Ittar Waqas, Developer in London, United Kingdom
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Ittar Waqas

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Software Developer

London, United Kingdom

Toptal member since September 8, 2022

Expertise
C#SQLAgile DevelopmentNoSQLAzureOracle DevelopmentMongoDBKubernetesDockerPythonReact.jsAngularWindows Development
Bio

Ittar has 15+ years of experience developing large-scale systems for the banking, insurance, travel, and media business domains. His expertise is in developing efficient, scalable, and fault-tolerant solutions to complex problems using Microsoft Azure Stack. He increased revenue at Channel 4 by highlighting issues with content delivery. At Transport for London, he implemented an in-house payroll system, ported legacy apps, and built an integration layer with a throughput of 400 messages/second.

Portfolio

ClearBank
Azure, C#, .NET Core, Azure Application Gateway, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)...
Brit
C#, .NET Core, ASP.NET Web API, Azure Functions, Azure Data Factory (ADF)...
ClearBank
C#, .NET Core, ASP.NET Web API, Entity Framework, Polly, Azure API Management...

Experience

  • SQL - 14 years
  • C# - 14 years
  • Test-driven Development (TDD) - 10 years
  • Azure - 8 years
  • ASP.NET - 8 years
  • NoSQL - 6 years
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC) - 6 years
  • .NET Core - 5 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

.NET Core, C#, Azure, Kubernetes, Docker, ASP.NET

The most amazing...

...project I've developed was the Oyster journey construction service for the "TfL Oyster and contactless" app for Transport for London.

Work Experience

Senior Developer

2021 - PRESENT
ClearBank
  • Designed, developed, and delivered mTLS for the gateway API and outbound webhooks feature.
  • Developed the confirmation of payee check using a secondary reference data feature.
  • Automated filtering and publishing of external endpoints to API management and to the development portal.
  • Introduced monitoring and alerting for the gateway API and webhooks.
  • Containerized applications for deployment in a Kubernetes cluster.
  • Published documents and samples in different programming languages on the public GitHub repository to help customers integrate with Clear Bank’s APIs.
  • Improved performance and resiliency of the gateway API.
Technologies: Azure, C#, .NET Core, Azure Application Gateway, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Docker, Azure App Service, Open Banking APIs, PagerDuty, Entity Framework Core, Identity Server, Azure Cosmos DB, Redis, Azure Service Bus, Azure Key Vault, Terraform, Azure Traffic Manager, Azure SQL, Webhooks

Senior Developer

2020 - 2021
Brit
  • Defined, implemented, and delivered policy data API to serve the AI engine with historical data.
  • Implemented middleware to invoke the AI models for pricing policies.
  • Played an integral part in delivering the first iteration of the Ki insurance project.
  • Refactored existing services for performance improvements and code coverage.
Technologies: C#, .NET Core, ASP.NET Web API, Azure Functions, Azure Data Factory (ADF), Terraform, Git, Azure Key Vault, Azure Service Bus, Redis, Azure SQL, Databricks, Azure WebJobs, SharePoint

Senior Developer

2018 - 2020
ClearBank
  • Defined strategy for making the APIs available for domestic, international, and FX payments using Azure infrastructure (Traffic Manager, App Gateway, API Manager).
  • Simplified the process of introducing new endpoints and versions for the gateway API.
  • Implemented a configuration management tool to allow feature management of distributed applications without redeployment.
  • Improved accuracy of the sanction screening service resulting in a drastic decrease in false positives.
  • Liaised with client management teams and provided support and guidance to external clients on integrating the gateway API.
Technologies: C#, .NET Core, ASP.NET Web API, Entity Framework, Polly, Azure API Management, Azure Service Fabric, Terraform, Consul, Vault, Git, Redis, Azure App Service, Azure Service Bus, Dynatrace, Azure SQL

Senior Developer

2014 - 2018
Transport for London
  • Developed an integration layer between legacy Oyster systems and new Oyster back-office applications with a throughput of 400 messages a second.
  • Developed REST APIs for passenger operated Oyster ticket machines.
  • Implemented APIs to build a journey history for the TfL mobile app.
  • Analyzed, proposed, and implemented changes required in relation to journey calculation for the night tube service.
  • Implemented an in-house payroll system for customer service agents.
  • Implemented enhancements to the Oyster platform back-office services, e.g., journey history, refunds, bank account validation, etc.
  • Ported legacy applications to .NET and implemented security and auditing to comply with the Data Protection Act.
  • Created and automated reports relating to accounts in arrears, fraudulent, activities, and audit reports.
Technologies: C#, .NET, ASP.NET Web API, TypeScript 2, AngularJS, React, Bootstrap, Windows Services, SQL Server 2012, Oracle, Entity Framework, T-SQL (Transact-SQL), PL/SQL, CQRS, Event Sourcing, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Pact, Azure Functions, Azure SQL, Redis, Azure Key Vault, Azure App Service

