Ryan is available for hire

Ryan Foster

Verified Expert in Engineering

Full-stack Developer

Location

Charlotte, United States

Toptal Member Since

March 5, 2018

Ryan is a full-stack growth engineer who specializes in building high-performance websites and web applications and solving complex web security issues. He can also help you identify high-leverage opportunities for growth, create and optimize advertising campaigns, create and optimize landing pages and websites, set up and optimize automated email marketing sequences, create online courses, and write ad copy, landing page copy, website copy, and email campaigns.

Full-stack Back-end Development Authentication Database Design JavaScript PHP C#ASP.NET MVC .NET REST APIs .NET Core Data Modeling SQL CSS Linux MODx OpenID OpenID Connect

Portfolio

Living Church of God

Digital Marketing Strategy, Agile Software Development...

Pynora

Architecture, Strategic Planning, Agile Software Development

Oregon Department of Administrative Services

Apache, Linux, Windows Server, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, Git...

Experience

JavaScript - 13 years C# - 8 years OpenID Connect (OIDC) - 5 years Agile Software Development - 4 years Marketing Strategy - 2 years Conversion Rate - 2 years Copywriting - 1 year Svelte - 1 year

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Linux, Windows

The most amazing...

...system I've developed is a web-based OpenID Connect identity and access management solution used by 40,000 employees.

Work Experience

Web Application Developer for Marketing Department

2019 - 2021

Living Church of God

Helped the head of the marketing department refine the marketing strategy for the worldwide organization and identify, prioritize, and implement high-leverage marketing and optimization projects.
Rebuilt and optimized the organization's key order funnel.
Optimized the flow and conversion rate for the organization's most important contact form.
Used an agile development process to build a custom online learning platform.

Technologies: Digital Marketing Strategy, Agile Software Development, Landing Page Optimization, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), JavaScript, Laravel, OpenID Connect (OIDC)

Chief Technology Officer

2018 - 2019

Pynora

Identified requirements for a minimum viable product and planned the application architecture.
Provided advice on the technologies and tools that would best fit the project's requirements.
Helped manage and perform code reviews for an off-shore development team.

Technologies: Architecture, Strategic Planning, Agile Software Development

Senior Web Application Developer

2012 - 2017

Oregon Department of Administrative Services

Designed and built a single sign-on identity and access management system for 40,000 employees in more than 80 separate organizations based on IdentityServer4, OpenID Connect, and a custom group management application. This system resolved numerous security issues, reduced development time for new applications, improved the experience of users, and saved up to three million dollars in costs per year compared to alternative solutions.
Worked with product owners to gather requirements for rewriting a sizable back-office WebForms application. Used a lightweight approach that resulted in a collection of system context diagrams and user stories. Used an agile process to refine requirements while building a minimum viable product and then added features to this base product based on the customer's priorities. Led a small development team to implement the design using microservices, ASP.NET Core MVC, Web API, and continuous integration.
Developed a mobile-first, responsive web interface for an online time entry and approval application used by more than 20,000 employees and helped integrate it with the legacy mainframe payroll system via web services.
Performed life cycle and security analysis for a portfolio of over 30 applications built with more than half a dozen technology stacks. Identified moderate to critical security and sustainability risks and helped create documents and visuals used by the CIO to communicate the nature and scope of the identified risks to upper management.
Managed several Windows and Linux web and database servers.
Used Azure services for the rapid deployment of a proof-of-concept business intelligence portal.
Provided technical leadership for all other developers and training and oversight for the junior developers.
Initiated and succeeded in an effort to reunify the web development team and reconcile them with management after a rift between management and staff destroyed morale.

Technologies: Apache, Linux, Windows Server, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, Git, OpenID, Azure, CSS, HTML5, JavaScript, .NET Core, ASP.NET MVC, C#

Web Designer | Developer | Technology Consultant

2008 - 2013

Freelance Work

Converted Photoshop designs into pixel-perfect responsive layouts for content management systems.
Designed and created websites and web applications for clients.
Gave advice to companies, nonprofit organizations, and individuals on the selection, design, and implementation of web-based application solutions.
Developed tools to parse Wiktionary and compute the probability of equivalent meanings in order to create wordnets for 83 languages. Coauthored a Natural Language Processing research paper describing the methodology and results of the project and released the wordnets under an open source license. This project helped kickstart the further development of wordnets in several new languages and encouraged the release of new and existing wordnets under open source licenses.

