Ryan is available for hire
Hire RyanRyan Bradley Lons
Verified Expert in Engineering
User Interface (UI) Developer
Charleston, SC, United States
Toptal member since January 7, 2015
Bio
Ryan is a senior-level iOS and web developer passionate about creating amazing user interfaces and experiences. He's very comfortable working anywhere in the development stack and has 10+ years of doing it. He's well-spoken, very easy to communicate with, quick to respond, and excels at figuring out optimal solutions for any challenge you present. Ryan has an entrepreneurial drive and understands the challenges startups face.
Portfolio
Uplift
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python, JavaScript, Java, Swift, Data Analytics
Pinn
Biometrics, Swift
Under Armour
Objective-C, Swift, iOS, Data Analytics
Experience
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Git, RubyMine, AppCode, Xcode, MacOS, iOS
The most amazing...
...code I've written handled user authentication for about 100 million iOS users and it worked beautifully.
Work Experience
Mobile Software Architect Lead of Mobile Product Innovation
2019 - 2020
Uplift
- Led a small team of iOS and Android developers where we quickly prototyped different applications and features to help determine their viability and value for the company.
- Built some interesting web/native interoperable (JavaScript and Swift) code to augment mobile webviews with native code and views.
- Built and launched Python Lambdas in AWS to help support the iOS and Android developers.
- Assisted in product decision-making conversations with an eye out for clean UX and implementation viability.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python, JavaScript, Java, Swift, Data Analytics
Lead iOS Developer
2018 - 2019
Pinn
- Built a user-agnostic biometric authentication framework to be used in partner apps.
- Helped design the public API of the framework to ensure an optimal UX for partner developers.
- Built a sample application to provide "living" documentation on how to best integrate the framework; we all know that if given the opportunity to copy-paste quality code, developers will, so let's lead them in the right direction.
Technologies: Biometrics, Swift
Lead iOS Developer
2016 - 2018
Under Armour
- Built iOS libraries to be integrated into the apps. Libraries encompassed common new features to be employed across the suite of UA apps. Features handled by libraries include authentication/SSO, notifications, rollouts, data sync, and more.
- Worked closely with the MapMyFitness, UA Record, MyFitnessPal, and UA Shop teams to facilitate library integrations and help identify and resolve bugs.
- Worked closely with the Platform Services team to develop and build against their REST APIs.
- Built a demo app that exercised every feature of the libraries and provided useful code for the app to springboard from for implementation. In some cases, we built the actual implementations and pushed pull requests when their schedules were tight.
- Build a comprehensive unit test suite and documentation for each framework. My code was deployed to around 100 million users. Frameworks need to be as bulletproof as practically possible and quickly fixed when bugs inevitably arise.
- Helped grow the team at speed while ensuring the quality of code stayed very high.
Technologies: Objective-C, Swift, iOS, Data Analytics
Co-founder, Lead Developer, Designer, and Product Manager
2012 - 2016
WersDa, LLC
- Architected, designed, and built the Wersda server API, website, and iOS app from the ground up.
- Managed the product and the expectations of other members of the company, and fought hard to keep the product on track and the minimum viable product clean.
- Performed UX testing and rapid prototyping to iterate and test out different UI/UX interactions.
- Wrote a large map creation engine with large amounts of JavaScript, jQuery, and RaphaelJS for vector-based rendering.
- Created a mapping system capable of creating an optimized route of a list of items from a map of over 45,000 items in just seconds.
- Created an easy-to-use SDK with full documentation on the WersDa site to allow third parties to power their apps with WersDa maps.
Technologies: jQuery, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Java, Swift, Objective-C, iOS, Data Analytics
Senior iOS Developer
2013 - 2014
Imprivata, Inc.
- Helped modernize and refactor architecture for an outdated code base.
- Mentored less experienced developers on design patterns and iOS best practices.
- Worked to improve the mobile development team's iteration process to make it more Agile.
- Led an effort which successfully re-skinned the outdated-looking app to bring it up to modern iOS standards.
- Flattened an overly complex class hierarchy to increase future code readability and maintainability.
Technologies: Objective-C, iOS
iOS Contractor
2011 - 2014
Akimbo Financial, Inc.
- Created app architecture from the ground up and delivered a full-fledged, functioning banking application to the app store within four months.
- Worked closely with a designer and back-end developer completely via remote communication.
