Michael is available for hire
Hire MichaelMichael Stivala
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Location
Sliema, Malta
Toptal Member Since
July 24, 2018
Mike has over 10 years of experience developing robust web-based applications and specializes in building blockchain applications using modern test-driven development practices. His experience ranges from working in development teams, delivering complex projects on time, to running a digital department. Mike's creativity and communication skills allowed him to work harmoniously with clients and other service providers.
Portfolio
GDC Media Ltd
Laravel, Tailwind CSS, Vue, MySQL
Punchlist Labs, Inc
Laravel, Vue 3, Vue, TypeScript, PHP, JavaScript, Cypress
Chimera Corp
Solidity, Ethereum, React, Next.js, Test-driven Development (TDD)...
Experience
Availability
Full-time
Preferred Environment
Git, MacOS, Visual Studio, Docker
The most amazing...
...project I've worked on is WhichBeach.com.mt, one of Malta's most popular websites. I formed a team around my idea and we launched the site together.
Work Experience
Senior Full-stack Developer
2023 - PRESENT
GDC Media Ltd
- Developed back-end features for an existing Laravel app, using the team's existing code patterns and practices to maintain a consistent codebase.
- Integrated multiple APIs with complex database queries to consolidate multiple streams of data for a single feature.
- Integrated with the existing team and their agile workflow—picking up tasks from the sprint board and helping other developers push features through to production.
- Worked as a part of the team that developed and launched the Casinos.com website—a complex, data-rich website powered by Laravel. The output is a blazing-fast website achieved through various strategies, including a custom publishing routine.
- Developed custom components in Vue using best practices to write easy-to-maintain code.
Technologies: Laravel, Tailwind CSS, Vue, MySQL
Vue and Laravel Developer
2022 - 2022
Punchlist Labs, Inc
- Wrote test-driven back-end logic in Laravel 9 to support the new features being developed on the platform.
- Used Vue 3, TypeScript, and InertiaJS to build SPA-style pages for application features.
- Joined part of the existing team and worked closely with other developers and management to deliver features on spec and on time.
Technologies: Laravel, Vue 3, Vue, TypeScript, PHP, JavaScript, Cypress
Smart Contract Engineer
2022 - 2022
Chimera Corp
- Generated the artwork and metadata for the generative "PFP" style NFT drop, including guiding the team through the process of defining rarity tables, best practices for preparing the artwork in Photoshop, and defining custom rules for the generation.
- Wrote the smart contracts that powered the NFT collection. The smart contract included features like a whitelist mint, a public mint, a token reveal mechanism, and a provenance hash to prove integrity.
- Oversaw the design and execution of the testing and launch processes, which resulted in a smooth and timely launch without any hiccups.
- Built and launched the minting website using React and Next.js, which integrated directly with the smart contracts, including multi-wallet support and an average mint price of under $8.
Technologies: Solidity, Ethereum, React, Next.js, Test-driven Development (TDD), IT Project Management, Blockchain
Smart Contract Developer
2022 - 2022
Clean Crypto
- Collaborated with the client to spec out the project's requirements and implemented an agile-inspired project management solution to provide high visibility on the project's progress.
- Architected and developed a custom NFT solution using Solidity and deployed it to Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) test nets.
- Developed supporting APIs to make the Web3 integration easier for the Web2 team.
- Created a prototype front end that served two purposes: allowed the client to easily interact with the deployed smart contracts and acted as a code snippet repository for the Web2 team to use in order to complete the final integration.
Technologies: Solidity, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Node.js, React
Senior Full-stack Developer
2022 - 2022
New Frontier Presents
- Designed and implemented upgrades to the existing project's architecture to allow for horizontal scaling and migrated the project to AWS to allow a high influx of users.
- Collaborated closely with the blockchain team to integrate the platform using Web3 technologies with existing smart contracts to enable token withdrawals and deposits through the platform.
- Performed the security audit on the whole platform and all third-party games, making and implementing suggestions.
Technologies: PHP, Laravel, Vue, Web3.js, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cloudflare, Laravel Forge, Envoyer, Technical Architecture, Technical Leadership
Software Engineer
2021 - 2022
Sports Betting Platform
- Pulled in data from various bookmaker's APIs to build up a real-time database of odds for different games in the NFL and NBA games.
- Integrated bookies' data with proprietary odds developed in-house using Artificial Intelligence to highlight good opportunities to make bets.
- Designed and built the back-end application from scratch, emphasizing building cost-efficiently, resulting in a maintainable application with room to grow and scale as needed.
- Led the development of the front end using best practices and the latest technologies (Vue and Inertia.js) and component libraries (Tailwind UI) to speed up the development process.
Technologies: REST APIs, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Architecture, Full-stack, Databases, Time Series, Data Processing
Co-founder | Head of Tech
2018 - 2021
Mindbeat
- Developed the MVP of our leadership coaching platform, which gained enough interest from potential clients to justify investment in the company.
- Built and managed the engineering team to execute the company's business needs in a highly visible, organized, and dependable manner.
- Managed the production process on Jira, discussed features with stakeholders within the company, and ensured that new features on the platform were built to specification.
- Acted as the tech champion and was part of the leadership team, contributing to the company's overall strategy.
- Spearheaded the tech onboarding process of new clients, which included relationship building and answering third-party security vendor surveys.
- Put people and processes in place to handle the tech side of client launches and support requests using a small, bootstrapped, and efficient tech team.
- Led the front-end development of the platform, using Vue, TailwindCSS, and component libraries to develop a maintainable and robust front end.
- Oversaw the back-end development of the platform, using Laravel and several tools in the Laravel Ecosystem, such as Laravel Nova, and using services like Laravel Forge and Envoyer.
