Frank Joppe
Verified Expert in Engineering
DevOps and Back-end Developer
Natal - State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Toptal member since November 16, 2022
Frank is a seasoned software engineer with 25+ years of experience. He started programming at nine and never stopped. Since then, he has worked with a wide variety of technologies, with specializations in C#/F# .NET and migrations to AWS. With excellent English communication skills, he is a valuable asset to his team, contributing in a constructive way. A former client described Frank: "Not an average developer."
Portfolio
Experience
- Software Engineering - 20 years
- Visual Studio .NET - 20 years
- C# - 20 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 8 years
- Git - 8 years
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC) - 6 years
- Technical Leadership - 4 years
- AWS Certified Developer - 3 years
Preferred Environment
Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Git, Amazon Web Services (AWS), C#.NET, TypeScript, Kiro
The most amazing...
...project I've worked on involved improving an algorithm's performance from eight hours to five minutes with great end-user satisfaction and recognition.
Work Experience
AWS Full-stack Developer
Toptal Client
- Set up a proof of concept (PoC) to interact with the Amazon Bedrock Registry via a UI.
- Integrated authentication and authorization using Cognito.
- Implemented the full governance workflow supported by the current Bedrock Registry version.
AWS Full-stack Developer
Toptal
- Created a chat application to simulate a conversation with an AI sales representative, using WebSockets to access the back end.
- Integrated AWS Bedrock Agentcore with the Websocket, to stream prompts and responses from/to the chat application.
- Implemented Cognito authentication and secured WebSocket with JWT authorization.
- Set up all infrastructure from scratch, following the least-privilege principle and using the CDK as an IaC tool.
AWS Engineer
Deckers - Deckers US
- Re-architected legacy middleware to process orders from Salesforge to Oracle, to prepare for Christmas peak sales.
- Engaged in technical discussions with the client in refinement sessions to either clarify the scope and work estimations. Shared findings and interesting technical information during Developer Guild meetings.
- Led a team of developers to sustain focus on priorities, adhere to the clients' rigid coding standards, and act as a single point of contact to unburden the clients' busy schedule.
- Integrated automated test suites (unit, integration, and smoke tests) into the autonomous CI/CD pipeline as mandatory quality gates before production.
Back-end Engineer
Stubhub - Engineering
- Set up automated marketing campaigns for targeted audiences. Built campaigns for MLB, MLS, Formula 1, and music artists. Selected target audiences from the user table, set up send schedules, and tested multilingual content templates for email/push.
- Integrated version 2 of the custom experiment platform into the custom messaging software for better signal and analysis features, which are more suitable for an asynchronous environment like messaging.
- Helped increase user retention goals by being involved in various nudging campaigns, including the MLB sell campaign, where private ticket-sellers are advised to change their prices, based on recommendations.
Lead AWS Developer
Infinity Labs BV
- Migrated a Google Cloud back end to AWS China. Researched technologies and checked for technology support in the Chinese region. Designed the back end for seamless integration with a given VR game client.
- Developed custom authentication components for an API key and JSON Web Tokens (JWT) authentication for seamless integration with the VR game client, formerly connected to the Firebase Realtime Database.
- Created a server-sent events (SSE) service in AWS Fargate for server-to-client communication, emulating the Firebase Realtime Database connection with the VR game client.
- Set up a DevOps environment using the AWS CodePipeline suite and the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) with TypeScript as infrastructure as code. Used Cloud9 as a development environment.
- Created a continuous data migration process for frequent incremental data migration from Firebase to DynamoDB.
- Designed and implemented fully automated, autonomous CI/CD pipelines with AWS CodePipeline and CDK (infrastructure and application), including environment provisioning, automated tests, and zero-downtime deployments.
Senior Software Engineer
Brunel
- Worked on a proof of concept for a 3rd-party client to upgrade from .NET 4.7.2 to .NET 6.0, gradually, using multiple target frameworks. Using this strategy, the client could minimize code rot risk with minimal disruption to the development process.
- Built Azure Pipelines for a 3rd-party client to build, test, and package the proof of concept for multiple target framework repositories. The unit tests targeted .NET 4.7/2 and .NET 6.0, with different configurations for x86 and x64 platforms.
- Converted many Visual Basic .NET source codes to C# for a 3rd-party client. The conversion was required to improve the development team's recruitability. This conversion was done with tooling and manual post-processing.
Senior .NET Software Engineer
Brunel
- Reviewed F# code for a 3rd-party client. F# is a rare technology. The client requested a review of code quality and an analysis of the current state and 3rd-party tools and libraries. Formulated advice for future treatment, pitfalls, and risks.
- Gave an F# workshop to developers who learned this programming language within two days.
- Set up a development environment with the new F# team, which will be used to maintain the F# source code and bring the software product to a more advanced environment.
Senior C# .NET Developer
Stratex
- Created the live schedule update functionality by building the foundations for a shared session that regulates concurrency and distributes live updates when multiple users edit the same schedule.
- Built two import and synchronization processes to integrate the client and Stratex systems.
- Fixed hard-to-find bugs in the monitoring and reporting module.
Senior C# .NET Developer
FloraHolland
- Handled the maintenance of all SQL and Sybase databases for the flower auction and mediated a dispute to progress toward Amazon Aurora Serverless with PostgreSQL.
- Acted as the DBA team lead and technical product owner, introducing procedures and reports. Created a code analyzer to extract locations in the C# source code using F# with Roslyn.
- Worked in the auction team, which maintains applications for supply management, including the Auction Clock and Auction Buy.
- Contributed to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL adoption and acceptance in a world without DBAs.
- Set up automated code review checks with SonarCloud (static analysis, style, security scanning) in autonomous CI/CD pipelines as part of pull request validation, blocking merges on failing quality gates.