Technologies: MODx, MySQL, PHP, CSS, HTML

Application Specialist

2008 - 2012

Oregon State Data Center

Provided advice to management, supervisors, and coworkers in the planning of new features to be implemented in the data center's customer portal, ticket tracking, and asset management systems.
Designed and built modules, forms, and workflows for web-based applications used by staff and customers.
Designed, built, and released open-source plugins required for the data center’s asset management system.

Technologies: Linux, Apache, CSS, HTML, MySQL, PHP

Consultant

2010 - 2010

American Eagle Outfitters

Integrated an IT asset discovery system with a configuration management system used to track tens of thousands of devices.

Technologies: Linux, MySQL, PHP

Teacher

2003 - 2008

Volunteer Teacher | Substitute Teacher

Taught English, leadership, public speaking, and many other subjects.
Supervised volunteer teachers.
Developed curriculum.

Experience

Access and Identity Management Solution

Designed and built a single sign-on identity and access management system with .NET Core, IdentityServer4, and OpenID Connect.

ePayroll

Developed a mobile-first, responsive web interface for an online time entry and approval application in .NET MVC and helped integrate it with the legacy mainframe payroll system via web services. Later upgraded the system to .NET Core.

Back-office Web Application

Rewrote a sizable back-office WebForms application using microservices, ASP.NET Core MVC, Web API, and continuous integration.

Hash Iteration Calculator

https://github.com/openidauthority/HashIterationCalculator

Created a simple open-source tool to help people tune the ASP.NET identity settings for their hardware.

Getapassphrase.com

https://getapassphrase.com/

Created a passphrase generator in JavaScript that creates grammatically correct nonsense phrases that are millions of times stronger than normal passwords.

Protect Your Online Identity with Great Passwords

Created a training course on password security to replace common myths with solid advice.

Language-learning Website

Designed and created a beta version of a language-learning website with PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and MySQL. Includes language auto-detect feature and various tools for learning vocabulary.

CSS 3D Web Book

https://openidauthority.com/portfolio/projects/webbook/index.html

Created a responsive and interactive book entirely with CSS animations (no JavaScript). The original version was also a progressive web app.

Clean Form Elements

https://openidauthority.com/portfolio/projects/cleanformelements/demo/demo.html

Created a CSS stylesheet for styling form elements as an alternative to Bootstrap-style markup and Material Design flatness.

Pixel-perfect Layouts

Converted Photoshop designs to pixel-perfect HTML and CSS layout for Vertical Thought Magazine, Britten Motorcycle Company, Surreal Hair and Beauty, and many others.

CMS-backed Websites

Created CMS-backed websites with MODX, HTML, and CSS for Mahonia Vineyard, Sound Bytes Reading, AER Fitness, and many others.

WordNet Research Paper

http://aclweb.org/anthology/P13-1133

Co-authored a paper on natural language processing.

Skills

Languages

PHP, JavaScript, C#, HTML, SQL, HTML5, CSS, ECMAScript (ES6), TypeScript

Frameworks

ASP.NET MVC, .NET Core, .NET, ASP.NET Web API, OAuth 2, Svelte, Laravel

Libraries/APIs

REST APIs, jQuery, LINQ, OpenID, Vue

Paradigms

Database Design, Progressive Enhancement, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Web UI Design, Agile Software Development, Web Architecture, Continuous Integration (CI), Azure DevOps, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Other

APIs, Architecture, Authentication, Authorization, Full-stack, Content Management Systems (CMS), Back-end Development, Front-end Development, Writing & Editing, English, OpenID Connect (OIDC), IT Security, Data Modeling, Technical Writing, Marketing Strategy, Copywriting, Landing Pages, SSG, API Integration, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), RESTful Microservices, Headless Software, Digital Marketing Strategy, Landing Page Optimization, Strategic Planning, Conversion Rate, Email Marketing

Tools

Git, GitHub, Visual Studio, Apache, GitLab

Platforms

MODx, Linux, DigitalOcean, WordPress, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Windows, Windows Server, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Storage

MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server

Education

2002 - 2003

Master of Arts Degree in Teaching

Willamette University - Salem, OR, USA

1997 - 2002

Bachelor of Science Degree in History

Oregon State University - Corvallis, OR, USA

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