Nick is available for hire
Hire NickNick Schneble
Verified Expert in Engineering
Communication Developer
Location
Beverly, MA, United States
Toptal Member Since
January 28, 2019
Nick is a full-stack developer with over 20 years of experience and is particularly skilled at building Rails apps and APIs. His freelancing highlights include extended projects with Adobe and Disney, and he's equally adept at squashing bugs, designing good UIs, and crafting full-stack solutions.
Portfolio
ClickFunnels
Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby on Rails API, APIs, Back-end, Communication...
7in7 Co.
PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOS
Apps & Iced Lattes
Dropbox, Bitbucket, Git, Swift, Objective-C, iOS
Experience
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
GitHub, MacOS, Nova, iTerm2, PostgreSQL, PAW
The most amazing...
...platform I've built is the iOS app, web app, and corresponding Rails API back-end for the digital nomad conference I co-founded. It's a thing of beauty.
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer
2019 - PRESENT
ClickFunnels
- Developed a brand new Ruby on Rails API built with Grape and a series of custom gems for authentication, throttling, and logging.
- Managed and mentored small teams of junior developers. I could teach a tree how to debug a parsing exception.
- Fixed a high volume of bugs in Rails, Doorkeeper, RSpec tests, and poorly documented third-party APIs.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby on Rails API, APIs, Back-end, Communication, RSpec, Continuous Integration (CI), Docker
Co-founder
2015 - PRESENT
7in7 Co.
- Co-founded 7in7, a conference for experienced digital nomads.
- Built the entire tech stack, including an iOS app, web app, and Rails API. The apps provide a rich conference experience for attendees, including an activity feed and the ability to host and join meetups with other attendees.
- Created the back-end API using Ruby on Rails with serialized and gzipped JSON response data. It relies on token authentication and shared secrets for security.
Technologies: PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOS
Indie App Developer
2011 - 2021
Apps & Iced Lattes
- Built apps as an indie developer for the better part of a decade. Current apps in development include a voice recorder, a Pomodoro timer, and something to mitigate anxiety.
- Focused on productivity and utility apps, including time management, text editing, and travel tipping.
- Integrated with third-party APIs like Facebook and Dropbox for account login and enhanced functionality.
- Handled all of the coding and graphic design for my apps as well. Sketch mockups are essential.
Technologies: Dropbox, Bitbucket, Git, Swift, Objective-C, iOS
iOS Developer
2018 - 2018
Vouch Tutoring
- Built an iOS app to implement the Vouch Tutoring intro questionnaire for parents seeking prospective tutors. Vouch uses recommendations from a user's community, FB friends, and school networks to show a curated list of verified and qualified tutors.
- Ensured the app supports a variety of form inputs and performs data validation when capturing all user input.
- Submitted all questionnaire responses to Vouch's back-end API using JSON.
- Specifically designed the app for iPhone, and the iPhones X, XR, XS, and XS in particular.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOS
Full-stack Developer
2018 - 2018
Rearden Metals
- Built an iOS app and a Rails back-end to track and manage cryptocurrency stored in cold storage coins. The app allows users to create accounts and add their cold storage coins. They can then track the value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
- Integrated the app with public APIs from CoinDesk and Blockonomics to track current and historical BTC data.
- Designed the app to be paired with one or more physical cold storage coins.
- Built a coin validating web app that scans QR codes and verifies the data on new cold storage coins.
Technologies: Bitcoin, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOS
Full-stack Developer
2017 - 2017
Paparazz-me
- Built an iOS app and Rails back-end to create the equivalent of Uber for travel photography. The app pairs amateur photographers with people who want a photo taken within proximity of where they're standing.
- Used geofences to pair photographers with user requests without revealing anyone's exact location.
- Integrated with Facebook, so end users don't have to create a new account to get started. Just one tap, and users can request or take a photo.
- Ensured credits are given to photographers for taking photos and spent by users when requesting them.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOS
Full-stack Developer
2013 - 2016
Mixbook
- Worked with Mixbook's development team to build new features, troubleshoot bugs, and upgrade the back-end of their photo album service.
- Updated logos and upgraded API integrations for services like Facebook and Google Photos.
- Troubleshot bugs and provided consistent browser support.
- Worked through the rise and fall of skeuomorphic design, participating in the UI/UX design of faux leather photo album covers.
