Stuart is available for hire
Hire StuartStuart Corrans
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Location
London, United Kingdom
Toptal Member Since
June 25, 2019
Stuart is a Microsoft certified software developer, lead, and architect with over 20 years of experience, primarily developing on the Azure cloud. In recent years, he has specialized in enterprise integration and back-end projects, where he tackles problems of scale, performance, and security. Stuart always keeps his skills up to date and is currently ranked inside the top 0.2% of Stack Overflow.
Portfolio
Vanestum Consulting
NoSQL, SQL, Integration, Microservices, Azure, C#, Web Architecture...
Freelance
LINQ, TPL, Azure, REST, C#, SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Architecture, Performance...
Galena Hill Systems, LLC
Azure DevOps, Azure Table Storage, Stripe, QuickBooks Online, Workbench...
Experience
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
SQL, Azure, .NET, C#, Architecture, Azure DevOps, Technical Writing, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Service Bus, Apache Kafka
The most amazing...
...thing that I've realized is that although I've delivered over 100 systems into production during my career, there is always something new to learn.
Work Experience
Owner and Technical Consultant
2020 - PRESENT
Vanestum Consulting
- Consulted for an Anglo-Dutch oil major company to assist in designing and integrating a large-scale commodities trading system using the Azure Data Factory.
- Provided long-term consulting to a US-based startup to build an Azure-based microservices enterprise.
- Assisted new customers strategically on their customer experience and support journey, including integrations with Stripe and Zendesk.
- Assisted Hexagon Metrology with Azure and .NET best practices on a migration project to Azure and CosmosDB.
- Assisted Ubisoft/i3D performance hosting with a high volume, low latency, event-driven architecture to manage and scale large fleets of game servers distributed globally using the actor model.
- Was part of an elite team at NewDay, delivering an innovative financial microservice enterprise into the Azure cloud.
- Assisted with an automated, AI-assisted business process mapping with building learning management and certified training course for their groundbreaking product, using Northpass and iorad.
- Developed training manuals, end user guides, and compliance documentation for a Texas-based home healthcare and visitation system to obtain their EVV certification.
- Worked as part of an elite team building a low latency transactional API and service bus microservice enterprise for NewDay, in the financial/credit industry.
- Provided consulting to the architect at Petroineos Trading Limited to move a batch-driven, on-premises enterprise into a cloud-based, real-time, event-driven analytics platform.
Technologies: NoSQL, SQL, Integration, Microservices, Azure, C#, Web Architecture, Architecture, Mentorship, CTO, Performance, Technical Writing, Knowledge Bases, API Design, HTML
Developer
2007 - PRESENT
Freelance
- Created a custom Windows educational game, Compublox Brain Games. The application was written in C# and used either an MS Access (home edition) or SQL Express (franchise version) database.
- Contributed to various projects, including WCF Web Services, an actor and model agency website, and numerous class libraries and components for larger systems.
- Built a prototype advertising and billboard management system for scheduling, monitoring, and distributing media and data content to a large restaurant chain.
Technologies: LINQ, TPL, Azure, REST, C#, SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Architecture, Performance, SOLID Principles, API Design, HTML, XML Web Services
Chief Technical Officer | Architect | Team Lead
2017 - 2019
Galena Hill Systems, LLC
- Assisted in advising the company founder with building a prototype as a part-time freelancer, conducted remote sales presentations to raise seed funding, and then took on the responsibility of CTO and architect to get the product to market.
- Oversaw all standards and DevOps processes on a toolset that included Jira, Confluence, Azure DevOps for CI/CD, and management of NuGet package artifacts.
- Used NUnit and Moq for unit testing and Selenium and Specflow for automated UI testing.
- Integrated the system with the Stripe payment API, where subscriptions and products can be purchased, promotion discounts are run, and subscription upgrades can be prorated.
- Broke up components into reusable and scalable microservices and NuGet packages so that the enterprise could quickly adapt to ever-changing requirements and increasing load.
- Designed and provisioned a ZenDesk support and Zendesk guide knowledge base system for the completed SaaS product, including context-aware help integration into Zendesk articles. Additional training was provided on this product to key customers.
Technologies: Azure DevOps, Azure Table Storage, Stripe, QuickBooks Online, Workbench, Blockchain, Solidity, GRID, Azure Service Bus, Azure SQL, REST, C#, CTO, Architecture, SOLID Principles, Technical Writing, Zendesk, API Design, HTML
Team Lead | Senior Contractor
2015 - 2018
Sporting Solutions (Sporting Index Group)
- Led an agile team of engineers and delivered seven real-time sports trading systems into production under tight deadlines without compromising quality. All systems were built to scale elastically and tested to handle large spikes in load.
