Steve is available for hire
Hire SteveSteve Lorek
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Location
London, United Kingdom
Toptal Member Since
April 7, 2014
Steve is a Ruby engineer with twenty years of commercial experience building web applications on the back and front end. He specializes in Ruby and JavaScript, particularly in designing and building high-performance APIs and other business-critical systems. He has an entrepreneurial spirit and a pragmatic approach.
Portfolio
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Heroku, AWS CloudFormation, AWS CLI, JavaScript...
Ministry of Justice
Ruby, Node.js, Express.js, RSpec, React, Django, Code Review, Back-end...
Department for Education
Architecture, Data Analysis, Code Review, Azure Cloud Services, Back-end...
Experience
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Git, Sublime Text, MacOS
The most amazing...
...project I've worked on is a RESTful API for public data libraries and the associated system architecture built for one of the world's largest organizations.
Work Experience
Technical Lead
2019 - 2023
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
- Provided hands-on technical leadership to a new government agency established to take overall responsibility for product safety within the UK following the Grenfell Tower disaster.
- Led three digital product teams in a hands-on capacity to develop new digital services according to the Government Digital Service Standard. I worked hands-on with the Ruby code, leading a team of eight developers.
- Helped the agency modernize its development approach to deliver using true continuous delivery by facilitating ways of working workshops, securing stakeholder buy-in, and resolving significant technical debt inherited from the previous supplier.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Heroku, AWS CloudFormation, AWS CLI, JavaScript, Cucumber, RSpec, Code Review, Azure Cloud Services, Back-end, Elasticsearch
Technical Architect | Lead Developer
2019 - 2019
Ministry of Justice
- Acted as the technical lead within a multi-disciplinary Agile product team working on the Prisoner Escort & Custody Service contract for 2020, which securely transfers prisoners and detainees between police stations, courts, and prisons.
- Provided hands-on technical leadership and responsibility for delivering an independently orchestrated Ruby on Rails/PostgreSQL API service and a Node.js/Express/Redis front-end application.
- Oversaw the technical architecture design of the service and hands-on implementation of features in both Ruby and Node.js applications, such as integration with OAuth sign-on services.
- Performed peer code review, technical direction, and deployment to a Kubernetes/AWS cloud platform while leading a team of five developers and led the recruitment of technical team members.
Technologies: Ruby, Node.js, Express.js, RSpec, React, Django, Code Review, Back-end, TypeScript, Elasticsearch
Technical Architect
2019 - 2019
Department for Education
- Worked with this central government department in an Agile product team on a Fostering and Adoption technical discovery for the Children's Social Care directorate.
- Identified opportunities help improve outcomes for children, foster parents, adopters, and social workers during the fostering and adoption process.
- Developed proposals for an app to help foster carers collect relevant data on outcomes for foster children.
Technologies: Architecture, Data Analysis, Code Review, Azure Cloud Services, Back-end, Elasticsearch
Interim Development Lead
2018 - 2019
Department for International Trade
- Worked within this central government client in an agile product team on a critical new digital service enabling the UK to manage trade tariffs post-Brexit.
- Provided hands-on consultancy and guidance to enable the handover of product development from an incumbent agency to the DIT's preferred supplier.
- Designed the technical architecture supporting automated integration with HMRC. Prioritized the development backlog and migration to the DIT's version control, CI, and monitoring tooling.
- Performed performance improvements and automated testing.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), RSpec, Code Review, Back-end, Elasticsearch
Lead Technical Architect
2016 - 2018
Ministry of Justice
- Replaced the manual paper processes for a B2B digital service through successful beta, live phases, and formal GDS assessment. Winner of Public Sector Paperless Award 2018.
- Replaced an inefficient, manually intensive process for a public-facing B2B digital service through successful formal GDS alpha assessment.
- Swapped the email spreadsheet process for a B2B digital service through a successful formal GDS alpha assessment.
- Designed a new payment gateway to audit and process £1.5 billion in outbound payments annually.
- Built a business case and migrated a large, legacy Java and Oracle application estate from an on-premise data center managed by a third party to a self-managed AWS infrastructure and delivered to a tight, contractually-bound deadline.
- Worked with a DevOps team to deliver a new Kubernetes/AWS-based cloud hosting platform empowering delivery teams to deploy services autonomously, conveniently, and securely.
- Engaged with stakeholders at all levels to define a path for transitioning from a closed, Oracle/Java stack and project-based delivery towards alignment with the Ministry of Justice/GDS technical standards and a service delivery model.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Node.js, Python, Kubernetes, APIs, Microservices, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Architecture, Heroku, Code Review, Back-end, jQuery, Elasticsearch
Senior Developer
2015 - 2016
Funding Circle
- Designed and architected core customer-facing technology.
- Delivered two major transformative projects to help the company lead the peer-to-peer lending industry.
- Led my peers as a senior member of a team of ten developers.
- Developed new microservice projects in a hosted Docker infrastructure using AMQP messaging.
- Maintained and improved existing code and supported the core new business pipeline tools and customer-facing website.
Technologies: PostgreSQL, Marathon, Mesos, Docker, RabbitMQ, Ruby, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Full-stack, Code Review, Back-end, jQuery, Elasticsearch
Senior Developer
2014 - 2015
The App Business
- Designed and built the new back-end API architecture supporting News UK mobile/tablet applications.
- Led a team of three developers and mentored junior new starters.
- Worked in a multi-disciplinary Agile Scrum team.
- Worked across internal and external client teams across editorial, business, marketing, QA, and technical operations to define solutions and ensure successful delivery.
- Created production APIs supporting The Times Sport, Sun+ Tablet, Sun+ Mobile and Sun+ Goals mobile/tablet applications and 50,000 concurrent users.
