Josh Kneale, Developer in Bury Saint Edmunds, United Kingdom
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Josh Kneale

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Software Developer

Bury Saint Edmunds, United Kingdom

Toptal member since September 30, 2021

Bio

Josh is a self-taught engineer with a passion for learning and building high-quality full-stack products. He has extensive experience in implementing best practice patterns and designs throughout the full scope of an application, from code structure and deployments to testing, operations, security, and networking. Josh loves working with startups and tech-for-good projects and works as a freelancer to get exposure from many different tech stacks and methodologies.

Portfolio

GoDaddy
Node.js, JavaScript, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MSSQLCE, Cassandra, GitHub...
Edge Esports Ltd
Docker, Elasticsearch, Message Queues, Node.js, NoSQL, Redis, TypeScript...
Kwiff (Eaton Gate Gaming)
Docker, Elasticsearch, Message Queues, Node.js, NoSQL, Redis, TypeScript...

Experience

  • Microservices - 4 years
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 4 years
  • PostgreSQL - 4 years
  • Node.js - 4 years
  • Redis - 4 years
  • Docker - 3 years
  • Message Queues - 3 years
  • TypeScript - 3 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

TypeScript, SQL, NoSQL, Node.js, Redis, Docker, Elasticsearch, Message Queues, WebSockets, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microservices

The most amazing...

...thing I've developed was the boosted cashout feature for the Kwiff apps, the first of its kind in the gaming industry.

Work Experience

Senior Back-end Engineer

2021 - 2021
GoDaddy
  • Introduced a monorepo structure to ease the sharing of dependencies between planned microservices.
  • Provided guidance regarding AWS migration plans, infrastructure best practices, scaling techniques, and smooth deployment process plans.
  • Worked with the team to ship the percent-based pricing feature on the reseller product, using Jira as a task management tool.
Technologies: Node.js, JavaScript, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MSSQLCE, Cassandra, GitHub, Jenkins, HTTP, HTTPS, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Route 53, SOAP, AWS CloudFormation, AWS ELB, Direct Connect (DC), Amazon ElastiCache, Kibana, React, Bash, Redis Clusters, Private NPM Modules, NPM, Amazon EC2, GitHub Actions, HTML, CSS, Linux, REST APIs

Senior Engineer

2020 - 2021
Edge Esports Ltd
  • Designed the rebuild of the platform from the ground up after a pivot in company direction in Q3 2020.
  • Built an extensible payments infrastructure implementing both Stripe and Hyperwallet (Paypal). Allowing for multi-currency, global transactions, and a selection of subscriptions tiers available to end-users.
  • Designed and built a generic stats aggregation infrastructure, able to store large sets of time series data. We integrated APIs of five social platforms and using the OAuth protocol we were able to pull data for the connected users on the Edge platform.
  • Set up an extensible CI/CD pipeline using automated tests, Cypress to push a TDD/BDD process.
Technologies: Docker, Elasticsearch, Message Queues, Node.js, NoSQL, Redis, TypeScript, WebSockets, JavaScript, AWS Lambda, Testing, Unit Testing, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microservices, Architecture, Remote Team Leadership, Bash, Redis Clusters, Private NPM Modules, NPM, Docker Compose, DocumentDB, Amazon CloudWatch, Lambda Functions, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon CloudFront CDN, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon EC2, Python, Go, GitHub Actions, Amazon ElastiCache, AWS ELB, Amazon Route 53, HTTPS, HTTP, GitHub, HTML, CSS, Linux, Artificial Intelligence (AI), REST APIs

Lead Engineer

2017 - 2020
Kwiff (Eaton Gate Gaming)
  • Rebuilt the company's custom sportsbook, implementing a multitude of microservices, databases, and communication patterns. Allowing scalability, extensibility, and multi-language and multi-currency support while keeping real-time odds available to clients.
  • Created and implemented an algorithm to cater to the company's USP "kwiffing" (boosting of bets). This involved utilizing data from various parts of the infrastructure in a scalable way.
  • Boosted the performance of the app to be able to handle concurrent traffic in the tens of thousands, from experiencing issues in the hundreds.
  • Created a custom release pipeline utilizing Kubernetes to spin up dynamic development environments, React for an internal-facing UI, and automated Git branching to handle merging and rollbacks.
  • Oversaw and integrated two real-time sportsbook providers, five casino game providers, one payment provider, and multiple smaller marketing providers.
  • Created a shared library of reusable components to be used throughout the back-end microservices, installable via npm.
Technologies: Docker, Elasticsearch, Message Queues, Node.js, NoSQL, Redis, TypeScript, WebSockets, JavaScript, AWS Lambda, MySQL, Serverless Framework, Testing, Unit Testing, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microservices, Architecture, Remote Team Leadership, GraphQL, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Amazon DynamoDB, Bash, Private NPM Modules, NPM, Amazon CloudWatch, Lambda Functions, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon CloudFront CDN, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Go, Kibana, Amazon ElastiCache, SOAP, Amazon Route 53, Kubernetes, HTTPS, HTTP, Jenkins, GitHub, Bitbucket, HTML, CSS, Linux, REST APIs

Software Engineer

2017 - 2017
Abbexa
  • Created an in-house ticketing system for handling customer queries. Adapted to current technology to ensure the fastest delivery time during the startup phase of the company.
  • Oversaw migration from on-premise servers to cloud hosting (Digital Ocean).
  • Tracked and fixed bugs using Trello and a reporting tool.
Technologies: JavaScript, PHP, Linux, CSS, HTML, jQuery, Node.js, Bash, NPM, HTTPS, HTTP, REST APIs

TypeScript System Boilerplate

A boilerplate of a monorepo setup for TypeScript-based services, with commonly used implementation held within the common service. I often use this in projects I work on, and it is constantly improved and adapted to implement more best practices over time.

If possible, I want to do the same projects in a variety of languages moving forward.

Timezones REST API

An example of a REST API serving timezones data to users. Includes JSON web token authentication, unit and API tests, route-specific authorization, and dynamically loaded routes using the "glob" npm library.

Boosted Cashout Feature

Implemented an industry-first functionality for the gambling arena during my time working at Kwiff. It involved aspects of event-driven architecture, real-time large data set analysis and A/B release patterns. It was great fun to work on, and turned out to be a big win for the companies turnover and customer happiness.

Libraries/APIs

Node.js, React, REST APIs, jQuery, Chai

Tools

GitHub, Amazon ElastiCache, Kibana, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), NPM, Jenkins, AWS ELB, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon CloudFront CDN, Amazon CloudWatch, Docker Compose, Bitbucket, AWS CloudFormation, Mocha

Languages

TypeScript, JavaScript, GraphQL, HTML, Bash, PHP, CSS, Go, Python

Paradigms

Testing, Unit Testing, Microservices, Load Testing

Platforms

Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Lambda, Linux, Kubernetes, Amazon EC2

Storage

NoSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQLCE, Cassandra, Amazon DynamoDB, JSON

Frameworks

Serverless Framework, gRPC, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), Express.js

Other

Message Queues, WebSockets, Cloud, APIs, Back-end, Architecture, HTTP, HTTPS, GitHub Actions, Private NPM Modules, Remote Team Leadership, Amazon Route 53, SOAP, Lambda Functions, DocumentDB, Redis Clusters, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Direct Connect (DC), Amazon API Gateway, API Testing, Lint, Analytics, Data Science, Server Sent Events (SSE)

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