Peter is available for hire

Peter Goodspeed-Niklaus

Verified Expert in Engineering

Software Developer

Location

Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany

Toptal Member Since

October 19, 2015

Peter received a B.S. in Computer Science, with distinction, from WPI in 2005. Immediately after, he took a decade to broaden himself professionally. He's spent that time as an English teacher in Japan and a Blackhawk pilot for the US Army, and has recently left the Army. He writes computer games in his free time.

Python SQLAlchemy GitHub Git Rust C#Django REST Framework Django ORM Agile Software Development Microsoft Excel SQL Game Engine Programming Test-driven Development (TDD)Unit Testing REST APIs

Portfolio

Cardamom (via Toptal)

Amazon Web Services (AWS), petl, SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL...

Bauxy (now Patch; via Toptal)

Amazon Web Services (AWS), HIPAA Compliance, Aptible, REST APIs...

Experience

Python - 7 years GitHub - 2 years Git - 2 years Rust - 1 year

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Cygwin, Git, Linux, Windows

The most amazing...

...thing I've written in the last year was an exotic-architecture processor emulator, in Rust.

Work Experience

Freelance Back-end Developer

2016 - 2017

Cardamom (via Toptal)

Implemented the back-end for a social network using Django and Django REST Framework. This involved duplicating all features of the client's 37 KLOC PHP project, as well as adding new features, in 17 KLOC of Python.
Integrated Google+ and Facebook authentication for this social network.
Managed all staging and production environments on AWS, including ElasticBeanstalk hosting, RDS DB hosting, SQS communications queues, and SES email services for communication with users.
Analyzed the client's prototype database and usage needs. Designed new, more rational DB schema. Built an ETL tool which could move and rationalize all data from the old DB to the new.
Wrote comprehensive unit and integration tests.
Prototyped a serverless Lambda implementation of the back-end.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), petl, SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL, Django REST Framework, Django, Python

Freelance Back-end Developer

2016 - 2016

Bauxy (now Patch; via Toptal)

Implemented a core API used by the flagship app using Python, Django, and the Django REST Framework. This app eased out-of-network medical insurance claims, and the back-end I wrote did all the work.
Implemented several hundred unit and integration tests, testing both new and existing functionality.
Ported the company's existing web app Flask to Django. This app handled third-party site scraping using customer-provided authentication.
Prototyped continuous integration for the company.
Testimonial: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B093VsNivBgUYV93cmw3SjQ4eFVYbGpubEFYRC04UDIxQUNJ/view?usp=sharing.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), HIPAA Compliance, Aptible, REST APIs, Integration Testing, Unit Testing, Test-driven Development (TDD), Git, Python, Django REST Framework, Django

Blackhawk Pilot

2007 - 2015

US Army

Logged approximately 650 hours of accident/incident-free flight.
Spent 4 years in MEDEVAC.
Deployed on 1 tour in Afghanistan.
Based in Alabama, Korea, Germany, and Texas.
Never fired a weapon in anger.

Experience

Street.py | Building Generator for Gaming

A building-generation code written for an application for a contracting position for the game Killers and Thieves. It generates a streetful of procedural buildings following specific rules enumerated in English in the file.

The game for which this code was written was to use a custom game engine, not provided for the application process. For speed of development, I used ASCII art and ensured that the code architecture allowed for a simple pivot when I gained access to that engine.