Frank Ji, Developer in Toronto, ON, Canada
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Frank Ji

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Back-end Developer

Location
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal Member Since
October 26, 2022

Frank is a seasoned professional currently working as a software engineer at Amazon. He previously served as the VP of engineering at Penfield.AI, a Toronto AI startup pioneering in empowering human-machine intelligence in the cybersecurity space. Frank also worked as a senior engineer at Meta's enterprise trust organization, helping to build Facebook's privacy and compliance software infrastructures. He also worked on IBM WebSphere Java Runtime, which powered many Fortune 500 Java applications.

Portfolio

Amazon
Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Lambda, DYNAMO, Amazon Athena...
Penfield.AI
Node.js, Python, React, Azure, Kubernetes, Microsoft Teams, Architecture...
Meta
Back-end, GraphQL, MySQL, Presto, Hack Language, PHP, React, Data Pipelines...

Experience

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

MacOS, Slack, Distributed Systems, Back-end, Full-stack Development

The most amazing...

...project I've developed is the data classification pipeline at Facebook.

Work Experience

Software Development Engineer

2022 - PRESENT
Amazon
  • Redesigned the Amazon Author API back end using AWS stacks. The newly improved service can send internal communication to millions of Amazon employees and alumni with a much improved peak TPS of 50,000 from the previous 2,000 TPS.
  • Designed and developed the Amazon internal CMS tool in React and Next.js that is used to author internal communications.
  • Streamlined deployment to AWS using AWS CDK scripts.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Lambda, DYNAMO, Amazon Athena, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Java, TypeScript, React, AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK), Next.js, AWS Cloud Architecture, Software Architecture, Project Management, Software Development, SaaS

Vice President of Engineering

2022 - PRESENT
Penfield.AI
  • Launched a fully featured Penfield.AI security solution in five months from a demo project.
  • Demonstrated product repeatability with multiple customer deployments of different integrations and cloud environments.
  • Led the team to create the monitoring and on-call strategy for the product.
  • Worked with the sales team to create the product roadmap to support the sales goal and long-term product vision.
Technologies: Node.js, Python, React, Azure, Kubernetes, Microsoft Teams, Architecture, Software Design, System Architecture Design, Web Development, Project Planning, CTO, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, APIs, TypeScript, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS DevOps, DevOps, Amazon EC2, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, SQL, Angular, HTML5, AWS Cloud Architecture, Software Architecture, Startups, Early-stage Startups, Project Management, Venture Capital, Software Development, SaaS

Senior Enterprise Software Engineer

2021 - 2022
Meta
  • Scaled the Facebook risk management application from one internal customer to seven customers.
  • Extended the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) compliance controls to internal teams.
  • Built the data classification feature that scans and reports the presence of personal identifying information (PII) data in the Facebook internal databases.
Technologies: Back-end, GraphQL, MySQL, Presto, Hack Language, PHP, React, Data Pipelines, Risk Assessment, Architecture, Software Design, System Architecture Design, Web Development, Project Planning, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Graph Databases, APIs, TypeScript, DevOps, PostgreSQL, SQL, HTML5, Laravel, Software Architecture, Project Management, Software Development, SaaS

Staff Software Engineer

2013 - 2021
IBM
  • Migrated IBM WebSphere observability features to the Red Hat OpenShift platform.
  • Created and delivered new features for open-source Java Runtime Environment technologies.
  • Designed and developed the diagnostic plans feature to assist developers in resolving intermittent runtime problems in web containers.
Technologies: Java, Java EE 8, Microservices, Logging, Monitoring, Metrics, Dynatrace, C#, Software Design, System Architecture Design, Web Development, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, APIs, Firebase, Ansible, DevOps, PostgreSQL, SQL, HTML5, Software Architecture, Project Management, Software Development