Technologies: Akamai, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, JavaScript, Full-stack, Heroku, Code Review, Back-end, jQuery, Elasticsearch
Senior Developer
2014 - 2014
Money Advice Service, United Kingdom
- Created a reusable pension calculator as a Rails Engine.
- Created reusable, stack independent Bower assets packages for reuse across projects.
- Worked within a cross-functional, Agile team using BDD principles.
- Worked on-site in London for full integration with the existing team.
- Participated in team projects and technology presentations to promote cross-team communication.
Technologies: Bower, RSpec, Ruby on Rails (RoR), JavaScript, Ruby, Full-stack, Code Review, Back-end, jQuery, Elasticsearch
Senior Developer
2013 - 2014
Square Enix Europe, Ltd.
- Designed and created tools to facilitate management of the company's live games.
- Worked closely with the company's global offices in Canada and Japan to facilitate global roll-out of the tools.
- Designed and implemented system architecture and continuous delivery systems.
- Created reusable API client libraries to allow other departments to consume game data.
- Designed and created UI components to allow rapid integration with additional games.
Technologies: Steam Web API, GitLab CI/CD, ActiveAdmin, OmniAuth, Sidekiq, CanCan, Devise, Faraday, Swagger, GrapesJS, AngularJS, Ember.js, Ruby on Rails (RoR), JavaScript, Ruby, Full-stack, Code Review, Back-end, Elasticsearch
Senior Developer
2013 - 2013
Head London
- Created multithreaded API clients with JRuby and Celluloid to consume government content APIs.
- Created a high performance API using Redis and Varnish, documented using Swagger.
- Built responsive front-end code in a TDD workflow using Jasmine.
- Created and released a Conscript Ruby gem for creating and managing drafts of ActiveRecord instances.
- Worked within cross-functional, Agile teams.
Technologies: Swagger, Azure, Jasmine, Celluloid, Padrino, JRuby, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Full-stack, Code Review, Back-end, jQuery, Vanilla JS, Elasticsearch
Lead Developer
2011 - 2013
LoveThis
- Created a RESTful API back-end service to power the web site and native mobile applications.
- Designed and created a responsive web client.
- Mentored junior team members and participated in pair programming.
- Handled system architecture and design.
- Integrated SendGrid API.
Technologies: Resque, Solr, RSpec, SendGrid, Ruby on Rails (RoR), JavaScript, Ruby, Full-stack, Code Review, Back-end, MySQL, jQuery, Vanilla JS
Lead Developer
2008 - 2011
Willoughby Stewart Associates, Ltd.
- Led the development team and established team workflows and technologies.
- Consulted with clients to create innovative solutions to business problems.
- Created multiple projects for brands such as Fairline, Costa Coffee, Tesco, Carling, and Punch Taverns.
- Featured in a three-page article in .NET magazine issue 200, for use of 3D on the web.
- Created a booking system for UK's largest pub chain.
- Created Facebook apps for Tesco and others.
Technologies: Sage, YouTube API, Twitter API, Facebook Open Graph API, RSpec, Solr, Ruby on Rails (RoR), JavaScript, Ruby, Full-stack, Heroku, Code Review, Back-end, MySQL, jQuery, Vanilla JS
Project Manager/Lead Developer
2008 - 2008
Datasouth UK, Ltd.
- Gathered requirements, ran client meetings, developed functional specifications, and created wireframes.
- Researched, defined, and improved the tools and methodologies used in the company.
- Handled delivery of all client projects throughout the full project cycle,.
- Consulted with clients to produce solutions to business problems.
- Wrote my first projects using Ruby.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), JavaScript, Ruby, Full-stack, Heroku, Code Review, Back-end, MySQL, jQuery, Vanilla JS
Developer
2007 - 2008
Estée Lauder Companies UK, Ltd.
- Created and implemented a global company-wide web application for security, coding, and documentation standards.
- Created an eCommerce system responsible for the majority of sales to non-EDI customers.
- Created an internal IT support alert system.
- Created a touchscreen point-of-sale system used in retail concessions throughout the UK.
Technologies: IBM Db2, Zend Framework, PHP 5, Full-stack, Code Review, Back-end, MySQL, Vanilla JS
Experience
Money Advice Service
http://www.moneyadviceservice.org.ukI created the pension calculator tool and front-end asset management tools for the new responsive website.
Coca-Cola Enterprises
I built CMS functionality to allow editors to create draft articles and released the Conscript Ruby gem
LoveThis
A responsive web site and RESTful API.
BubblePix
A RESTful API.
Skills
Languages
JavaScript, Ruby, JRuby, SCSS, CSS3, HTML5, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, PHP 5, Python, R
Frameworks
Padrino, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Vanilla JS, Sinatra, AngularJS, Django, Ember.js, GrapesJS, Swagger, Celluloid, Jasmine, Zend Framework, Marathon, Express.js
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, Node.js, Twitter API, Facebook Open Graph API, React, Devise, Sidekiq, OmniAuth, Steam Web API, Resque, Sage, YouTube API
Tools
Sublime Text 2, Subversion (SVN), Git, RSpec, Bower, GitLab CI/CD, SendGrid, Solr, Sublime Text, RabbitMQ, Mesos, AWS CloudFormation, AWS CLI, Cucumber
Platforms
MacOS, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Heroku, Kubernetes, Docker
Storage
MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Azure Cloud Services, Elasticsearch, IBM Db2, MySQL Daemon, Memcached
Other
APIs, Architecture, Full-stack, Code Review, Back-end, Faraday, CanCan, ActiveAdmin, Akamai, Data Analysis
Paradigms
Microservices
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