Senior C# .NET Developer
Medux
- Improved the performance of an algorithm from over eight hours to five minutes.
- Contributed to the zero-touch electronic ordering process used by municipalities.
- Trained the team in Scrum rituals, introduced informal team leadership and a new way of working, and made people enthusiastic about an improvement-focused mindset.
- Changed the VAT low rate in the order and invoicing modules.
Senior C# .NET Developer
FloraHolland
- Contributed to the auction team on the major platform transition from on-premise to AWS cloud, migrating 100+ applications in nine months.
- Secured auction-process messages against tampering and proved the functionality with property-based testing.
- Helped the auction team with the general maintenance of their applications.
Senior Software Developer (C#/Java)
Royal KPN
- Contributed to the MADE project in the television department, orchestrating middleware to receive, administer, and publish movies and EPG content to the digital TV platform.
- Led the DNA team as a functional designer. DNA supports the helpdesk activity, running an automatic analysis through KPN's network equipment and returning advice to the helpdesk agent. It lowered the learning curve when onboarding new agents.
- Contributed to the IDO greenfield project. It is a generic component in the zero-touch ordering street in KPN that couples commercial parties to technical services and plays a role in activation and fulfillment.
Experience
Legivel
https://github.com/fjoppe/LegivelReggerIt
Development Container Workshop
https://github.com/AMIS-Services/code-cafe-20200608At the time, this technique was still quite novel, while nowadays, it is being adopted at a larger scale throughout the industry.
Microsoft is actively investing, and setting up a new development container is much easier. Though a bit outdated, the workshop still provides in-depth knowledge of this technique, which remains useful today.
Deploying EKS Kubernetes with Terraform
https://github.com/fjoppe/k8ssunnydaySecuring a WebSocket with a Lambda Authorizer
This article refers to a git repository with a full-stack implementation. It consists of a back end using Lambdas, infrastructure provisioning with Terraform, and running a web application written in TypeScript and Next.js.
The Amazing Kiro
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology
Hogeschool West-Brabant - Breda, The Netherlands
Certifications
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
AWS
Rocking Kubernetes with Amazon EKS, Fargate, And DevOps
Udemy
AWS Certified Developer – Associate
Amazon Web Services Training and Certification
React Tutorial
React Tutorial
English Speaking – 9.0 TrueNorth, C1-C2 Levels CEFR
Emmersion
JavaScript Development Certificate of Completion
Learn JavaScript
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, API Development, React, Node.js, SignalR, Windows Forms (WinForms), React Redux, React Router, OpenAPI
Tools
Visual Studio .NET, Visual Studio, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Docker Compose, AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK), AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), AWS CloudFormation, AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Git, Postman, Jira, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Roslyn, Travis CI, Subversion (SVN), SoapUI, Apache Maven, Azure App Service, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS IAM, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), AWS Fargate, AWS SDK, Terraform, Kiro, GitLab CI/CD, Azure Application Insights, GitHub, SonarCloud, Paket, Visual Studio Online (VSO), Confluence, Google Workspace, ActiveMQ, IntelliJ IDEA, Amazon Cognito, AWS Key Management Service (KMS), Amazon EKS, Fluent Bit, Helm, GitLab, Bitbucket, Lucidchart, AWS Deployment, AWS Step Functions
Languages
C#.NET, F#, C#, JavaScript, Regex, YAML, SQL, HTML, Bash Script, Bash, TypeScript 5, CSS, TypeScript, Snowflake, Python, Java, VB.NET, Java 8, Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), Kusto Query Language (KQL)
Frameworks
.NET 4, .NET 6, ASP.NET Core, .NET Core, Windows Workflow Foundation, .NET, .NET 8, .NET 7, ASP.NET Core MVC, Windows PowerShell, Apache Camel, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC 4, Tailwind CSS, Next.js, Blazor, Kendo UI, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), JSON Web Tokens (JWT), ASP.NET MVC 2, Swagger
Paradigms
Unit Testing, Functional Programming, Continuous Delivery (CD), Azure DevOps, DevOps, Testing, Event-driven Architecture, Microservices, Continuous Integration (CI), Scrum, Automation
Platforms
AWS Lambda, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Visual Studio 2022, Azure, Amazon EC2, AWS ALB, Microsoft, Windows, Azure Functions, Firebase, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Kubernetes
Storage
Amazon Aurora, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), NoSQL, Databases, SQL Server 2016, Amazon DynamoDB, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Azure SQL, Azure SQL Databases, Azure Cloud Services, MySQL, SQL Server 2008, Firebase Realtime Database, Google Cloud, Datadog, MongoDB
Other
Programming, Functional Design, Software Engineering, Technical Design, Presentations, Akka.NET, Amazon API Gateway, Code Review, Shell Scripting, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), SOAP, English, Cloud, AWS CodePipeline, AWS Certified Developer, Code Deployment, AWS DevOps, Cloud Migration, Back-end, Integration, Email, Amazon EventBridge, Software Architecture, APIs, RESTFul APIs, AWS ECS Fargate, Event-driven Systems, Architecture, Containers, .NET Framework, Microsoft Azure, Random Testing, Property-based Testing, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Team Leadership, CI/CD Pipelines, AWS Cloud Architecture, API Gateways, Cloud9, ECS, IIS, Push Notifications, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), AWS CodeArtifact, Cloud Architecture, Technical Leadership, Microsoft Copilot Pro, Distributed Architecture, Generative Coding, Full-stack, AI-assisted Development, AI Integration, AI Tools, Mathematics, Networking, Azure Service Bus, Azure Bicep, Amazon RDS, Apache ServiceMix, Reporting, Server Sent Events (SSE), Cost Estimation, Migration, IIS 8, Infrastructure, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, WebSockets
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