Daniel Vagg
Verified Expert in Engineering
DevOps Consultant and Developer
Eindhoven, Netherlands
Toptal member since November 1, 2021
Daniel is a creative problem solver and critical thinker with an academic background in physics and over five years of industry experience in computing and solutions—from autonomous stratospheric gliders to data analysis platforms for satellites. Daniel enjoys working with problems from a conceptual stage up to completion and will often iterate over several prototypes in the process.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Ubuntu, Django, REST APIs, Docker, Docker Swarm, Python 3
The most amazing...
...thing I've built was a satellite data analysis platform for ESA: the Gaia Added Value Interface Platform (GAVIP).
Work Experience
Lead DevOps Consultant
Mastercard
- Helped design and implement many critical procedures within the enterprise, including the 1st implementation of a complete Ci/CD pipeline for critical infrastructure.
- Overhauled (eventually entirely replacing) a legacy testing system with a complete unit and performance testing framework using Selenium and Locust. Tests could also be invoked using Jenkins pipelines, which produce complete reports with screenshots.
- Designed and built an extendible Python platform called Onyx to better support ancillary tasks (such as reports). A complete CI/CD pipeline was used to be rapidly tested and deployed. It's designed to replace tens of custom scripts.
Head of AI
Alludium
- Pioneered innovative applications of LLM-based solutions for both the enterprise and individuals.
- Engaged in frequent discussions on architectural and philosophical challenges related to implementing LLMs with structured and unstructured data.
- Maintained a constructive communication style with the founder based on mutual trust, which is crucial for navigating evolving LLM technology.
Senior Full-stack Engineer | CTO
Spectrabotics
- Designed and executed a SaaS platform for ML-driven image analytics for Drone and Satellite data.
- Led two projects exploring innovative hyperspectral sensor technology from a federal contract, involving coordination of R&D activities and fostering communication between multiple teams.
- Acted as CTO, collaborating with the founder on various projects, including SaaS, Windows executables, and cutting-edge hyperspectral analysis algorithms exceeding machine learning (ML) standards.
Lead Architect | Full-stack Developer
Parameter Space
- Designed a complete distributed and scalable platform to support various requirements.
- Liaised with multiple teams across Europe, including gathering their technical requirements and providing documentation and workshops.
- Presented at several conferences, including SPIE, and hosted several in-person workshops and technical sessions.
- Ensured complete end-to-end traceability from various requirements to source code and unit tests. Traceability was described and provided in generated LaTeX documentation.
Experience
Portunus
I took the platform from early sketches of workflows, through three iterations of architectural changes and optimizations, to a public tech demo hosted on AWS. The project encompasses technical documentation, front-end development, continuous integration, containerization, scaling, database query optimizations, and tech stack (Redis/PostgreSQL/Celery/Django) and capabilities optimization of available libraries in tandem.
GAVIP
https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.09287I operated as the solution architect and lead developer (as well as wearing many other hats). I took GAVIP from early sketches on post-it notes to a complete platform deployed in the ESA data center in Madrid and delivered ahead of time ( around 15%).
The platform was required to support processing over 1PB of data and allow custom code to be contributed and shared among scientists with minimal manual intervention. I worked with multiple teams distributed across Europe to handle many different use-cases, from machine learning to interactive visualization of our galaxy.
Reporting platform
So I designed, built, deployed, and got sign-off on a platform that allowed operators to add custom reports with credentials securely managed in Vault.
It helped save a lot of human hours each week and reduce the exposure to human error in critical reports.
Education
Master's Degree in Physics (Specialization in Space Science and Technology)
University College Dublin - Dublin, Ireland
Bachelor's Degree in Physics
Waterford Institute of Technology - Waterford, Ireland
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, SciPy, Jenkins Pipeline, Keras, NumPy, Vue
Tools
Docker Swarm, Chef, Pytest, Git, Celery, Jenkins, LaTeX, Docker Compose, Vault, GIS, Jupyter, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
Languages
Python 3, Python, Bash, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Embedded C, C
Frameworks
Django, Selenium, Sphinx Documentation Generator, OAuth 2, Gaia
Paradigms
DevOps, REST, Automation, Web Architecture, Management, Serverless Architecture
Platforms
Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ubuntu, Linux, NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin, AWS Lambda, Azure
Storage
Redis, Databases, PostgreSQL, SQLite
Other
APIs, Software Development, Web Servers, Full-stack, Machine Learning, HTTP, Distributed Systems, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Fintech, ChatGPT API, OpenAI GPT-4 API, Prompt Engineering, Gunicorn, Security, Thermodynamics, Photonics, Mechanics, Programming, Physics, Applied Physics, Front-end, Back-end, Scaling, Documentation, Redis Sentinel, WebSockets, Embedded Systems, CI/CD Pipelines, Python Performance, Software Design, Software QA, Deep Learning, QGIS, Large Language Models (LLMs), Multistage LLM Chains, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Knowledge Graphs, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Identity & Access Management (IAM), Secure Coding, NVIDIA Jetson Nano, Edge AI, Architecture, Serverless
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