Edwin Chan
Verified Expert in Engineering
React Developer
Calgary, AB, Canada
Toptal member since January 14, 2022
Edwin is a front-end developer working primarily with React, React Native, and TypeScript. He is proficient in REST APIs, GraphQL, and UI/UX tools such as Figma, Marvel, and Miro. At Shopify, he helped build the Sign in with Shop authentication experience and contributed to the Shop eCommerce app. Past projects include React apps, mobile apps, and AR/VR experiences using the HoloLens.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
React, React Native, TypeScript, GraphQL, REST, Material UI, Firebase, Expo, Next.js, Netlify, Front-end, Jest
The most amazing...
...project I've contributed to is an eCommerce app called Shop owned by Shopify, with millions of users globally.
Work Experience
Full-stack Developer
Self-employed
- Developed an Android app for home automation, allowing owners to control the temperature, lighting, doors, blinds, and even irrigation.
- Created a PWA dashboard for top real-estate photography in the city to manage appointments, invoices, expenses, and staff payouts. The appointments were pulled from Acuity through a webhook, and invoices were exported via a FreshBooks integration.
- Developed a React Native mobile app to manage real estate properties, allowing users to upload their warranty documents, set up recommended reminders for home maintenance, and search for local contractors.
- Used React web to develop a check-in system for a local sports facility, saving them over $4,000 per year in subscription fees.
- Developed a React Native social media app for Tekarra Projects Ltd. The back end relied on the Firebase ecosystem (Auth, Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage), while Blackhawk Network and Elavon integrations provided in-app gift card purchases.
Lead Developer
Tekarra Project Services
- Architected a custom solution for a new social media app while educating and assuring stakeholders new to the software space.
- Managed timeline and expectations following the resources available. Advised PM on the necessary team members and explained the pros and cons of different tech stacks. Ran weekly standups with Jira.
- Onboarded multiple team members, ranging from new graduates to senior developers. Our team operated in the local office and remotely with developers in Canada and overseas.
Senior Front-end Developer
Shopify
- Championed parts of the Sign in with Shop authentication experience at Shopify. Since contributing to the project in its early stages, Sign In with Shop has grown to be used in hundreds of thousands of stores, with millions of global users.
- Championed and integrated novel features around push notifications, such as iOS time-sensitive notifications, to improve UX while ensuring users received timely and relevant notifications.
- Improved event reporting in web and mobile apps, facilitated earlier bug detection and enabled detailed results validation with our data scientists.
Front-end Developer
Seequent
- Contributed significantly to a web port of the company's main desktop product for interacting with 3D models across multiple industries. Examples included geological models for mining and exploration, watershed models, and city transportation models.
- Helped architect and implement the front-end model parser, emphasizing performance. Overcame many challenges such as loading data on-demand, reducing memory use, and optimizing UI render to support models up to 1GB in size.
- Implemented automated end-to-end (E2E) tests in our Azure pipelines using BrowserStack and Nightwatch.js.
Full-stack Developer
VizworX
- Designed custom solutions for clients from multiple industries, including oil and gas, education, emergency response, and health services. Deliverables included React/Ruby PWA, Android and iOS native apps, and the TensorFlow machine learning model.
- Developed a 3D model review app for the HoloLens AR headset used by Cenovus for life-size model reviews and walkthroughs. We were one of the earliest adopters of the HoloLens in Canada.
- Implemented a remote collaboration feature on the HoloLens, allowing multiple reviewers to see others as live virtual avatars while reviewing the same model. It was before Microsoft released their Microsoft Mesh app for shared experiences.
- Integrated Stripe API into a React/Ruby progressive web app (PWA) to purchase digital services.
- Developed native Android and iOS survey apps for the First Nations Technical Services Advisory Group to survey living conditions. Built a custom parser for ODK forms using a subset of the W3C XForms specification.
Researcher | MSc Candidate
University of Calgary
- Published nine publications, including an award-winning paper at CHI, the top conference in human-computer interactions (HCI), regarding the design of hand gestures for user interaction: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2858036.2858589.
- Received the Teaching Excellence Award in recognition of the top TA with the highest student review score in the department—over 98.5%.
- Got PhD offers from professors at Dartmouth College (Ivy League), the University of Michigan, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Calgary.
Research Assistant
University of Calgary
- Developed a spatial-awareness toolkit for stationary and mobile devices to enable natural interactions, such as "pouring" data from an iPad to a tabletop display and wrote the publication: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2817721.2817750.
- Prototyped software for research under my mentor Teddy Seyed, currently a senior researcher at Microsoft Research.
- Developed a Ruby on Rails website for SurfNet, a Canadian research alliance of academic researchers, industry partners, and government collaborators.
Experience
Shopify Shop App
As a front-end developer, I worked with a large team of other skilled developers and UX designers and focused on account management, account verification, and push notifications.
Education
Master's Degree in Computer Science
University of Calgary - Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
University of Calgary - Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React.js, REST APIs, Node.js, RxJS, Plivo
Tools
Figma, Expo, Unity SDK, VMware, Firebase Authentication, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Sentry
Frameworks
Jest, Material UI, React Native, Vanilla JS, Next.js, Unity3D, Flutter
Languages
JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML5, CSS3, CSS, HTML, TypeScript 3, GraphQL, Objective-C, C#, Ruby, Python
Paradigms
REST, Agile Software Development, Unit Testing, Human-computer Interaction (HCI), Agile Project Management
Platforms
Firebase, Android, Universal Windows Platform (UWP), Azure, iOS, Docker, Mailgun, Netlify, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
Storage
Cloud Firestore, Datadog, Google Cloud Storage
Other
Front-end, Google Cloud Functions, Research, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Microsoft HoloLens, UX Research, Presentations, Conference Speaking, Mixed Reality (MR), Tech Conferences, University Teaching, CI/CD Pipelines, Segment, Consulting, Custom Solutions, App Store
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