
Michael Walker
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Michael is a builder who has owned the entire front-end services at AWS. He loves working with go-to-market teams and UX teams collaborating on creative products. Michael is passionate about solving problems for clients and providing robust solutions to delight customers. He specializes in full-stack applications as well as ML and IoT development.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Slack, WebStorm, Chrome, Safari
The most amazing...
...project I've developed for AWS on a Grand Challenge consisted of bringing a startup out to release with over 200,000,000 unique visitors per month.
Work Experience
Staff Software Engineer
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Contributed to AWS like Alexa for Business and Amazon Explore.
- Built end-to-end solutions from design to development, deployment, monitoring, and operations.
- Worked closely with senior technical leaders to build large-scale distributed systems.
- Extracted best-practice knowledge, reference architectures, and patterns from engagements to promote their re-use with the worldwide AWS SA community.
- Architected, developed, and maintained tools to increase our scale and efficiency.
- Curated architecture and design briefs that outline key features and decision points and provided prescriptive guidance to customers.
Cloud Engineering Manager
FAQx, Inc.
- Developed a front-end application using React, TypeScript, and Amplify, which greatly improved the performance and user experience of the application.
- Utilized Next.js to build the application, which allowed for server-side rendering of the code. This improved the loading times and overall application performance, leading to a better user experience.
- Proposed the use of server-side rendering that also resulted in improved SEO for the application, as the search engines were able to crawl better and index the content.
- Implemented various features in the application, such as authentication and authorization, real-time data updates, and integrations with third-party APIs, which enhanced the functionality and usability of the application.
- Developed the front end of the application using React, TypeScript, Amplify, and Next.js, resulting in a high-performing and user-friendly application that met the needs of the end users and the business.
Head of Cloud Engineering
Catalyst UX
- Developed an HR interviewing application for CatalystUX that was built on top of AWS. This application streamlines the interview process and improves efficiency for HR departments.
- Used AWS services such as DynamoDB, API Gateway, and Lambda to create a scalable and reliable platform for the application. This helped to ensure a seamless user experience for both HR departments and candidates.
- Integrated Amazon Chime into the application, allowing for real-time video interviews and improving the communication between HR departments and candidates.
- Used the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) to automate the deployment and management of the application, reducing the time and effort required to maintain the platform.
- Saved the company thousands of dollars in hosting expenses by leveraging the cost-effective pricing model of Amazon DynamoDB, API Gateway, and Lambda.
- Streamlined the interview process and improved communication through Amazon Chime to reduce the time required for HR departments to conduct interviews and make hiring decisions.
- Managed and deployed updates to the application easily through the use of AWS services. This allowed for quicker turnaround times for new features and improvements, resulting in a more agile development process.
Cloud Engineering Lead
WorkTorch Inc
- Developed a React and TypeScript front-end application for WorkToprch, which was hosted on AWS Amplify. This application provided a seamless user experience and improved the company's online presence.
- Ensured that every merged commit was mirrored and deployed smoothly on AWS Amplify by using Gitlab and CodeCommit. This helped to streamline the development process and reduce the risk of errors.
- Reduced the cost of hosting the application significantly by using AWS Amplify. Saved the company thousands of dollars in hosting expenses by leveraging the cost-effective pricing model of Amazon S3 and Cloudfront.
- Managed and deployed updates to the application easily through the use of AWS Amplify. This allowed for quicker turnaround times for new features and improvements, resulting in a more agile development process.
- Reduced the load time of the application and improve its overall performance. The efficiency of the application was greatly enhanced by using AWS Amplify by leveraging the fast and reliable performance of Amazon S3 and Cloudfront,.
Enterprise Cloud Engineering Lead
Coupang - Main
- Rewrote the seller hub for Coupang, a large Korean eCommerce company, using Vue and TypeScript.
- Worked closely with the rest of the development team to ensure that the seller hub was fully integrated with the Coupang platform and that all necessary data was accurately displayed and handled.
- Improved the user experience for sellers considerably with the new seller hub that included numerous enhancements and new features, such as improved navigation, a modern design, and real-time data updates.
- Contributed to the overall success of Coupang as a leading eCommerce platform in Korea due to the successful rewrite of the seller hub using Vue and TypeScript, which resulted in a significant increase in seller satisfaction.
Principal Developer
Porsche Digital
- Wrote high-quality and testable applications that support rapid delivery via continuous integration, delivery, and automated deployments.
- Found creative and innovative approaches to complex problems while working, learning, and collaborating in a cross-functional agile team.
- Worked closely with product owners and the design team to define feature requirements and deliver the product that supports the business and improves the customer experience.
- Coordinated teams of developers responsible for building new and supporting existing websites.
- Handled the design, architecture, development, code review, and testing of key applications.
- Helped establish the local technical and architectural setup.
Senior Full-stack Engineer
Redwood Consulting
- Worked with clients ranging from portfolio websites for general contractors to WordPress widgets for film compression companies.
- Contributed to solutions-based, outcome-oriented projects with a highly skilled team, fluent in multiplatform software and various programming environments, and passionate about crafting and delivering high-quality products that meet customer needs.
- Used technologies like React, Angular 2, Node.js, Express.js, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.
Senior Full-stack Developer
Walmart Labs
- Built the display ads platform for Walmart.com in React, Redux, and TypeScript.
- Improved the organization's frameworks performance, mWeb, security, SPA, and NPM, to list a couple.
- Converted the Walmart ads-vendor marketplace to a more SPA with Material Design.
Senior Application Developer (Contract)
- Maintained the existing views and upgraded them from AngularJS to TypeScript and Angular.
- Integrated the front-end UI with the Java back end of this legacy application and doubled the number of unit tests for the product.
- Enhanced user experience, increasing user traffic on the application by nine times.
