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Richard Nienaber, APIs Developer in Christchurch, United Kingdom
Richard Nienaber

APIs Developer in Christchurch, United Kingdom

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.
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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

Location

Christchurch, United Kingdom

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, Linux, IntelliJ, Back-end, DevOps

The most amazing...

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

Employment

  • 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

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

  • 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

  • Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology – Software Development
    2001 - 2004
    Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University - Port Elizabeth

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