- Managed the platform's development preparation to be ready to go serverless using Laravel Vapor.
Technologies: Laravel, Vue, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MySQL, Amazon RDS, Product Management, Technical Leadership, Remote Team Leadership, Web Architecture, DevOps, Web Security
Head of Digital
2017 - 2018
Blonde and Giant
- Created the agency website using Craft CMS for the back end, utility-based CSS, and VueJS on the front end.
- Dealt with all clients requiring software-based solutions and ran the whole process from ideation, strategy, pitching, and execution.
- Contributed to the overall strategy and direction of the company as a part of the leadership team.
Technologies: Craft CMS, Vue, Laravel
Senior Web Developer
2013 - 2017
BRND WGN
- Led the development of a reusable CMS using the Laravel framework, which automatically exposed a REST API for content consumed by the front end. It also powers most of the websites delivered by the company.
- Built the integration with a legacy SOAP API for online insurance creation and renewals for one of Malta's leading insurance companies.
- Handled the DevOps of all websites built by the company. Helped upgrade the development process to include modern tooling for automated server creation and version-controlled projects.
- Led the development of Elasticsearch-based solutions to deliver a fast and robust search experience when dealing with large volumes of data.
- Oversaw the front-end development of several UI-heavy websites using JavaScript libraries like Vue.
- Led the development of the Casino.eu ecosystem. Used the Laravel framework to build an API to power all the websites in the ecosystem, such as Poker.eu, Bingo.eu, Slots.eu, and more.
Technologies: Elasticsearch, Linux, Redis, JavaScript, Vue, PHP, Laravel, DevOps
Web Designer and Developer
2011 - 2013
Orange Travel Group
- Maintained and continued the development of the online booking system that the company used.
- Designed and developed corporate websites for the holding company and its subsidiaries.
- Developed a custom multisite CMS to support the company website structure.
Technologies: JavaScript, CSS, HTML, PHP
Experience
Which Beach
https://whichbeach.com.mtThis is a personal project made with a couple of other partners. The website integrates with weather APIs to automatically score beaches based on some heuristics. It has become one of Malta's most popular websites, especially during the summer months.
The application is built in Laravel and is backed by a suite of automated tests. The REST API powers both the front end and the iOS and Android apps, built using the Ionic framework.
The application is built in Laravel and is backed by a suite of automated tests. The REST API powers both the front end and the iOS and Android apps, built using the Ionic framework.
Martini Summer Game
I developed an SPA using Vue.js and running of a REST API built in Laravel that allowed players to guess the location of a photo by dropping a pin on a map.
Players were scored based on the proximity of their guess to the correct answer and their high score was tracked on a public leaderboard.
In the first month, over 7500+ games were played on the platform.
Players were scored based on the proximity of their guess to the correct answer and their high score was tracked on a public leaderboard.
In the first month, over 7500+ games were played on the platform.
What Floats Your Vote
https://lovinmalta.com/news/over-12-000-emails-sent-to-candidates-through-lovin-maltas-what-floats-your-voteIn collaboration with LovinMalta, I developed a platform to allow the Maltese voters to connect with local politicians by choosing issues they felt strongly about and sending emails through the platform to their district's politicians.
Over 12,000 emails were sent through the website in the first week. The website was able to remain responsive throughout this influx of activity through the use of Redis based queue management that offloaded the email sending to background processes.
Over 12,000 emails were sent through the website in the first week. The website was able to remain responsive throughout this influx of activity through the use of Redis based queue management that offloaded the email sending to background processes.
Saz Mifsud
https://sazmifsud.comCreated the eCommerce store for the Malta-based fashion brand Saz Mifsud. The multi-currency store is powered by WordPress and WooCommerce.
Build Generative NFT on Ethereum
Built and deployed a smart contract to generate and mint dynamic NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, using a strategy to embed the metadata and whole NFT on-chain as opposed to using off-chain storage solutions.
Agency Malta
https://agencymalta.com.mtA Laravel-based app that lists all software and design agencies in Malta, indexing their portfolio projects and blog posts in one place.
The application extensively used web-scraping strategies to pull data from dozens of agency websites.
The application extensively used web-scraping strategies to pull data from dozens of agency websites.
Skills
Languages
PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Solidity, TypeScript
Frameworks
Laravel, PHPUnit, Vanilla JS, Symfony, Ionic, Next.js, Cypress, Tailwind CSS
Libraries/APIs
Vue, React, REST APIs, Pusher, Web3.js, Node.js
Tools
Git, Sublime Text, Amazon CloudFront CDN, NGINX, Envoyer, Visual Studio
Paradigms
Test-driven Development (TDD), Web Architecture, Agile Software Development, Pair Programming, DevOps
Platforms
Craft CMS, Web, WordPress, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MacOS, Linux, Docker, Algolia, Ethereum, Blockchain
Other
Software Architecture, Laravel Forge, Full-stack, Architecture, Code Review, Task Analysis, Vue 3, APIs, Front-end Development, Technical Leadership, Interviewing, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), DevOps Engineer, SOAP, Vue Router, Amazon RDS, Product Management, Remote Team Leadership, Web Security, Computer Science, Cloudflare, Technical Architecture, BNB Smart Chain, IT Project Management, Time Series, Data Processing, Scraping, Web3, Smart Contracts
Storage
MySQL, Databases, Redis, Elasticsearch, MySQLi
Education
2008 - 2011
Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science
University of Malta - Msida, Malta
Collaboration That Works
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
1
Share your needs
Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2
Choose your talent
Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3
Start your risk-free talent trial
Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring