, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Apache Solr, Sublime Text

Languages

JavaScript, PHP, Java, Sass, HTML5, CSS, Python 3

Frameworks

Express.js, CodeIgniter, Laravel, CakePHP, Next.js, PEAR, Zend Framework, AngularJS, Hapi.js, Svelte, React Native, Redux, Foundation CSS

Platforms

AWS Lambda, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon EC2, LAMP, WordPress, MacOS, Messenger Bots, Linux, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

Storage

Amazon S3 (AWS S3), JSON, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, Memcached

Paradigms

Agile Software Development, RESTful Development, MEAN Stack, Kanban, Scrum, Serverless Architecture

Other

Architecture, Technical Leadership, Application State Management, Data Structures, APIs, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Ajax, Akamai, APC, CruiseControl, eZ Publish, GitFlow, Slackbot, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Large Language Models (LLMs), CI/CD Pipelines

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