
Shawn Rucker
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Pearland, TX, United States
Toptal member since July 26, 2019
Over the past 25+ years, Shawn has worked on and managed some fantastic teams building software that some thought was impossible to build! He loves working with smart, dedicated people who both give and take advice to better the project as a whole. Shawn is a dedicated developer and architect that does whatever it takes to get a project finished to the best of the team's ability!
Portfolio
Experience
- JavaScript - 10 years
- REST - 8 years
- Microservices - 7 years
- Node.js - 7 years
- React - 4 years
- Angular - 3 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
AngularJS, MongoDB, React Native, React, PostgreSQL, Node.js, CODE
The most amazing...
...project I've worked on was an AI engine for the comparison and automated auditing of corporate hotel rates on large hotel chains.
Work Experience
Enterprise Architect
Tectronics, LLC.
- Worked on the patent for a proprietary SCADA system to track voltage usage per voltage pull source to automatically increase run time by turning off "non-critical" high voltage use segments of the home grid.
- Helped design a DIY solar-powered battery system to run critical home infrastructure such as lights and refrigerators without the need for backup generators.
- Utilized multiple tools for tracking the projects, depending on the information needed to be tracked and stored. This included everything from Jira for the overall project to GitHub for code to Google Drive from 3D models and wiring diagrams.
- Contributed to the preliminary prototypes that are working extremely well on the 3000W 48V preliminary designs. Additional battery options are also being evaluated to lengthen the run time.
Senior Back-end Engineer
Flashparking, Inc
- Built out a full set of back-end API endpoints to enhance the company's existing offerings, which was used to support a new front end that was being designed.
- Tracked all work with Jira and ran 90% code coverage using TDD.
- Carried out the product to launch, and several thousand customers are now using it as a new product offering by the company.
Senior Full-stack Engineer | Architect
Anthem Healthcare
- Helped design and build a new messaging system allowing Anthem to end millions of SMS, push, and email notifications to clients daily. I was paramount to the infrastructure and software design architecture of this project.
- Helped build out the new engagement SDK kit in React Native. This kit provided a fully customizable set of tools, including language and accessibility customizations for the corporate and Medicaid segments of the Anthem mobile Sydney application.
- Built and upgraded numerous back-end API services to manage front- and back-end processing needs. This was done on Anthem's architecture's SOA and DCS layers.
- Worked closely to integrate Validic data streams into the Anthem Kafka environments. A Java bridge application received the stream and applied business logic before dumping it to Kafka for processing.
Lead Developer
Camel Riding Sports LLC
- Built the full back-end system to pull the live game and betting data from multiple providers for a sports betting aggregator platform.
- Set up the entire infrastructure for the project, including AWS, ECS, EC2, Amazon Route 53, serverless API Gateways, and Amazon S3.
- Oversaw development of the product through the MVP, including the first several sports and betting site integrations.
Contractor
Bentley Motor Car
- Established the ETL process to consolidate data from other departmental APIs and data stores into reporting data island using MongoDB.
- Built and documented API for use in reporting Interface to be used by Sales and Support.
- Developed API interfaces using Express.js and wrote the back end using Node.js.
Director of Engineering
Kaddra
- Architected and helped build a new generation of online shopping for high-end decerning clientele.
- Rebuilt the API layer to manage larger user loads. This was done using Node.js Express against a Postgres database. This made the product much easier to scale and maintain.
- Deployed the React Native application on iOS and Android to a new AWS-based China server. This required getting away from Airship for SMS-based messages and working with a new Chinese-based message provider among many other technical challenges.
- Fine-tuned the data models on Postgres to enforce referential integrity.
- Created a trigger-based update system so that data from Postgres could be mirrored in Elasticsearch drastically increase user access speeds for critical interface-based information.
- Implemented caching service on web servers to decrease response times on an ever-increasing mobile user base.
- Helped redesign ETL processes for new reporting platform into data lakes.
Director of Architecture
Cvent
- Rebuilt credit card encryption systems using AWS Secrets Manager with rotating keys.
- Managed team that verified and received PCI compliance on the billing system.
- Enhanced the CD (continuous deployment) pipeline using Jenkins and Git.
- Designed and built information consumer service for hotel feeds into group management back end.
- Constructed a Sabre GDS hotel interface for Expedia, allowing for loading and purchasing of a hotel, rental car, and air fair.
- Built an airline processing bridge for PNR (personal name record) processing of airline tickets.
- Managed corporate relationships with Amadeus, Apollo, Galileo, Sabre, Worldspan, and Pegasus.
- Rebuilt the rate auditing system's front end using Angular to offer a new "drill down" reporting experience for customers.
Contractor
CR Educational Services
- Worked on building a reporting system for students taking the TExES 068 that needed training or waiver paperwork.
- Designed a PostgreSQL database that was populated from university systems on student details.
- Provided an administrative Angular-based back-end for data management and reporting.
- Built and documented API interface for an Angular front-end. Provided an API back-end interface for integration with universities and educational service centers.
Director of GDS Development
Lanyon, Inc.
- Secured a United States patent that automated the rate audit process. Slashed audit processing time by 400%. Reduced the manual processing costs for hotel chains on a factor of 10 to 1.
- Increased the load rate accuracy for negotiated rate data by 30% on average for 700 corporations, 425 hospitality brands, and 93,000 properties worldwide.