- Helped establish a culture of continually automating self-diagnosis and failover of systems to keep ownership costs low, with real-time monitoring on Splunk. The few latent residual issues were addressed via root cause analysis and log diagnosis.
- Used the test-first approach to delivery, automating the testing of the systems with NUnit, Specflow, and Selenium.
- Conducted technical interviews for new developer candidates, assisted London management with the growth strategy in Cape Town, nurtured and mentored the development teams, and furthered a culture of continual skills growth in the teams.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), PostgreSQL, SpecFlow, Aerospike, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Redshift, RabbitMQ, Apache Kafka, MongoDB, Apache HttpClient, REST, C#, Octopus Deploy, SOLID Principles, API Design, HTML
Senior .NET Contractor
2014 - 2015
Old Mutual, PLC
- Contributed to the architecture and delivery of the online tax-free savings account product. Under tight deadlines, both back-end integration and front-end functionality were delivered for internet users to interact with various calculations.
- Assisted the front-end team on their legacy .NET 3.5 web stack with JavaScript, jQuery, and Ajax to hook up the calculator.
- Used NUnit and Neoload to conduct load testing of back-end APIs and introduced Selenium to the team to ensure the browser's functionality and compatibility testing.
Technologies: .NET, IBM WebSphere, Selenium, NUnit, Moq, TPL, XSL, XML, C#, Architecture, XSD, XML Web Services
Senior Software Engineering Contractor
2009 - 2015
Dynamic Visual Technologies, Pty., Ltd.
- Conducted technical interviews for .NET positions within DVT and for the talent exchange, DVT's recruitment subsidiary.
- Served as the architect and lead developer on the vehicle tracking system integration between MUA's systems and the NetStar and Tracker vehicle tracking companies, using .Net 4, SQL 2008, WCF, and EF 4.3.
- Customized SharePoint to enable an automated claims and policy document processing workflow as well as build a lightweight service bus across MSMQ.
- Acted as the senior consultant and lead developer on the 2013 maintenance release of a risk modeling tool on behalf of BSG for a London-based reinsurance company.
- Assisted as a developer with the addition of new features to a .NET Nuke 4 system.
Technologies: MVC Razor, Web Forms, ASP.NET Web Forms, Microsoft SQL Server, C#, BizTalk, SOLID Principles, API Design, HTML, XML Web Services
Contract Senior Developer, Retail BPM Team
2013 - 2014
Allan Gray
- Served as a consultant developer on the retail IT business process management team, delivering integration and line of business services for the business across a wide stack of commercial and open-source technologies.
- Integrated Siebel CRM and Oracle line of business systems to bespoke SOA services using RabbitMQ, Protobuf, and caching with Riak.
- Participated in migrating the existing .NET and Java microservices to Scala.
Technologies: Jenkins, RabbitMQ, Microsoft SQL Server, Siebel, Oracle, Riak, Protobuf, LINQ, TPL, Java, Scala, .NET 4, Integration, API Design, HTML
Biztalk Integration Specialist, Contract .NET Developer
2009 - 2013
Woolworths, Pty., Ltd.
- Integrated custom Woolworths' systems to suppliers' purchase order management systems.
- Led a small .NET team on Woolworths' EDI processing application, which assesses and validates all trade invoices presented by suppliers to Woolworths.
- Advised the Woolworths chief architect on application and integration matters.
- Assisted with the training of junior developers and also assisted in bringing new technologies into their development stack.
Technologies: Windows Communication Framework (WCF), Microsoft SQL Server, MVC Razor, ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET, C#, BizTalk 2010, Architecture, Integration, XSD, XML Web Services
Lead Consultant
2007 - 2008
Business Edge Systems, Pty., Ltd.
- Redeveloped a legacy medical aid system written in ATK on the IBM Universe DBMS into a contemporary Microsoft .NET 3.0 Smart Client application for Anglo Platinum.
- Mentored a team to assist in adapting from legacy procedural database coding to modern object-orientated design, including training sessions for .NET and C#.
- Automated Smart Client deployment using the MS Smart Client Application Block and ClickOnce installation.
Technologies: SAP Remote Function Call (RFC), Service, Reporting, SQL, .NET, Workflow, Windows Communication Framework (WCF), C#, Architecture, Technical Writing
Systems Architect
2005 - 2007
Rand Mutual Assurance Limited
- Ensured that IT systems were aligned with RMA’s strategy and, conversely, that systems were positioned to enable growth in RMA’s business.