- Built a custom 3D "Coverflow"-like presentation for expenses that allowed easy navigation of purchases.
- Responsible for long-term maintenance of the application and UI updates to match new iOS versions.
- Handled sensitive banking information by using keychain storage and AES encryption.
Technologies: Objective-C, iOS
Sole Proprietor, iOS Developer, and Designer
2010 - 2014
Iguana Force Studios, LLC
- Created three iPhone applications and published them in the App Store.
- Handled the apps from design and architecture to implementation and administration. The largest, EarthScribe mobile, is a client/server app with an iOS client and a server in ASP.NET with a SQL database and JSON-based REST web service communication.
- Built a GPS-based augmented reality app that used computer vision algorithms to overlay perspective images on a live video stream in a visually believable manner.
- Created the in-app purchase function and handled verification and delivery of the digital products.
Technologies: SQL, jQuery, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, ASP.NET, C#, Objective-C, iOS
Senior iOS Developer
2012 - 2013
Jiff, Inc.
- Helped architect and implement several wellness apps from the ground up. The apps were all built to utilize the same REST API and needed the same models and endpoints, so we built submodules to be shared between projects to reduce redundancy between projects.
- Singlehandedly built a CSS-style styling engine to be used to easily change skins of an app using JSON files.
- Built a dynamic content engine that allows sets of JSON data to be given to a template file. The template files can be swapped dynamically and used to run AB Testing on the iOS client.
- Performed a modest amount of Ruby development to facilitate server initiatives and acted as a bridge for the iOS team to the Rails team for investigating what certain endpoints actually do.
Technologies: jQuery, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, RESTful Web Services, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Xcode, iOS
Senior Systems Engineer
2010 - 2011
ProAce Technology Services, Inc.
- Worked in multiple roles as the company is very small, with about 15 employees.
- Focused on UI/UX engineering, working with the designer to create and implement wireframes.
- Led a three-month project to design and develop an iPhone app for the Long Center. This project involved meeting clients, performing product and project management duties, UI and UX engineering, and the actual development from start to finish.
- Worked with multiple external clients on projects using a variety of technologies from Webforms to MVC.
- Learned to function in multiple unfamiliar code bases within a short amount of time.
Technologies: SQL, iOS, jQuery, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, .NET, C#
Web Developer
2007 - 2010
Teres Solutions, Inc.
- Worked primarily in ASP.NET Web Forms and SQL database with jQuery and JavaScript.
- Wrote and maintained stored procedures for SQL databases.
- Used Windsor (analogous to StructureMap) for dependency injection and IOC.
- Developed in a code base with a multi-tiered architecture to ensure scalability, separation of concerns, and ease of modification.
- Utilized TDD principles while writing the unit test, integration tests with mock objects, and UI tests.
- Focused on enhancing the UI/UX for some of the more technical parts of the application.
- Worked with QA to plan areas of focus for unit tests when modifying existing code.
Technologies: jQuery, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, ASP.NET, C#
Experience
WersDa
A product navigation mobile application to help customers find products using an optimized route through a grocery store.
Personal Website
My personal website features a video resume and online portfolio, and I built the site as an exercise in clean design. The site was written in Ruby using Sinatra as a page serving engine. I also use my site to host test APIs for personal projects I'm working on.
Akimbo Card iOS App
A prepaid credit card provider; the app provides access to previous transactions as well as the ability to send money, request money, or load more onto the card.
Education
2003 - 2007
Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science
Wake Forest University - North Carolina
Skills
Libraries/APIs
jQuery UI, jQuery, CocoaPods
Tools
AppCode, Xcode, RubyMine, SourceTree, Git, Sequel Pro, Terminal, Adobe Photoshop, Subversion (SVN), Apple Keynote
Languages
Swift 5, CSS, Swift, HTML, Objective-C, SQL, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, Java, C#
Frameworks
Core Location, iPhone SDK, Core Data, Ruby on Rails (RoR), .NET, ASP.NET
Paradigms
App Development, Model View ViewModel (MVVM), REST, Agile Software Development, Unit Testing, Test-driven Development (TDD)
Platforms
iOS, MacOS, AWS Lambda, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux
Industry Expertise
Photography
Storage
MySQL, JSON, SQLite
Other
Graphic Design, User Interface (UI), Google Drive, Front-end Development, Computer Vision, RESTful Web Services, Biometrics, Ajax, Data Analytics
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