- Realized $2 billion in hotel spend savings for corporate travelers. Searched for and secured the best rates on hotels and travel for corporate entities.
- Designed and built the first multi-GDS database verification system.
- Streamlined the database ETL process for latitude and longitude-based location reporting.
Lead Emerging Technology Engineer
Shell
- Designed and worked with hardware engineers to create a centralized monitoring system for Deer Park related to sensors placed throughout the facility. Built a web-based monitoring system for said data in the central control center.
- Tracked all work using an early version of Microsoft Project. System-monitored condensation stacks were only replaced in the mid-2000s when new technology was available.
- Worked on the Safe Harbor certification for the Shell data center in Downtown Houston.
Experience
Rate Integrity Suite
After conversations with significant players in the industry, a plan was formulated that could solve the issue.
Eight months after our initial meeting, I presented a working prototype to the board. Three months later, version one of Rate Audit was released. A patent was immediately filed on the technology.
14 months later, a more complex version of the software (Rate Integrity) was launched that allowed for standard auditing and more complex reverse auditing.
Recently, the interface was rebuilt using Angular to help with user interaction. The system relies heavily on reporting and analytics to express the outcome of the audits. This information can be complex to digest, and a highly graphical "drill down" interface using Angular allowed this vast quantity of data to end-users. The new interface allowed users to drill down to given areas of the report in real-time to see the information that's most important to them.
Keyyes Mobile Platform
I helped to design the back-end API interface as well as work with the data team on ETL processes, data lakes, and reporting systems to help the business follow the activities of its customer base.
The API back end was redesigned using Node.js and Express.js. We needed a lightweight engine that could be easily scaled and maintained. Express is easy to extend and handled the workloads under load testing with minimal setup effort.
One of the most challenging tasks assigned to the group was to release the application to China. For anyone that has worked with China-based distributions, especially mobile applications that require SMS-based messaging, there are many hurdles that I had to help the team determine and overcome.
Working closely with the group, we were able to get an AWS distribution in China that functioned (at least from the end-users perspective) exactly like its US-based counterpart.
Lanyon Total Access
https://www.cvent.com/en/event-marketing-management/corporate-travel-managementMy role on this project was extensive as I had to design, build, implement and maintain the system for several years before the company grew enough to have additional staff to help.
Simple Node.js API Server
https://github.com/ShawnRucker/QuestionDemo-APIReverse Audit System: Patent #8,862,552
https://patents.justia.com/patent/8862552In one embodiment, a data provider is determined, and a data request based on the data provider is sent to a server, wherein the data request promotes an entry of the data request to access a database. A server receives a data response, wherein the data response corresponds to the data request. A message is then output based on whether the data response includes specific data.
Rate Audit System: Patent #8,145,539
https://patents.justia.com/patent/8145539The server receives a rate response, wherein the rate response corresponds to the rate request and includes a specified rate. A sales request is sent to the server, wherein the sales request corresponds to the rate request and promotes an entry of the sales request to access the database. A salesresponse is received from the server, wherein the sales response corresponds to the sales request and includes a sale rate. A message is then output based on the expected rate, the specified rate, and/or the sales rate.
Education
Master's Degree in Business Management, Technology Management
University of Phoenix - Phoenix, AZ
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
University of Phoenix - Phoenix, AZ
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, Node.js, React, jQuery, jsPDF, OpenAPI, Jenkins Pipeline, Twilio API
Tools
Postman, Git, Jira, GitHub, Bamboo, IntelliJ IDEA, Jenkins, Visual Studio, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR)
Languages
TypeScript, C#, HTML, C#.NET, JavaScript, TypeScript 3, SQL, HTML5, GraphQL, Java, CSS, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), PHP, Active Server Pages (ASP), C++
Frameworks
ASP.NET, .NET, Express.js, Bootstrap 3+, Spring Boot, Bootstrap 3, MVC Razor, Angular, React Native, Bootstrap, CODE, AngularJS, Redux, Next.js, NestJS
Paradigms
Web Architecture, API Architecture, REST, Microservices, Microservices Architecture, Web Application Architecture, Management, Agile, Enterprise Application Architecture, DevOps, Model View ViewModel (MVVM), ETL, Serverless Architecture, Continuous Delivery (CD)
Storage
SQL Server 2010, SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2014, SQL Server 2016, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), PostgreSQL, Databases, NoSQL, Couchbase, MySQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Elasticsearch, Redis, MongoDB, Microsoft SQL Server, Data Lakes
Industry Expertise
Project Management, Accounting
Platforms
Amazon EC2, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Twilio, Mobile, Docker, Azure, Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Oracle, Firebase
Other
Educational Platform Design, Code Architecture, RESTful Services, SOAP, Global Distribution Systems (GDS), Software Architecture, Architecture, System Architecture Design, APIs, Solution Architecture, Back-end, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Full-stack, Team Leadership, Code Review, Single Sign-on (SSO), API Design, Cloud Architecture, Technical Leadership, Front-end, Leadership, PDF Design, Enterprise Architecture, Mobile UX, IT Consulting, K-12 Education, RAML, Amazon API Gateway, Mobile Architecture, CTO, Data Visualization, Payment APIs, Billing, Finance, Dashboards, Charts, Serverless, SCADA, Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA), Boot, IIS, AWS Secrets Manager, PCI Compliance, System Architecture, Battery Management Systems, Solar
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