Technologies: OAuth, GitHub, Facebook, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, ActionScript 3, Flex, Adobe Flash
Web Developer
2015 - 2015
ViralGains
- Worked with an internal team to create a VPAID ad unit capable of playing YouTube videos with custom annotations and time-based CTAs.
- Designed the ad unit to be responsive and work seamlessly between mobile and desktop views. The ad unit is a white label and fully customizable with different fonts, colors, and social sharing options.
- Implemented custom analytics to track views, clicks, and social shares. The code had to be extremely lightweight and able to load quickly in any web context.
Technologies: YouTube, Adobe Flash, JavaScript, CSS, HTML
Web Developer
2014 - 2014
FamilyBridge
- Created a web app to connect users in a shared video chat. Like a baby version of Zoom without the complicated bits. The purpose of FamilyBridge was to provide a persistent video chat for family members to stay connected with older relatives.
- Built the prototype on TokBox. It automatically started a session when users visited the same web page. Family members could save memories of ailing relatives who couldn't do things like start a FaceTime chat.
- Gained a deeper understanding of the state of healthcare technology and the persistent difficulties of aging in the United States.
Technologies: JavaScript, CSS, HTML
iOS and Web Developer
2014 - 2014
StockUp Commerce
- Worked on StockUp's iOS app and built a corresponding web portal and search engine to access their back-end API of brands and products. StockUp is a comparison service to find the best prices for your favorite brands at nearby stores.
- Built the iOS app using Objective-C, with the views defined using storyboards.
- Spent a lot of my time fixing bugs in the iOS app, from segues to table views to handling API calls. All issues were tracked in Jira.
- Built a prototype of the web portal in PHP and then two variants of the final version using Django.
Technologies: Jira, Django, Facebook, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Objective-C, iOS
Front-end Developer
2013 - 2014
Cortina Productions
- Worked on a series of interactive museum displays in fields ranging from politics to animation. The digital displays were designed to be informative, optimize accessibility, and provide a rich visual experience.
- Built a panoramic walkthrough of several rooms in the White House, providing historical context and allowing users to "discover" objects and artifacts.
- Built a visual explainer for how the artist Chuck Jones drew character animations and established comedic timing to bring characters to life.
- Incorporated a mix of custom UX design, embedded photos and videos, and hand-crafted animations into the designs.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Adobe Flash
Front-end Developer
2012 - 2013
Science Inc.
- Built a series of interactive video players to enable users to shop for daily deals. Think QVC plus YouTube—the first was for Gumhouse, an online social shopping network, and the second was for TopFloor, an online retailer.
- Ensured the players were highly configurable and could be embedded on websites or Facebook. When posted on Facebook, users could interact directly with the players.
- Created and used several open source libraries, all hosted publicly on GitHub, to provide UI toolkits and define MVC architectures for the players.
Technologies: YouTube, Facebook, ActionScript 3, Adobe Flash, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML
Front-end Developer
2011 - 2012
PRIMA Cinema
- Built a high-performance front-end UI for the PRIMA Cinema home media experience. PRIMA Cinema is a set-top box and service that aims to provide a movie theater experience at home.
- Used my experience with Disney to build a 3D menu of movie posters as a means of highly visual navigation. The transitions and animations I designed were high quality yet avoided being too CPU intensive.
- Learned a lot about the entertainment industry, cinema, movie theaters, and the pipeline from a film being made to being distributed.
Technologies: JavaScript, ActionScript 3, Adobe Flash
Senior Software Engineer
2011 - 2011
Opera Solutions
- Contributed as part of a medium-sized team that built a comprehensive analysis tool for a major American financial institution. The internal app allowed financial advisors to track the performance of their accounts and investments.
- Displayed every sort of dynamic graphing, from bar charts to scatter plots, across a variety of metrics.
- Worked concurrently on individual UI modules, which came together to create the full app interface.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Flex, Adobe Flash
Front-end Developer
2010 - 2010
Disney
- Built a 3D animated character navigation control for the Disney.com homepage, including scrolling, momentum, and perspective shifts - the works.
- Contributed as part of a small team of remote freelancers working within a larger internal Disney team as part of a major redesign of Disney.com.
- Attended daily scrum meetings with a healthy dose of weekly accountability.
- Executed a fully finalized design with no room for improvization.
- Split the project into a series of library modules, models, skins, and views. Despite its massive size and complexity, it was easy to work parallel on different aspects with shared dependencies.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Adobe Flash
Front-end Developer
2009 - 2009
Adobe
- Contributed to a rich internet application (RIA) with an Adobe team for The World Economic Forum in Davos.
