George is available for hire
Hire GeorgeGeorge Nicola
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Bucharest, Romania
Toptal member since June 29, 2020
Bio
George is a full-stack web developer with a strong focus on quality and performance. He has created reliable systems that work in real-time and employed stringent security tools. His expertise includes back-end services and scaling high-traffic apps on-premise or in the cloud. He has assisted startups and large corporations and is right at home in agile environments. George is a hobbyist game developer, passionate about everything technology-related.
Portfolio
Freelance
Python, Amazon Web Services (AWS), APIs, Django, Docker, Celery, Datadog...
Keysight Technologies
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Networking, Database Modeling, Linux, Docker, Bash...
1&1 Ionos
Database Modeling, Linux, Docker, Bash, WordPress, REST APIs, Web Development...
Experience
- SQL - 12 years
- JavaScript - 10 years
- Python - 8 years
- Docker - 6 years
- NoSQL - 6 years
- FastAPI - 4 years
- Django - 4 years
- Node.js - 2 years
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Linux, Docker, Python, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
The most amazing...
...application I've developed is a security assessment tool that scans servers and applications for vulnerabilities.
Work Experience
Lead Back-end Engineer
2022 - 2023
Freelance
- Developed the back end for an internal CRM, which allowed employees to collaborate to generate an offer to clients and pass through all the verification stages.
- Built a customer portal back end, which allowed tenants to pay rent, communicate with owners, and open service requests and issues with the rented place.
- Managed the back end, from deployments, optimizations, feature development, and bug fixes.
Technologies: Python, Amazon Web Services (AWS), APIs, Django, Docker, Celery, Datadog, Sentry, Back-end, FastAPI, Kubernetes
Principal Software Engineer
2017 - 2021
Keysight Technologies
- Built a security assessment tool that scans servers and applications for vulnerabilities. Took the project from the idea phase to its first clients and created the CI/CD pipeline and the automated test framework.
- Led a team of five software engineers and QAs, which included providing architectural guidance, code reviews, and onboarding new colleagues.
- Developed an application that assesses the data center's health by performing regular service and connectivity checks. The back end was done in the AWS cloud, using sensors deployed in the data center.
- Held technical interviews for hiring other software engineers.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Networking, Database Modeling, Linux, Docker, Bash, Flask, NoSQL, REST APIs, Web Development, Python, JavaScript, PostgreSQL, Bootstrap, SQL, Pytest, Angular, HTML, React, Back-end, FastAPI
Full-stack Developer
2015 - 2017
1&1 Ionos
- Transformed a monolithic application so it can be deployed on a multi-server scalable back end. Deployments had no downtime and more servers could be added easily.
- Created a monitoring solution that kept track of server load and ensured that all back-end services were running seamlessly.
- Contributed to the development of an OpenStack private cloud to provision virtual machines to internal teams. It was also integrated with the internal web domains service.
Technologies: Database Modeling, Linux, Docker, Bash, WordPress, REST APIs, Web Development, Python, PHP, JavaScript, PostgreSQL, jQuery, Django ORM, Django REST Framework, Django, Bootstrap, OpenStack, MySQL, HTML, CSS, React, Full-stack, HTML Templates, Back-end
Full-stack Developer
2012 - 2015
Beler Soft
- Developed a web application that generated custom native iOS and Android apps. Clients could configure the content of their apps and everything was updated dynamically.
- Created an internal push notification solution capable of sending thousands of notifications on iOS and Android.
- Maintained direct contact with all clients in French.
Technologies: Database Modeling, Data Manipulation, REST APIs, Web Development, JavaScript, jQuery, HTML, CSS, Full-stack, HTML Templates, Back-end
Full-stack Developer
2009 - 2012
Web Media Consult
- Transformed Photoshop PSD files into fully functioning websites using a custom admin framework written in PHP and adapted it for each client's requirements.
- Fixed frequently websites broken by platform updates and developed automated database import scripts for large amounts of data (at that time).
- Created designs for flyers, catalogs, and packaging for a toy shop.
Technologies: Database Modeling, WordPress, REST APIs, Web Development, PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, jQuery, Linux, HTML, CSS, Full-stack, HTML Templates, Back-end
Experience
Security Assessment Tool for Servers and IoT Devices
As a principal software engineer, I led a team of senior developers, security researchers, and QA engineers to design and develop an application that scans for known vulnerabilities and performs security assessment reports. The solution was scalable, could perform multiple scans simultaneously, and was platform-agnostic thanks to Docker.
Mobile Application Generator
This app generated native iOS and Android applications and acted as a back end for services and configurations. The client could choose which modules were to be available and upload content directly to the website that would be present in their mobile application—written in C# with ASP.NET 4.0 and a SQL Server 2008 database as the back end and jQuery mobile as for the front end.
Network Monitoring Tool
Led a team to develop a monitoring tool that performs real-time tests and gathers statistics from the client network and generated alerts when problems occurred—also integrated physical hardware with the REST API. It had many components written in Python, C, Bash, and PHP.
IONOS Blogs, Forum, Help Center, Careers
I maintained a large number of high-traffic websites for Ionos. This work included implementing new features, fixing bugs, migrating infrastructures, handling live deployments with no downtime, and integrating these with other back-end services. I also developed a server monitoring tool that periodically logs the status of external services, server node load, disk space, and other metrics.
Cloud Traffic Monitoring Application
I worked as a full-stack developer of a cloud traffic monitoring application. It deployed sensors on cloud instances and could gather traffic on a single instance. The back end was Serverless on AWS. The main services were Lambda, DynamoDB, SNS, RDS, S3, API Gateway, and Route 53; the front end was developed using Angular.
Popular Mobile Game Back End
I worked on the back end of a popular mobile game with millions of users. This included implementing tournaments, polls, leaderboards, among others. The back end was scalable on AWS with multiple servers behind a load balancer; it also uses Redis for caching and the database had multiple instances with read replicas.
Education
2007 - 2011
Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science
Politehnica University - Bucharest, Romania
Certifications
JUNE 2012 - PRESENT
TS: Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Microsoft
APRIL 2012 - PRESENT
TS: Web Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Microsoft
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, jQuery, React, Django ORM, Node.js, Fabric
Tools
GitHub, Celery, Pytest, Sentry
Languages
Python, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, Bash, TypeScript, HTML, CSS
Frameworks
Django, Flask, Jinja, Bootstrap, Django REST Framework, NestJS, Angular
Paradigms
Continuous Integration (CI), Microservices Architecture, Serverless Architecture, Test-driven Development (TDD)
Storage
Database Modeling, Databases, NoSQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Datadog
Platforms
Docker, WordPress, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenStack, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Kubernetes
Other
Data Manipulation, Web Development, APIs, API Integration, Containerization, FastAPI, Architecture, Full-stack, Back-end, Scripting Languages, TypeORM, HTML Templates, Networking, Computer Science, Message Queues
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