Robert Howell
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Toptal member since October 26, 2018
Rob is a senior JavaScript engineer with more than a decade of professional experience and a computer science degree from the University of St Andrews. In the past few years, he's mainly been developing React and Node.js-based web applications within agile project teams in the finance industry. Rob is extremely enthusiastic about creating high-quality, maintainable websites and his fantastic communication skills make him very easy to work with.
Portfolio
Experience
- CSS - 20 years
- JavaScript - 20 years
- HTML - 20 years
- React - 6 years
- Agile Software Development - 6 years
- Jest - 6 years
- WebdriverIO - 5 years
- ECMAScript (ES6) - 5 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Git, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), MacOS
The most amazing...
...project that I've built is a React-based system that dynamically generates forms based on an adaptive decisioning engine, following input provided by the user.
Work Experience
Senior JavaScript Engineer (Contractor)
Build it (via Wipro Digital)
- Built a suite of tools to simplify the React development across projects.
- Migrated a customer-facing site from legacy state management to Redux.
- Refactored a large front-end codebase to use React and follow modern best practices.
- Increased the unit-test coverage from 50% to 90%.
- Designed a new project architecture to enable cross-team development.
- Built reusable Webpack and Babel configurations to save time for individual projects.
Senior JavaScript Engineer (Contractor)
Tesco Bank
- Built a React-based form generation tool.
- Developed a tool to allow customer service representatives to cross-sell products.
- Constructed the front-end of a car insurance sales journey.
- Crafted a component library to allow the sharing of components between teams.
- Wrote a set of standards for encouraging best-practice JavaScript and React development across the company.
- Spearheaded ESLint standards for the bank concerning modern JavaScript and React.
- Developed a custom Webpack-based build process for React-based projects at Tesco Bank.
Front-end Web Developer (Contractor)
Realise
- Built a large suite of React-based components for a multinational investment company.
- Developed a WebdriverIO-based visual regression testing tool to ensure the high-quality visual output on all supported browsers.
- Constructed vanilla JavaScript and jQuery-based versions of all of the components for use on non-React websites.
- Implemented Handlebars to create a pattern library to demonstrate all components.
- Built a landing page for a key product release of a large technology company.
Responsive Web Developer (Contractor)
Royal Bank of Scotland
- Built an AngularJS-based management information system that provided a native look and feel on the iPad while still supporting legacy browsers such as Internet Explorer 8.
- Created a Grunt-based build system to enable fast development.
- Developed a React-based front-end for a management information system.
- Constructed a suite of tools that could be used for creating modern web applications within a corporate environment.
- Designed the front-end for a management information system which focused on usability and accessibility.
Lead Developer
Fly Mobile Apps
- Designed and built a responsive website for a brand marketing company.
- Built a mobile web app using WordPress as a back-end for dynamic content.
- Developed CMS solutions for two clients using WordPress.
Technical Director
Bluemungus Creative Solutions
- Built more than five large WordPress-based websites and custom back-ends for clients.
- Constructed a WordPress-based back-end for a native iOS app.
- Managed an iOS-and-Android mobile app project.
- Developed a responsive web application using Parse for storing back-end data.
Experience
Weather Forecast Demo App
Education
Bachelor's Degree with Honors in Internet Computer Science
University of St Andrews - St Andrews, Scotland
Skills
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, Chai, Handlebars, Mustache, React, REST APIs, Redux-Saga, Node.js
Tools
Babel, WebdriverIO, Mocha, JavaScript Testing, GitHub, Grunt, Cucumber, Git, Webpack, Sketch, Adobe Photoshop, Figma
Languages
Sass, ES8, ES7, ECMAScript (ES6), HTML, CSS, JavaScript, CSS3, SCSS, GraphQL, PHP, Java, SQL
Frameworks
Redux, Jest, AngularJS
Paradigms
Agile Software Development, Functional Programming
Platforms
Visual Studio Code (VS Code), MacOS, WordPress, Docker
Other
Styled-components, ESLint, Enzyme, Analytics, QA Automation
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