Mengxi is available for hire

Mengxi Liao

Verified Expert in Engineering

Software Developer

Location

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Toptal Member Since

December 25, 2017

As a mature full-stack developer, Mengxi knows how to build high-quality software from scratch to complete or optimize existing apps to be bug-free and scalable. He is passionate about solving complex problems via simple, decoupled, and maintainable code modules. Mengxi prefers Agile and TDD working environments, as well as working in fun and high energy teams.

Ruby on Rails (RoR)Java Ruby Git SQL Amazon Web Services (AWS)MySQL Sublime Text Agile Test-driven Development (TDD)Spring Redis PostgreSQL MongoDB GitHub

Portfolio

Clio - Legal Practice Management Software

Memcached, Angular, Redis, MySQL, Ruby on Rails (RoR)

Robinson Solutions

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Android SDK, MySQL, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Spring, Java

Velidate/Dating Found

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Node.js, MongoDB, JavaScript, MySQL...

Experience

Ruby on Rails (RoR) - 5 years JavaScript - 5 years SQL - 5 years Java - 5 years Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 5 years Agile - 4 years Spring - 3 years MongoDB - 2 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, MacOS

The most amazing...

...thing I've coded is a highly parallel Genetic Algorithm that improved the speed of finding the combination of policies with the most economic impact by 100X.

Work Experience

Back-end Developer

2016 - 2017

Clio - Legal Practice Management Software

Maintained and delivered new features for a leading legal practice management SaaS application, a large Ruby on Rails project.
Developed a RESTful API for a mobile app that helps lawyers to better collaborate with their clients.
Built a complicated system which automated the very resource intensive process of duplicating and merging firm accounts which allowed the team to handle 10X more requests.
Built infrastructure for detecting performance issues automatically, greatly improving reliability and speed of the app.
Worked as a Scrum master and applied Agile practices to maintain high team velocity.

Technologies: Memcached, Angular, Redis, MySQL, Ruby on Rails (RoR)

Application Developer

2014 - 2016

Robinson Solutions

Built a scheduling system using Ruby on Rails that helps the organization to schedule work for workers and monitor performance efficiently.
Refactored a task scheduling application and improved performance on generating reports by 10X.
Developed an incident reporting application to assist site managers in reporting emergencies.
Built a digital form data collecting system that connects to a third party form application for business analytics to track and analyze form data efficiently.
Built a mobile solution using Android SDK for our Toyota customers to track car defects on production lines.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Android SDK, MySQL, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Spring, Java

Co-founder/Developer

2014 - 2015

Velidate/Dating Found

Led a team of Software Developers to build two online dating platforms: velidate.com and datingfound.com using two different tech stacks: PHP and Ruby on Rails.
Delivered several features to both sites such as Instant Messaging, Third Party Authorization, and Payment Gateway.
Worked with designers to apply best practices to UX/UI design and built a user-friendly user interface using AngularJS and Bootstrap.
Participated in other decision‐making processes such as business model building, usability testing, marketing strategy building, and discussions on startup growth.
Configured and monitored the production infrastructure, including production servers, AWS services, and other third party APIs to ensure performance and availability of the dating sites.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Node.js, MongoDB, JavaScript, MySQL, Ruby on Rails (RoR), PHP

Java Developer

2011 - 2012

Global Market Group

Maintained and delivered new features for the eCommerce website (www.globalmarket.com).
Built the RESTful API for the mobile version of the platform using Spring MVC.
Built the front-end for the mobile version of the platform using HTML5 and JavaScript.
Participated in the development of a complicated online meeting application.
Developed a distributed search engine using Lucene and Solr to allow customers to search for products and vendors efficiently.

Technologies: JavaScript, Hibernate, Spring, Apache Struts 2, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Java

Experience

AI Chatbot: Learn English via Chatting with Alisa

Alisa is a new chatbot that helps English learners to learn English by chatting with them. Users could discuss any topics with Alisa and meanwhile learn English. The goal of Alisa is to provide English lessons to learners, like a real teacher. Currently, it has an Android app and a web version for beta testing.

Technologies:
* AI: Python, Chatterbot API, AIML.
* Back-end: Node.js, MongoDB, AWS.
* Front-end: Ionic3

Mobile App: Algnote

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.marcyliao.app.algnote

Algnote lets developers or computer science students easily review data structures and algorithms with theoretical background and implementation practice such as coding problems. Since its launch, the app has helped tens of thousands of developers prepare their exams or interviews.

Technologies: Android SDK, PHP, MySQL, CDN

Mobile App: EasyRun - GPS Running Tracker

I developed EasyRun, an Android application that helps runners record their activities using GPS and Google Maps. What differentiates EasyRun with other running application is that it allows users to use different gestures to control features (adjust music volume, pause and restart, reporting, etc) so runners do not need to see the screen during running activities.

Technologies: Android SDK, GPS, Google Maps API

New Cannuck - An app helps immigrants

New Cannuck is a mobile/web application which helps future immigrants to adjust to the new customs and culture in Canada. It has two main modules.
1. Tour Mission: Encourage newcomers to visit more places in Canada.
2. Quiz Game: Learn Canadian knowledge through games.

Technologies:
* Back-end: RESTful API, Java, MySQL, Spring, Hibernate, amd AWS
* Front-end: Android, HTML5, and JavaScript.

Policy Simulator

In 2012, our lab was asked to implement a policy simulation application that helps economy experts to research the economic impacts of different policies executed by the government.

I implemented an algorithm based on a genetic algorithm to find the combinations of policies that could produce the best economic impact. The algorithm is highly optimized for multi-threads and 100X the speed compared to the original version.

Technologies: Java, Parallel Programming, Spring, Hibernate, MySQL

Digital Game: Health Town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tux408KxCwA&t=48s

A fun desktop game that requires players to use different strategies and tools to protect the town from the attack of viruses. My team developed this game to participate in the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008.

Technologies: C#, .NET, XNA

Education

2012 - 2014

Master's of Engineering Degree in Computer Engineering

University of Toronto - Toronto, Canada

2008 - 2012

Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Software Engineering

Sun Yat-sen University - Guangzhou, China

Skills

Languages

Java, Ruby, SQL, JavaScript, ECMAScript (ES6), Python, CSS, TypeScript, HTML, PHP

Frameworks

Ruby on Rails (RoR), Spring, Android SDK, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Apache Struts 2, Flask, Express.js, Hibernate, Angular

Tools

Git, Sublime Text, Android Studio, GitHub, Jira, Apache, Trello, NGINX

Paradigms

Agile, Test-driven Development (TDD), Scrum

Platforms

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Android, MacOS, Docker, Eclipse, Windows, Heroku

Storage

Redis, PostgreSQL, Memcached, MongoDB, MySQL

Libraries/APIs

Apache Lucene, Facebook API, Node.js, jQuery, Vue, React

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