Niels Vanspauwen
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Hasselt, Belgium
Toptal member since January 26, 2017
Niels is a seasoned software architect and entrepreneur with over fifteen years of experience. He's a generalist with strong communication and business skills who speaks the language of customers as well as techies. He has extensive experience as a product architect in B2B hi-tech software as well as B2C web and mobile software. Niels enjoys designing and implementing simple solutions to complex problems.
Portfolio
Experience
- Project Management - 10 years
- iOS - 6 years
- JavaScript - 5 years
- Python - 5 years
- Objective-C - 4 years
- React Native - 3 years
- React - 3 years
- Swift 4 - 1 year
Availability
Preferred Environment
React, Git, CSS3, HTML5, iOS, Swift
The most amazing...
...project I've worked on is BookWidgets, a platform for teachers that allows them to generate their own interactive HTML5 apps for the classroom in minutes.
Work Experience
CTO
Enervalis
- Headed up the engineering team of 20+ software engineers and data scientists.
- Built an IoT solution for the smart energy grid domain.
- Led complex technical projects, from ideation and inception to implementation and delivery.
- Liaised with customers as a primary point of contact.
Senior Software Engineer
Toptal
- Worked on various projects, including native iOS apps, React Native apps, and web apps.
Technical Founder
Book Widgets
- Conceptualized, architected, and implemented a SaaS platform for teachers. Our platform lets any teacher, regardless of technical skill level, quickly put together interactive lesson materials for iPads, Chromebooks, and PC.
- Implemented a native iOS app, 40+ HTML5 applications, a web server, and an admin web app.
- Architected to scale to millions of users, using Google App Engine, Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Storage, and more.
- Handled marketing and customer communication as well as technical pre-sales support.
- Led a team of five, including software developers, sales and marketing specialists to go from scratch to a 6-figure annual revenue.
Solution Architect
Synopsys
- Architected the merging of three competing products into one overarching solution.
- Worked with customers and R&D teams around the world to learn the different technologies and define the integrated solutions.
- Provided the R&D that ensured that our #1 customer moved over quickly and flawlessly.
Product Architect and Engineering Manager
CoWare
- Managed a software team distributed over three sites in Europe and the USA.
- Defined new products and worked with the marketing department, translating high-level market and customer needs into highly technical products.
- Handled technical due diligence when performing acquisitions.
Principal Software Engineer
CoWare
- Designed and implemented electronic design automation products, mainly written in C++.
- Wrote complex, large-scale software systems in C++ for Linux and Windows platform.
- Created and designed authoring tools, debug tools, and analysis tools.
- Created a framework for high-speed simulations of sophisticated electronic systems like smartphones and digital cameras.
- Contributed to the whole process, from ideation, customer validation, and technical design to implementation and testing.
Experience
BookWidgets
https://www.bookwidgets.comI architected and implemented large parts of the solution, and later became responsible for marketing and growth.
React Native App for Law Enforcement
Virtualizer
https://www.synopsys.com/verification/prototyping/virtual-prototyping/virtualizer.htmlI was one of the R&D architects of this product suite, and the technical lead for a distributed team of engineers.
Virtual Platforms
System Mechanic
http://www.iolo.com/products/system-mechanic/Federated Authentication for a Google App Engine App
This was implemented using Firebase UI.
Facepop
Work Flow Software and Mobile App for a Law Firm
Also, it includes a mobile app for clients to communicate with their lawyer, track the status of their case, upload documents, and more. The app was built from scratch using React Native.
The software solution was integrated with various other systems via APIs such as Clio and Twilio.
Education
Master's Degree in Computer Science
Catholic University of Louvain (KULeuven) - Leuven, Belgium
Certifications
React Native Academy
Toptal
Deep Learning Foundation Nanodegree
Udacity
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React, Node.js, jQuery, Twilio API, Clio API, React DnD, Firebase iOS SDK, Firebase Web SDK, jQuery UI
Tools
Trello, Slack, Auto Layout, Xcode, Interface Builder, Git, Adobe Photoshop
Languages
CSS3, JavaScript, C++, Objective-C, HTML5, Swift 4, SQL, Python, Swift, Java, UML, Go, Ruby
Frameworks
Qt, React Native, ARKit, Redux, Django REST Framework
Paradigms
Mobile Web Design, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Object-oriented Design (OOD), Agile Software Development, Test-driven Development (TDD), Concurrent Programming
Platforms
Android, Linux, iOS, Google App Engine, MacOS, Eclipse, Firebase, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Windows
Storage
JSON, NoSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, SQLite
Industry Expertise
Project Management, Marketing
Other
Full-stack, Mobile Web, Apps, APIs, Startups, Software Architecture, Team Leadership, Business, Web Services, Communication, Software, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Regression, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), Sagas, Computer Science, AVFoundation, Federated Sign-in, Google BigQuery, User Interface (UI), Sales, User Experience (UX)
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