Software Engineer

2012 - 2012
International Financial Data Services
  • Developed multiple iOS MVP apps that helped the team win new contracts.
  • Prototyped a banking MVP app that utilizes speech recognition to perform daily banking activities.
  • Prototyped a WPF application to demonstrate client activities across the globe using Bing Map API.
  • Designed and developed an MVP receipt scanning iOS application using OpenCV.
Technologies: C#, iOS, Objective-C, JavaScript, Software Consulting, Software Development

Open Liberty Space Sentry

https://github.com/fwji/liberty-sentry-challenge
Open Liberty Space Sentry Challenge is an interactive Internet of things (IoT) game designed to showcase microservices with modern Java technologies in a fun way. The player can take control of a spaceship made of Lego and 3D printed model using a PlayStation 4 controller and shoot lasers. The goal is to shoot down as many random popup targets as possible within a minute. Since the game's debut, it has become an instant attraction at various developer conferences and local developer meetups. People loved the game's mechanics as it's easy to pick up but also challenging to master.

Moreover, the idea behind the game is to have different technologies working together with the addition of Legos that helped to reach out to audiences and developers of diverse technical backgrounds. We decided to open-source the entire project starting this year, so it can reach out to more people who want to learn Java and microservices using a different approach. We'll document every bit required to run the project, including Lego assembly instructions, Arduino codes, and, most importantly, Java microservices code.

Additional information can be found in a more recent blog post: https://openliberty.io/blog/2022/02/16/space-sentry-challenge.html

Facebook Risk Assessment Tool

The internal risk assessment portal used by Facebook's Privacy, HR, Global Security, and a dozen other internal teams to manage controls and risks using supported frameworks like NIST, GDPR, ISO 27001, etc. The tool is developed using the same tech stack as the Facebook website and is part of the Facebook Enterprise suite.

IBM WebSphere Prometheus Support

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/was/9.0.5?topic=mosh-displaying-pmi-metrics-in-prometheus-format-metrics-app
I designed and developed the Prometheus endpoint for WebSphere® Application Server runtimes to display PMI metrics in Prometheus format.

The feature performs two operations:
Retrieves the WebSphere PMI data objects by using the JMX Perf MBean.
Renders the data from the PMI data objects into Prometheus format output.

Amazon A to Z

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/amazon-a-to-z/id1413909063
A React Native-based application powered by an AWS back end. Millions of Amazon employees love Amazon A to Z to stay connected over the internet. As one of the lead developers, I focused on content creation and content delivery features.

Languages

Python, GraphQL, Java, Java EE 8, JavaScript, SQL, DYNAMO, Hack Language, PHP, C#, HTML, CSS, TypeScript, HTML5, Objective-C, Java 11

Libraries/APIs

Node.js, React, SQLAlchemy

Tools

Logging, Slack, Dynatrace, NGINX, Microsoft Teams, Ansible, Servlet, Amazon Athena, AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK), IBM Watson, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)

Paradigms

Microservices, REST, DevOps

Platforms

MacOS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Lambda, Azure, Kubernetes, Arduino, Firebase, Amazon EC2, iOS

Industry Expertise

Project Management

Other

Data Structures, Distributed Systems, Algorithms, Back-end, Full-stack Development, Monitoring, Metrics, Architecture, Software Design, System Architecture Design, Web Development, Project Planning, APIs, Cloud, AWS Cloud Architecture, Software Architecture, Software Development, SaaS, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Neural Networks, Design, WebSockets, Deep Learning, CTO, Prometheus, Software Consulting, AWS DevOps, Startups, Early-stage Startups, Venture Capital, Risk Assessment, 3D Print Design, Visualization, VoIP

Frameworks

Presto, Angular, Next.js, Laravel, React Native

Storage

Databases, MySQL, MongoDB, Graph Databases, PostgreSQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Data Pipelines

2007 - 2013

Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering

University of Waterloo - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

APRIL 2020 - PRESENT

IBM AI Skills Academy Technical Role Practitioner

IBM

AUGUST 2018 - PRESENT

IBM AI Skills Academy Deep Learning Explorer

IBM

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