Analyst Programmer

2014 - 2014
Hymans Robertson
  • Implemented the Economic Scenario Generator to calibrate models using historical data and to price financial instruments, e.g., zero-coupon bonds and swaptions using the calibrated models, e.g., G2++, CIR++.
  • Implemented a persistent task scheduling system to calculate pension pot projections.
  • Provided guidance to modelers, actuaries, and other developers with software design decisions.
  • Refactored legacy core business modules for simplicity, code coverage, and performance improvements.
Technologies: C#, .NET, ASP.NET Web API, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Services, MongoDB, Entity Framework, SQL Server 2012, TeamCity, Microsoft Silverlight

Senior Developer

2013 - 2014
Transport for London
  • Defined and documented the defect management processes.
  • Managed backlog of multiple teams in relation to outstanding bugs.
  • Liaised with product owners to define impact and priority of defects, and resolved, escalated, and monitored for resolution before the go-live date.
  • Liaised with third parties in relation to the progress of open tasks.
  • Implemented security enhancements to single sign-on (SSO) service.
Technologies: C#, .NET, ASP.NET Web API, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Services, SQL Server 2012, Entity Framework, Single Sign-on (SSO)

Senior Developer

2010 - 2013
Channel 4
  • Introduced foundation for microservices by extracting a vertical stack from monolith service, which provided other team members with an example to follow.
  • Developed tools to monitor performance and availability of different internal and external systems which helped increase revenue by highlighting issues with content delivery.
  • Improved communication within the development and educated team members by blogging and highlighting code issues and security concerns and suggested solutions and better ways of working.
  • Improved code quality by applying SOLID principles, DDD, design patterns, and by participating in code reviews.
  • Provided assistance and guidance to other team members, mainly with WPF, WCF, Oracle, and Windows services.
  • Developed, enhanced, and maintained bespoke video on-demand applications.
  • Investigated and resolved multiple subtle issues, e.g., NHibernate concurrency issues due to database triggers, WPF rendering issues on Citrix, etc.
Technologies: C#, .NET, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Forms (WinForms), ASP.NET, Windows Services, Oracle, NHibernate

Experience

TfL Oyster and Contactless Mobile App

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets-and-oyster/tfl-oyster-and-contactless-app
A TfL mobile application to manage Oyster and contactless accounts. Users can view their journey data in the app. I developed a service aggregating the individual tap data from the Oyster system to construct a user's journey information.

Economic Scenario Generator

An economic scenario generator to calibrate models using historical data and to price financial instruments, e.g., zero-coupon bonds, swaptions, etc., using the calibrated models, e.g., G2++, CIR++. The team delivering this project consisted of myself (lead developer), a Quant, and a junior developer.

Passenger-operated Machine Refund Validator

An ASP.NET web API REST service to server passenger-operated machines to validate refunds. The service had a throughput of 1,200 requests a second. The team consisted of myself (lead developer), a senior, and a junior developer.

Oyster Journey History

https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/
Logged-in users on the Oyster website can view their journey history. The journey history is split by travel day. I implemented the feature change to construct journey history across multiple travel days (night tube journey).

VoD Tracker 2

VoD Tracker 2 was an application to monitor the health of the different internal and external systems to highlight issues with video on-demand content delivery. I designed, developed, deployed, and supported the application.

Education

2005 - 2007

Master's Degree in Computer Science

University of South Wales - Wales, UK

Skills

Libraries/APIs

Entity Framework, React, Azure API Management, Windows Forms (WinForms)

Tools

Azure Application Gateway, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure App Service, Azure Key Vault, Terraform, Git, Azure Traffic Manager, Vault, Dynatrace, TeamCity, Microsoft Silverlight

Languages

C#, SQL, Python 3, TypeScript 2, T-SQL (Transact-SQL)

Frameworks

.NET Core, ASP.NET, Entity Framework Core, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Angular, ASP.NET Web API, .NET, AngularJS, Bootstrap, NHibernate

Paradigms

Test-driven Development (TDD), CQRS, Event Sourcing

Platforms

Azure, Kubernetes, Docker, Oracle, PagerDuty, Azure Functions, Databricks, Azure Service Fabric, SharePoint

Storage

Azure Cosmos DB, NoSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Azure SQL, SQL Server 2012, PL/SQL

Other

Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Agile Practices, CI/CD Pipelines, Information Security, Open Banking APIs, Identity Server, Azure Service Bus, Azure Data Factory (ADF), Polly, Consul, Windows Services, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Pact, Azure WebJobs, Single Sign-on (SSO), Webhooks

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