
Michael Card
Verified Expert in Engineering
Consultant Developer
Bristol, United Kingdom
Toptal member since January 13, 2022
Michael’s expertise spans from hands-on development to executive-level project oversight, including guiding product roadmaps, managing cross-functional teams, implementing microservice architectures, and enhancing digital presence with SEO and user-centric design. Clients value his adaptability and ability to align technical goals with business growth, making him a strategic asset for ambitious projects.
Portfolio
Experience
- C#.NET - 15 years
- SQL - 13 years
- CTO - 6 years
- MongoDB - 6 years
- IT Project Management - 6 years
- .NET Core - 4 years
- Vue 2 - 4 years
- .NET 5 - 2 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
C#, C#.NET, Software Development Management, Team Management, .NET 8, Architecture, Cloud Architecture, Fractional CTO, CTO, Team Leadership
The most amazing...
...thing I have done is architect and manage the development of a scalable and flexible three-sided marketplace platform MVP within the US wellness industry
Work Experience
Senior Developer
Operational Solutions Ltd
- Developed an ingestion implementation that consumed and evaluated threat levels from raw sensor data.
- Collaborated with 3rd-party vendors to evaluate technical hardware specifications and setup of various sensor units.
- Worked closely with architects to evaluate required platform changes to support dynamic sensor feeds.
- Collaborated with client developers to implement automated drone/ground-vehicle deployments within existing live detection systems.
- Contributed to learning sessions for developers of all levels on the latest technology trends and practices.
Back-end Developer
Waverley Studios LLC
- Implemented integrations such as Auth0, SendGrid, and Firebird to support the client's immediate platform goals.
- Introduced in-code row-level authorization based on user roles and permissions within the system. This operated based on a combination of implicit and explicit user assignments.
- Implemented an event management system that included recurring events using a combined virtual and (db) materialized approach.
- Developed a hybrid monolith/microservice (ready) approach that enabled rapid development that supported future scalability.
JavaScript and C# Full-stack Developer
Mining Select PTY LTD
- Evaluated the existing codebase on behalf of the client and recommended changes based on their business and technology strategy.
- Introduced an isolated Azure containerized application (microservice) to fulfill immediate client needs, bypassing the requirement to work within the existing, volatile codebase.
- Assisted them in moving away from their previous agency engagement and advocated for the client's rights and best interests throughout the unamiable handover process.
Lead Solutions Architect
Spa Space
- Managed multiple development teams from various 3rd-party companies, coordinating and managing the development lifecycle and business priorities.
- Documented technical requirements and implementation plans for user stories. This included technical writing, API design, and supporting technical diagrams.
- Set up and oversaw the PR review process, advocating for quality assurance toolsets such as SonarCloud.
- Defined the implementation plans for various 3rd-party services, such as Stripe, SendGrid, HunSpot CRM, and CMS.
- Documented and diagrammed the (microservice) architecture, defined the supporting infrastructure requirements and cost estimations, and advocated for infrastructure as code strategies.
- Represented and advocated for the company's needs in various meetings with stakeholders, users, and 3rd-party service providers. I also supported the executive team in preparing for investor meetings virtually and in person.
- Assumed the role of intermediary CTO, defining and costing the technology strategy, managing internal team members, forming and presenting budgets to the CEO, and defining various projects and development processes within the company.
- Collaborated closely with the CEO and president of the company to form the software and product strategy while identifying growth opportunities within the industry.
- Represented and led the company through its resource growth period and led interviews with technologists hoping to join the internal team. I also advised on resourcing requirements and interview strategies and defined job specifications.
- Documented and presented a migration strategy for an existing monolithic product to a microservice architecture based on the company's aspirations for scalability, performance, and modularity.
C# .NET Core Developer | SPA Booking Startup
Spa Space App, Inc
- Presented and managed a product strategy to resolve current software issues.
- Organized and engaged with end-user focus groups to establish user feedback on the current system to form requirements for the new system.
- Designed and managed the architectural vision for a replacement client product.
- Identified feature gaps and presented new opportunities for monetization and product growth.
- Identified and advocated for SEO to enhance the company's digital presence online.
Consultant Developer
Holiday Caravans Direct
- Collaborated directly with the client to build a bespoke AirBnb-like holiday letting platform and was the sole person responsible for the UX and system design, implementation, and user management.
- Advised and introduced various management processes, such as Zoho Projects and Zoho SalesIQ, and on-site bespoke processes, such as dispute resolution and facilitating booking amendment negotiations.