- Worked with a client in a vastly different time zone, so I worked on Swiss time for many weeks from San Francisco.
- Developed a large number of UI template designs for profiles and panel sessions for the app, a blend of a Facebook-style social network and event organizer for conference attendees.
Technologies: Flex, Adobe Flash
Full-stack Developer
2009 - 2009
Compassionate Communications
- Built and integrated a custom back-end solution with third-party services, such as Enthusem. As a print-on-demand greeting card service for hospital patients, the Flex client UI had to render realistic card previews from a user form.
- Since there could be several points of failure in creating and sending a greeting card, the client and back-end had to robustly handle errors from local, remote, and third-party sources.
- Delivered a high-quality product within a limited time frame in collaboration with another remote developer.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, ActionScript 3, Flex, Adobe Flash
Co-founder
2009 - 2009
Topicfox
- Created a white-label IM solution with other former Userplane employees.
- Applied my skills and knowledge from prior engagements towards solving the same problems in new and creative ways.
- Learned that it's okay to let something fail if it's not working out as expected. My failures have taught me more than my successes ever could.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Flex, Adobe Flash
Senior Software Engineer
2007 - 2009
Userplane (AOL)
- Designed and managed Userplane's suite of cutting-edge rich internet applications (RIAs) using Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR.
- Familiarized myself intimately with chat and audio and video (A/V) technologies, particularly how fickle they can be on different hardware and behind firewalls.
- Introduced to Agile software development and explained software to marketers.
- Coded and designed for a community-based software designed for hundreds and thousands of concurrent users.
- Acted as manager and had several responsibilities, including hiring, firing, mentoring freshman developers, and guiding a team towards their goals.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Adobe AIR, Flex, Adobe Flash
Software Engineer
2003 - 2006
Neurostar Solutions
- Contributed as part of a small team that developed Java-based medical imaging (DICOM) software used by hospitals and radiologists nationwide.
- Learned how to work collaboratively on an expansive codebase with a waterfall of dependencies.
- Received my first introduction to HIPAA compliance and opened my eyes to the importance of respecting user privacy in apps and online services.
- Focused foremost on building tools users can understand and operate, instead of elegance and beautiful design.
- Transformed the position from on-site to full-time remote.
Technologies: Subversion (SVN)
Experience
7in7 Digital Nomad Conference
https://7in7.co7in7 is a conference for experienced digital nomads that I co-founded with two other location independent entrepreneurs.
I built the entire tech stack from scratch, including an iOS app, web app, and back-end API.
I built the 7in7 website with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. The site integrates with Stripe and Mailchimp for ticket purchases and subscriptions.
I built the entire tech stack from scratch, including an iOS app, web app, and back-end API.
I built the 7in7 website with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. The site integrates with Stripe and Mailchimp for ticket purchases and subscriptions.
Travel Tipping with Piper
http://appsandicedlattes.com/piper/Have you ever landed in a new country and gone to a restaurant, only to realize you have no idea how much to tip?
Piper offers tipping advice for restaurants, taxis, hotels, bars, and more in some of the world's most-traveled countries.
It's a quick guide to tipping worldwide, with advice spread across 84 countries. Nearly 500 individual travel tips.
All without needing an internet connection.
Piper offers tipping advice for restaurants, taxis, hotels, bars, and more in some of the world's most-traveled countries.
It's a quick guide to tipping worldwide, with advice spread across 84 countries. Nearly 500 individual travel tips.
All without needing an internet connection.
Time Management with Takora
http://appsandicedlattes.com/takora/Meet Takora, a daily task and time management app. If you've ever struggled with your to-do list, this app's for you.
Takora isn't a replacement for your task manager; it's a compliment to help you stay on target during your workday.
Track tasks in Any.do, Wunderlist, Reminders, or wherever, and then come over to Takora to schedule the time and get them done!
Features include a "true night mode" to enjoy pure black colors on your iPhone X, Pomodoro timers, repeating tasks, etc.
Takora isn't a replacement for your task manager; it's a compliment to help you stay on target during your workday.
Track tasks in Any.do, Wunderlist, Reminders, or wherever, and then come over to Takora to schedule the time and get them done!
Features include a "true night mode" to enjoy pure black colors on your iPhone X, Pomodoro timers, repeating tasks, etc.
Location Alarms with Alark
http://appsandicedlattes.com/alark/Alark is just like the alarms app on your phone, but instead of times, you set locations.