Experience
CrazyRestaurantSearch
https://github.com/MichaelWalker-git/CrazyRestaurantSearchFor each of the top 15 search results returned from the APIs, the app displays the following information:
• The business name and address
• Yelp rating (up to five stars) and overall review
• Google rating (up to five stars) and total rating
• An image of the business from Yelp
• A photo of the company from Google
• The business website URL as a hyperlink
Text Extraction Pipeline and Front-end Application
https://github.com/MichaelWalker-git/TextractFunProjectTo automate this process, Volkswagen brand Porsche developed an intelligent Sign Inspection (iSI) solution on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
This solution is powered by the Digital Production Platform (DPP), a cloud-based industrial platform built by the Volkswagen Group and AWS to develop scalable use cases across the company and transform its manufacturing and logistics processes.
The DPP will also serve as the foundation for the Industrial Cloud—an open platform, community, and marketplace of digital solutions available to the automotive manufacturing industry.
I was actively involved in this AWS project, and the 2021 case study available at https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/volkswagen-group-case-study/ inspired me to develop my own approach.
eCommerce Proof of Concept
https://docusign.d2reekcdlsvo0q.amplifyapp.com/I built the back end using GraphQL and hosted it on AWS.
Investment Web App
http://timebox.fiFor the back end, I employed Rust and AWS to ensure a high-performance and scalable solution. With my in-depth understanding of back-end development, I designed an architecture that allowed the application to handle a high volume of traffic and ensure that all trades were executed with minimal latency.
As an excellent communicator and collaborator, I worked effectively with designers, product managers, and other engineers in a fast-paced environment, juggling multiple priorities to meet all project deadlines. As the project lead, I conducted code reviews and provided constructive feedback to the team members, ensuring the overall application quality was of the highest standard.
Skills
Languages
JavaScript, GraphQL, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, HTML5, Python, Sass, PHP, C#, Less, Python 3, SQL, TypeScript 3, Go, Ruby
Frameworks
Angular, Jest, Next.js, Serverless Framework, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Vanilla JS, MUI (Material UI), Laravel, NestJS, Flask, Cypress, React Native, Tailwind CSS, .NET, Chrome, Ruby on Rails 4, AngularJS, Django, Redux
Libraries/APIs
React, Node.js, REST APIs, Vue, D3.js, jQuery, Web Audio, Google Speech API, Pandas, WebGL, Three.js, FFmpeg, API Development, Socket.IO, React Redux, Google API, Backbone.js, Stripe, Web Audio API, Google Speech-to-Text API, Yelp API, AWS Amplify, Google Calendar API, Handlebars
Tools
Amazon CloudFront CDN, RabbitMQ, Webpack, AWS CloudFormation, GitHub, AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Git, Logging, Kibana, Grafana, Jenkins, Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, Google Sheets, Excel 2016, MQTT, Amazon SageMaker, AWS Step Functions, Amazon Cognito, GitLab, GitLab CI/CD, Terraform, Zapier, Slack, WebStorm, AWS AppSync, Sequelize
Paradigms
Responsive Web Design (RWD), REST, API Architecture, Microservices Architecture, Microservices, Agile, Unit Testing, Enterprise Application Architecture, Serverless Architecture, Lambda Architecture, UI Design, DevOps, ETL, MEAN Stack, Mobile Development, Agile Project Management, Database Design, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web UX Design
Platforms
AWS Lambda, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon EC2, Mixpanel, Kubernetes, Safari, iOS, Contentful, Microsoft, Netlify, WordPress, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Firebase, Docker, Apache Kafka, Shopify, Azure, AWS IoT
Storage
Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MongoDB, JSON, Graph Databases, Amazon Aurora, Databases, Data Pipelines, PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, MySQL
Industry Expertise
Web Design, Cybersecurity, Telecommunications, Project Management
Other
Paid Advertising, Front-end, Full-stack, Software Architecture, APIs, Back-end, Front-end Architecture, Architecture, CTO, Back-end Development, Cloud, API Integration, AWS Cloud Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, Vendor Management, System Architecture Design, Serverless, Lambda Functions, Web Development, User Interface (UI), Cloud Architecture, API Gateways, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Solution Architecture, Front-end Development, Full-stack Development, Amazon Kinesis, Video Streaming, Cloud Platforms, DOM, Data Scraping, Scraping, Web Scraping, Speech Recognition, Speech to Text, WebKit, RESTful Web Services, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, Web Applications, Cryptography, Data Visualization, Dashboards, Axios, Software Troubleshooting, App Support, GitOps, Widgets, SEO Tools, Excel Add-ins, Business Services, QA Automation, Microsoft Office, Office 365, Headless Commerce, 3D Animation, Leadership, Software Design, 3D, RESTful Services, Integration, Human Capital Management, Artificial Intelligence (AI), MERN Stack, Amazon RDS, Design, WiFi Integration, Augmented Reality (AR), Technical Consulting, Software Implementation, Donations, IT Management, Team Leadership, Storybook, CSS3 Animation, Data Architecture, Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), DNS, Project Scoping, Mentorship, Visualization, Responsive Design, Amazon API Gateway, CI/CD Pipelines, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Technical Leadership, Styled-components, Web UX, Digital Health, CRM APIs, Live Chat, Webhooks, Azure Service Bus, CornerStone, Workday, Virtual Reality (VR), Content Management Systems (CMS), Amazon Textract, Software, User Interaction, Machine Learning, DocumentDB, Amazon Chime, Localization, Internationalization
Education
Master's Degree in Computer Science
Georgia Tech - Atlanta, GA, USA
Certifications
AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialist
Amazon Web Services
AWS Solutions Architect Professional
Amazon Web Services
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
Amazon Web Services
AWS Certified Developer
Amazon Web Services
AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services