- Provided technical support and advice for third-party integrations, including SagePay and Lexus Nexus. This also included discussing specific technical solutions with third parties on behalf of the client.
- Negotiated meaningful timelines and quotes for feature development with the client, management team, and third parties. Following the build, it was essential to coordinate testing and releases with the client for each development cycle.
- Developed a custom, 12-month calendar view (Vue) that displayed booked periods as well as pricing and availability of properties, ensuring that users could manage the availability and price of their property effectively.
- Introduced Vue and .NET Core with the requirement to perform a seamless bespoke migration from .NET 4 to .NET 5 with Vue's front end over an extended period.
C# Consultant Developer
SureView Systems
- Assisted the development team in reducing the number of defects within the system over a short period of time.
- Communicated complex solutions to a number of stakeholders within the UK and US.
- Contributed to project management, offering advice and guidance for general Scrum management techniques.
C# Consultant Developer
ANGO UK LTD
- Supported the development process for a pre-startup company focusing on on-demand aggregation.
- Developed a spidering utility to automatically identify XPath routes to data, applying it to discovered pages on the same domain.
- Implemented loosely coupled third-party integrations as microservices such as TomTom and contributed to the development of a Google Chrome extension written in React.
C# Consultant Developer
PIMSS Data Systems
- Contributed to a migration project focused on moving various systems from a Silverlight platform to Vue.js.
- Supported the development and management teams to better understand technical concepts such as Vue.js, Vuex, CSS, and multiple other third-party components.
- Achieved a pixel-perfect design and functionally correct solution compared to the previous implementation, as per the requirement. Achieving this presented some unique and challenging UX requirements.
- Consulted on various management processes, project management tools, and Scrum methodologies throughout the project.
Consultant Developer
The Silver Corporation
- Engineered an effective solution focused on migrating a custom VB6 stock control system to WCF without source code access as well as multiple Access databases to MongoDB.
- Identified and replicated custom and complex business processes related to stock control, customer management, sales, and invoice synchronization.
- Worked directly with the client to negotiate timelines and advise on project roadmap. This also involved communicating technical constraints regarding third-party version differences and limitations.
- Simplified the development process by utilizing DevExpress and DevExtream to implement the client's requirements.
Contract Developer
E-Limelight
- Managed client requirements and expectations as the sole developer for the project. Oversaw the full site development and project management, including coordinating with the marketing team, the end client, and the evolution of the project.
- Implemented solutions for unique and complex functionality, such as customizable seasonal pricing with user-defined adjustments.
- Assisted the client management team with technical discussions with third parties as well as coordinating testing and marketing efforts.
- Managed and coordinated client requirements and deadlines with various third parties such as marketing and accounting.
- Coordinated custom third-party requirements and expectations with external entities such as marketing and testing.
Contract C# Developer
Activus Ltd
- Assisted in converting existing VB6 Windows Forms application to ASP.NET MVC product. This mainly involved working from existing functionality and additional requirements as well as advising on technical architecture and implementation.
- Provided technical overviews of the ASP.NET MVC framework (including Web API) to the development team to ease their transition from WinForms.
- Cooperated with the development team to provide estimates and technical solutions, in addition to advising on infrastructure and development tools and general development activities (full stack).
- Collaborated with the UX consultant to realize the product design following a previous attempt and introduce Bootstrap.
- Developed a custom component engine for the front end, given that the organization did not wish to move to AngularJS. The framework significantly increased the ability to reuse components written in JavaScript across the front end.
Senior C# Developer
Jardine Lloyd Thompson
- Served as a senior C# developer within a scrum and test-first environment. The company made use of ASP.NET MVC, WCF, and standard front-end technologies.
- Supported junior developers, assisted within the interview process, and advocated in-house development training.
- Assisted in the department’s adoption of Scrum and Agile development.
- Implemented a unique data mining and warehousing solution that synchronized large datasets to a newly adopted star schema.
- Collaborated with the Romanian teams in setting up a unique data mining and warehousing solution.
- Implemented a custom interface between the main solution and StreamServe (external program) to automate printing services.
Senior C# Developer
Lyons Davidson
- Acted as a C# developer working on various projects and solutions, including MVC, WPF, Silverlight, and VB6 WinForms. The primary focus was the migration of the VB6 codebase to web-based technologies.
- Developed a C# framework that reduced the codebase to 30%, using SOLID principles and C# reflection that consolidated the data access layer and various repeated code.