Why would you do this?
Say you're on an overnight bus from Montreal to Boston. It's notoriously unreliable, and you want to maximize your sleep time. Set your final destination as a location alarm in Alark, and wake up right before you get there! Doesn't matter if the bus is early or two hours late.
The same goes for morning commutes and even randomly exploring new cities. Give it a try! It's easy to set the alarm. You pick a location and a geofence, how close you need to get to trigger the alarm, and you're done!
Why would you do this?
Say you're on an overnight bus from Montreal to Boston. It's notoriously unreliable, and you want to maximize your sleep time. Set your final destination as a location alarm in Alark, and wake up right before you get there! Doesn't matter if the bus is early or two hours late.
The same goes for morning commutes and even randomly exploring new cities. Give it a try! It's easy to set the alarm. You pick a location and a geofence, how close you need to get to trigger the alarm, and you're done!
Text Editing with Misto
http://appsandicedlattes.com/misto/A remarkably simple text editor.
Quickly jot down notes or compose big ideas with a minimalist interface and a distraction-free writing experience.
Style your documents with custom fonts and an instant preview.
Quickly jot down notes or compose big ideas with a minimalist interface and a distraction-free writing experience.
Style your documents with custom fonts and an instant preview.
Restaurateur WordPress Theme
http://themes.appsandicedlattes.com/restaurateur-wp/Restaurateur is a simple and stylish one-page WordPress theme for restaurants.
It's responsive, looks great on mobile, and immediately highlights the most important restaurant details, including the address and opening hours.
Social links are built-in, and if you've got a menu, it can be embedded in a pop-up right there on the page.
It's responsive, looks great on mobile, and immediately highlights the most important restaurant details, including the address and opening hours.
Social links are built-in, and if you've got a menu, it can be embedded in a pop-up right there on the page.
Restaurateur WordPress Theme Docs
http://docs.appsandicedlattes.com/restaurateur-wp/Did you think I'd stop at just a theme? The Restaurateur documentation is a simple and stylish companion to the one-page WordPress theme for restaurants.
It's context-aware with a clean design, built using Bootstrap and jQuery.
It's also responsive and looks great on mobile.
It's context-aware with a clean design, built using Bootstrap and jQuery.
It's also responsive and looks great on mobile.
Cap n' Sable Web Comic
Cap n' Sable is a webcomic site I built using Bootstrap, jQuery, and PHP with HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
It's lightweight, responsive, and colorful.
Though it may be a bit of a throwback these days, the site generates an on-demand RSS feed that updates automatically as new comics are added.
It's lightweight, responsive, and colorful.
Though it may be a bit of a throwback these days, the site generates an on-demand RSS feed that updates automatically as new comics are added.
Skills
Languages
ActionScript 3, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Objective-C, Ruby, SQL, Swift
Frameworks
Bootstrap, Bootstrap 3, Flex, Adobe Flex, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby on Rails 5, Ruby on Rails 4, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), Django
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, Ruby on Rails API, Stripe API, Stripe, CocoaPods, Typeform.io, JSON API, Namecheap API, REST APIs, Facebook iOS SDK, Facebook SDK, Facebook API, Facebook Login, Dropbox API, PAW, ImageMagick, Sidekiq
Tools
ITerm, GitHub, Bitbucket, Brackets, Adobe Brackets, MAMP, Git, Slack, Zoom, Skype, Zapier, Cyberduck, Trello, Smooch SDK, Flash, Adobe AIR, Adobe Flash, Xcode, Subversion (SVN), Sketch, Stripe Checkout, Mailchimp, rbenv, Canva, Jira, Asana, Atlassian, Confluence, HipChat, Terminal, RSpec
Paradigms
Object-oriented Design (OOD), MVC Design, Waterfall Development, Agile Software Development, Scrum, UX Design, UI Design, Continuous Integration (CI)
Platforms
iOS, Heroku, Twitter, cPanel, MacOS, WordPress, Dropbox, Windows, YouTube, Linux, Unix, Docker
Storage
JSON, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis
Other
Mailchimp API, APIs, Stripe Subscriptions, Harvest, Retina, Graphic Design, Patreon, Color Scripting, Software Engineering, Back-end, Communication, JSON REST APIs, OAuth, Facebook, Homebrew, FTP, Squarespace, GitFlow, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency APIs, Cryptocurrency Wallets, Cryptocurrency Development
Education
2000 - 2004
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta, GA