
Joshua Ballanco
Verified Expert in Engineering
Ruby on Rails Developer
Miami, FL, United States
Toptal member since January 14, 2014
Joshua is an architect, engineer, and scientist with experience building large-scale systems dealing with everything from massive amounts of video data to heavy web traffic. Joshua also has experience breaking monoliths into scalable microservice architectures and going the other way 'round. He's worked for Apple and AOL and has also led a group of 50+ consultants as their chief scientist.
Portfolio
Experience
- C - 16 years
- Ruby on Rails (RoR) - 14 years
- Ruby - 14 years
- Java - 14 years
- API Design - 10 years
- JavaScript - 10 years
- Python - 9 years
- Architecture - 8 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Heroku, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Git, Emacs, Vim Text Editor, Linux, OS X, Tailwind CSS
The most amazing...
...bug I've fixed required taking a system that couldn't even handle two machines and scaling it to over twenty in less than four weeks before shipping a new OS.
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer
Piñata
- Developed a data import workflow to ingest disparate data from internal and external systems to facilitate work by the data analysis team.
- Implemented a custom adapter to facilitate data exchange between a modern Django app and a legacy 3rd-party SOAP service.
- Set up, configured, and educated team on the use of Apache Airstream to manage and run recurring data transformation and import tasks.
Tech Lead
Deloitte
- Developed a system for the automation of property tax assessments and government-issued communications.
- Implemented a custom file-upload mechanism that satisfied legal archival requirements.
- Wrote a custom OData client interface using NTLMv2 authentication to fetch and post data to various 3rd-party systems.
- Collaborated with cross-functional architecture and business analyst teams to scope and prioritize work on new features.
- Supported operations on issues discovered during production deployments.
Expert Full-stack Developer
CoreValue Holdings, LLC
- Updated a legacy application from Rails 3.0 to Rails 6.0.
- Refactored survey and data input system to facilitate further customization and other new feature development.
- Expanded the core product to serve new industries and an expanded customer base.
Full-stack and Back-end Developer
Digital Swiss Gold (USA) LLC
- Enhanced a mobile app prototype in preparation for a wide-scale production launch.
- Refactored an order-processing back-end to enable distributed deployment.
- Implemented various analytics tracking capabilities to monitor customer engagement.
Native MacOS Developer
Coscreen, Inc.
- Improved on a mechanism to transmit screen contents between clients, doubling frame rate as a result.
- Eliminated launch bugs and isolated potential races to improve successful connections by 20%.
- Added native extensions to an Electron application to enable shared control of a client machine.
Senior Software Developer
Glencoe Software
- Supported the migration of a Spring/Hibernate system from PostgreSQL to Oracle.
- Designed and implemented a distributed messaging system to connect various components in a data collection pipeline.
- Created JNI-based bindings for a JPEG XR decoder written in C.
- Wrote a library to coordinate the submission of jobs to an HPC grid facility from a Python/Django web app.
- Implemented a custom Window's URL handler to enable launching local applications against data on a central server from within a browser window.
Senior Architect
Simple Global, Inc.
- Led company-wide planning for a transition from a single monolith to microservice-based architecture.
- Guided decision making around the selection of technology stack, deployment infrastructure, and the continuous delivery pipeline.
- Designed and implemented OpenAPI specification, driven API documentation, and automated testing.
- Assisted with metrics collection and ETL workflow for accounting data.
Senior Software Engineer
Hendrick Automotive
- Designed and deployed AWS CodeDeploy/CF-based architecture for deploying internal back-office apps.
- Developed APIs to support business analytics.
- Migrated an existing code base from Datomic to PostgreSQL.
- Developed a Clojure-based web application to manage employee performance and goal setting.
- Developed middleware services to connect an array of third-party back-office systems.
Software Engineer — RoR
Centzy
- Extended a CMS-like system to host FAQ content.
- Updated HTML and CSS for various static pages.
- Implemented a dynamically resizing button menu.
- Updated responsive design elements for mobile browsers.
- Fixed a variety of minor bugs in a legacy Rails codebase.
Chief Scientist
Burnside Digital
- Developed client infrastructures using various components of Amazon Web Services.
- Worked with teams at RedHat to build solutions on the JVM and JBoss platforms.
- Developed components of an SOA infrastructure that supports a variety of client projects, including the CityEats platform we developed for Scripps Network Interactive.
- Presented technical solutions at software conferences around the world.
- Helped introduce and develop new technologies with our team of 20+ software engineers.
Support Engineer
Exceptional
- Fixed bugs reported on the main Exceptional.io app.
- Responded to support requests from Exceptional customers.
- Developed integration between Exceptional and Pivotal Tracker.
- Monitored servers for service interruptions and helped to diagnose, troubleshoot, and fix emerging issues.
- Assisted with transitioning the technology stack to new owners.
Back-end Software Engineer
AOL
- Migrated the primary CMS application from Ruby Enterprise Edition to Ruby 1.9.2.
- Optimized database performance and helped maintain consistent page load times across an order of magnitude increase in traffic.
- Scaled the platform from less than 100 locations to over 800 in less than three months.
- Designed a service-oriented architecture overhaul of the entire publishing platform.
- Participated in a company-wide effort to embrace open source and encourage employees from all departments to participate in the open-source community.
- Implemented A/B testing in consultation with marketing and editorial to gather feedback on headlines and advertising layouts.
Server Software Engineer
Apple
- Developed a Grand Central Dispatch-based web server for MacRuby called ControlTower.
- Upgraded the product for two major Rails revisions and one Ruby version.
- Managed the QA process for the team’s deliverables.
- Implemented a web interface, including a near real-time video preview system built with only HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- Improved server and database performance from less-than-acceptable to ready-to-release.
Experience
CityEats
ControlTower
https://github.com/MacRuby/ControlTowerEvolver
https://github.com/jballanc/EvolverY Combinator for Objective-C
https://github.com/jballanc/objc-ycombEducation
Doctorate in Computational Evolutionary Biology
Stevens Institute of Technology - New Jersey, USA
Master's Degree in Chemical Biology
Stevens Institute of Technology - New Jersey, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry
Stevens Institute of Technology - New Jersey, USA
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Node.js, React, Compojure, Rack, Sidekiq, REST APIs, Slack API, jQuery, Nokogiri, Stripe, Twilio API, Backbone.js, Shopify API, Xcode Server, X (formerly Twitter) API
Tools
Git, Vim Text Editor, Jira, GitHub, GitHub Pages, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Cognito, NPM, Bitbucket, Emacs, TextMate, GitLab, Amazon EKS, MongoDB Atlas, Expo, Chef, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Quartz Composer, Xcode, Mercurial, Reagent, Apache Airflow, Figma
Languages
HTML, HTML5, Java, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, C, Julia, C#, TypeScript, XML, SAML, Python 3, CSS, Objective-C, Clojure, C#.NET, Lua, C++, SQL, CoffeeScript, Snowflake
Frameworks
Sinatra, RubyMotion, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Django, Cocoa, WebObjects, Merb, Padrino, Tailwind CSS, Vanilla JS, React Native, .NET, Electron, Flask, NestJS, Redux, Next.js, UIKit, Angular, Express.js, Stimulus, Spring, Hibernate, AngularJS, ClojureScript
Paradigms
API Architecture, Gang of Four (GOF) Design Patterns, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Agile Software Development, Agile, Mobile Development, Microservices, Test-driven Development (TDD), Desktop App Development, Functional Programming, Kanban, Scrum, Distributed Programming, Automated Testing, HIPAA Compliance, DevOps, Logic Programming, Automation
Platforms
Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MacOS, AWS Lambda, Firebase, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Azure, Android, iOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Mobile, Vercel, OS X, Heroku, JBoss, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Arduino
Storage
SQLite, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Amazon DynamoDB, Cloud Firestore, NoSQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MySQL, Redis, Memcached
Industry Expertise
Healthcare
Other
API Design, Architecture, API Integration, APIs, Software, Back-end, Mobile App Development, Software Development, CTO, Team Leadership, Startups, Code Review, Full-stack, Full-stack Development, Software Architecture, Third-party APIs, Technical Leadership, Performance, Scalability, Amazon RDS, Serverless, Front-end, Video Streaming, API Gateways, SDKs, GDPR, Authentication, OAuth, WebSockets, Open Source, Single-page Applications (SPAs), Web Scraping, Data Scraping, Single Sign-on (SSO), PDF, API Testing, Cloud Architecture, Web Applications, Cloud Storage, Accounting Software, Recommendation Systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Mobile UX, Apollo, Prompt Engineering, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Content Delivery Networks (CDN), FastAPI, Education, Leadership, Communication, OpenAI, Data Visualization, Supabase, Inventory, Inventory Management, POS, SANs, Code Architecture, Datomic, API Hooking, A/B Testing, Product Management, SOAP, Chemistry, Pinecone, Poetry
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