- Implemented a custom monitoring tool integrated with Windows notifications to alert on actual or potential problems based on typed input parameters against various platforms, including SQL, Windows Forms, and ASP.NET MVC.
- Developed a WPF application that read the schema and allowed full database searches for table names, column names, and containing data with usages. The company later adopted this for fault finding and general development.
- Implemented a shared Silverlight library that was previously implemented as copy and paste authentication and integration processes. This reduced the development of these micro applications by three hours and to three lines of code.
C# Developer
Brightside
- Served as a C# developer on developing and maintaining an existing product. I spent the initial year of this employment as a placement student, where the organization offered a full-time position following graduation.
- Worked with a legacy VB6 and C# codebase with a PHP front end.
- Implemented a bespoke management tool that allowed automation testing to be carried out via a scheduled process rather than manually invoked. This project was also used as a final year project for the university course, achieving a high pass.
- Supported new placement students that were then responsible for continuing to support and develop the previous in-house projects.
Experience
The Silver Corporation
Holiday Caravans Direct
Heather Card Makeup Artistry
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computing for Business Applications
University of Plymouth - Plymouth, UK
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Vue 2, jQuery, REST APIs, Stripe, Vue, Stripe API, Vue 3, Sequel, Stripe Connect, Stripe Connect API, Vuex, Entity Framework, SendGrid API, jQuery UI, DevExtreme, Dapr, React, Node.js, SendBird, Auth0 Management API v2
Tools
Stripe Checkout, Git, SendGrid, Microsoft Excel, ChatGPT, TFS, Microsoft Silverlight, Azure Logic Apps, Azure App Service, Azure Active Directory B2C (ADB2C), GitHub, VPN, Capacitor, RabbitMQ, Auth0
Languages
C#.NET, HTML5, JavaScript, SQL, C#, CSS, HTML, TypeScript, Less, VB.NET, Java, SCSS, Visual Basic 6 (VB6), PHP
Frameworks
.NET 5, ASP.NET MVC, .NET Core, Entity Framework Core, ASP.NET, .NET, ASP.NET Core, Bootstrap, Razor Pages, .NET 6, .NET 8, MVC Razor, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), .NET 4, IdentityServer 4, Vuetify, Quasar, ASP.NET Web Forms, IdentityServer 3, Razor, Angular, Blazor, .NET MAUI, Next.js
Paradigms
Agile, Microservices, REST, Management, Scrum, Agile Software Development, MVC Design, Scalable Application, Web Architecture, CQRS, Microservices Architecture, Event-driven Architecture, B2B, Agile Project Management, UX Design, PRINCE2, ITIL, Desktop App Development
Storage
MongoDB, MySQL Server, Database Architecture, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Databases, JSON, NoSQL, Redis, MySQL, Azure SQL, MariaDB, Google Cloud
Platforms
Windows, Windows Server, Azure, Docker, HubSpot, Azure Functions, Azure PaaS, Mobile, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Industry Expertise
Project Management
Other
Software Development, Bootstrap 4, APIs, Domain-driven Design (DDD), CTO, Business Analysis, Scrum Master, Client Coordination, Architecture, Web Development, Engineering, Technical Leadership, Technical Requirements, Message Bus, Stripe Payments, API Integration, Data Structures, Software Documentation, Technical Architecture, Documentation, Software Architecture, Full-stack, Writing & Editing, Startups, Integration, Team Leadership, Back-end, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Advisory, Coaching, Leadership, Scalability, Process Development, Full-stack Development, JSON REST APIs, User Stories, Front-end, Data Scraping, Scraping, Web Scraping, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Fractional CTO, Mediator Pattern, Payment Gateways, Credit Cards, Frameworks, Payment APIs, User Profiles, Websites, IT Project Management, Database Schema Design, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), DevExpress, Training, Marketplaces, Enterprise Architecture, Product Owner, Growth Strategy, Product Roadmaps, Project Coordination, Software Development Management, People Management, Team Management, Technical Design, ChatGPT API, Windows Services, Content Management Systems (CMS), Headless CMS, Solution Architecture, Cloud Architecture, Social Networks, User Experience (UX), Pinia, IT Security, FTP, SFTP, Fintech, Data Privacy, Cloud, Cloud Platforms, Compliance, Data Security, Matching Systems, Computer Science, BizTalk, HTML5 Video, SaaS, Enterprise SaaS, HubSpot CRM, CI/CD Pipelines, AI Website Builders, Real Estate, PWA, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), Large Language Models (LLMs), Hardware, Sensor Data, EventBus
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