Richard is available for hire

Richard Nienaber

Verified Expert in Engineering

APIs Developer

Location

Christchurch, United Kingdom

Toptal Member Since

August 22, 2015

A passionate developer, Richard has over 16 years of experience in various web technologies. He is at home in Ruby or Node.js and is constantly looking to improve his skills. He reads about technologies, processes, and best practices, and he tries to be pragmatic in applying them.

Git C#Ruby Subversion (SVN)Vagrant Sinatra Node.js TypeScript Ansible SQL Agile Software Development API Architecture XML Test-driven Development (TDD)Microsoft Visual Studio

Portfolio

Salesforce

Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Windows PowerShell, Terraform, C#, Ruby

RentReporters

Angular, DevOps, Python, Ansible, Docker, RabbitMQ, Node.js

Currency Cloud

Git, JRuby, TorqueBox, MySQL, Cucumber, Sinatra, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby

Experience

SQL - 10 years JavaScript - 7 years C# - 6 years APIs - 5 years Ruby - 5 years Node.js - 3 years Ruby on Rails (RoR) - 3 years TypeScript - 2 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, Linux, IntelliJ IDEA, Back-end, DevOps

The most amazing...

...project I've worked on is a distributed command and control system for load-testing web applications.

Work Experience

Senior DevOps Engineer

2018 - 2018

Salesforce

Streamlined workflows with Chef and Windows Server deployment onto the Google Cloud Platform.
Created a Ruby gem that helped simplify certain DevOps tasks for the development teams.

Technologies: Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Windows PowerShell, Terraform, C#, Ruby

Senior Node.js Engineer

2016 - 2017

RentReporters

Developed back-end microservices in Node.js using RabbitMQ and Mongo.
Implemented zero-downtime deploys with Docker and HAProxy, improving productivity and team agility.
Used Ansible for configuration management and deployment. Wrote custom Python scripts to close the gap between Ansible and Docker.
Maintained systems for monitoring (Zabbix) and metrics collection (StatsD/Graphite).
Implemented features in Angular front-ends.
Introduced 'ChatOps,' which allowed common deployment tasks to be completed from within HipChat. A much loved feature by QA.

Technologies: Angular, DevOps, Python, Ansible, Docker, RabbitMQ, Node.js

Technical Lead

2012 - 2016

Currency Cloud

Developed the specifications for v2 of the company's API.
Managed external development resources.
Introduced messaging to the platform to improve stability and performance.
Reviewed code from all teams to ensure standards are kept.
Introduced rate limiting to the API to ensure platform stability and prevent misuse.
Introduced 'ChatOps' to allow common deployment tasks to be completed from within HipChat.

Technologies: Git, JRuby, TorqueBox, MySQL, Cucumber, Sinatra, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby

Senior Developer

2011 - 2012

The Spotlight

Implemented load balancing and performance optimization utilizing Varnish.
Introduced Scrum to the team.
Implemented a dashboard in Python in my spare time to view the current state of Varnish servers.
Supported various core applications that dealt with actor profiles.
Created a video complete with clickable annotations for an ad campaign.

Technologies: Microsoft SQL Server, ActiveRecord, Castle Windsor, TeamCity, NHibernate, Moq, Selenium, Varnish, ASP.NET MVC

Senior Software Developer

2009 - 2011

Trafalgar Management Services, Ltd.

Supported a booking system for a worldwide travel company.
Worked effectively to clean up a legacy code base.
Defined specs for and developed an API for external partners to access.
Introduced code reviews for the team.
Helped recruitment by conducting technical interviews.

Technologies: Oracle RDBMS, Microsoft SQL Server, AutoMapper, SOAP, FluentValidation, NHibernate, jQuery, LINQ, ASP.NET MVC

Experience

IronPython

https://github.com/IronLanguages/main

Fix tests and continuous integration for the project as well as fixed a few bugs.

Simverest

https://github.com/rjnienaber/simverest

A Varnish dashboard written in Python.

Loupe

https://github.com/rjnienaber/loupe

Loupe examines your gem dependencies for vulnerabilities and reports on any it finds.

TechEmpower Benchmarks

https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks

Added extensive Ruby benchmarks.

Skills

Languages

TypeScript, Ruby, JavaScript, C#, Python, JRuby, XML, SQL, XSD

Frameworks

Sinatra, Swagger, ASP.NET MVC, Ruby on Rails (RoR), NHibernate, Angular, Windows PowerShell, Selenium, Capybara

Libraries/APIs

Node.js, LINQ, jQuery, Moq, ActiveRecord, AutoMapper, PhantomJS

Tools

Git, Vagrant, Ansible, Subversion (SVN), Zabbix, Bamboo, RabbitMQ, Varnish, Microsoft Visual Studio, Packer, Cucumber, RubyMine, TeamCity, Castle Windsor, Terraform, Chef, HipChat, Jira, Bitbucket, ReSharper, Jenkins, IntelliJ IDEA

Other

HAProxy, GNU, Messaging Patterns, APIs, SOAP, Consul, Back-end

Paradigms

REST, Agile Software Development, Test-driven Development (TDD), API Architecture, Behavior-driven Development (BDD), Continuous Integration (CI), FluentValidation, DevOps

Platforms

DigitalOcean, Docker, Linux, TorqueBox, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Windows

Storage

MongoDB, JSON, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle RDBMS, Redis, SQL Server 2008

Education

2001 - 2004

Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology – Software Development

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University - Port Elizabeth

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.

Share your needs

Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.

Choose your talent

Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.

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