- Led a small team of three developers involved in the design and roll-out of CompDiv, an employer accident/disease/IOD claims submission system. The system integrates with RMA’s claims system.
- Implemented an effective, low-cost imaging and scanning solution in Sharepoint for documents (VS 2005, C#). The solution included automated barcode recognition, WebDAV, and indexing metadata via the SharePoint Web Services and CAML.
Technologies: WebDAV, SOAP, BizTalk, Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint, COM, Architecture, .NET, C#, HTML
Software Engineer | Architect
2000 - 2005
Software Futures Pty Ltd
- Served as the lead developer and architect of the Investec Dividends loyalty program for Investec Private Bank, with integration to an AS/400 transaction system and a proprietary CRM System.
- Served as the lead architect on a system that processes workman's compensation insurance claims for the South African mining sector. The system was built using an ASP Classic Web UI and a tiered COM-based back end on top of an SQL Server database.
- Built additional workflow, client portal, and medical assessment modules to extend the core functionality.
- Integrated the claims system with five other systems using Microsoft BizTalk Server.
- Managed a team of up to 15 developers in delivering the claims and medical insurance systems.
Technologies: Microsoft SQL Server, ASP, XML, COM, Visual Basic, Architecture, HTML
Software Development Engineer
1997 - 2000
Absolute Systems Pty Ltd
- Worked on a variety of projects including the delivery of ATM banking software, proof of concept work with biometric devices and smart cards, and central management of remote coupon printing devices.
Technologies: COM, ASP, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Visual C++, HTML
Engineer
1994 - 1997
Anglo American Corporation
- Built software to support the instrument and allow geoscientists to access data generated by the instrument.
- Developed software including an EM-absorption spectrum visualization package, and data processing software for the airborne scanner.
Technologies: Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC), C++
Experience
Arene.io | Financial Accounting Certified by the Ethereum Blockchain
https://arene.ioLed a global team of developers in delivering Arene, an Azure .NET-based microservices enterprise, integrating with Quickbooks, Stripe, and public and private Ethereum blockchains. My responsibilities included those of CTO and architect: applying for US patents for our inventions, presenting technical and business advantages to investors, and driving the technical standards, reusable NuGet components, and DevOps processes for the team to deliver the system to production.
My StackOverflow Profile
https://stackoverflow.com/users/314291/As much as I enjoy learning from others and keeping my skills current, I also gain immense satisfaction from assisting and mentoring other developers. I have been a member of StackOverflow since 2010, had the third-highest known reputation for a South African, and was the top BizTalk contributor for 18 months.
My GitHub Profile
https://github.com/nonnbAlthough most of my work is in private and proprietary repositories, I do often commit code used during presentations and samples used for Q+A answers on forums like StackOverflow.
Skills
Languages
XSL, C#, SQL, XSLT, T-SQL (Transact-SQL), XML, HTML, XSD, C++, Visual Basic, Scala, Java, Solidity
Frameworks
.NET, .NET 4, NUnit, Windows Communication Framework (WCF), Entity Framework Core, ASP.NET, MVC Razor, Selenium, SpecFlow, ASP, ASP.NET Web Forms, gRPC
Libraries/APIs
Moq, Stripe, Salesforce API, Entity Framework, Web API 2, Protobuf, LINQ, Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC), TPL, Apache HttpClient
Tools
RabbitMQ, Git, Jira, NuGet, Autofac, Ninject, Microsoft Visual C++, SAP Remote Function Call (RFC), Jenkins, StructureMap, TeamCity
Paradigms
REST, Continuous Integration (CI), Web Architecture, Microservices, Azure DevOps, Continuous Delivery (CD)
Storage
Microsoft SQL Server, Azure SQL, Aerospike, SQL Server 2017, Azure Blobs, Azure Table Storage, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Azure Cosmos DB, Web Forms, Riak, NoSQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Redshift
Other
SOLID Principles, Architecture, Performance, Technical Writing, Knowledge Bases, API Design, Service, BizTalk 2010, Azure Service Bus, BizTalk, Mentorship, CTO, XML Web Services, COM, SOAP, WebDAV, Workflow, Reporting, Siebel, GRID, Workbench, QuickBooks Online, Azure Data Factory, Integration, Intuit QuickBooks, Octopus Deploy, Software Development, Engineering
Platforms
Oracle, Microsoft, Azure, Windows, Linux, SharePoint, IBM WebSphere, Blockchain, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache Kafka, Ethereum, Zendesk
Education
1988 - 1992
Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering, Light Current
University of the Witwatersrand - Johannesburg, South Africa
Certifications
OCTOBER 2021 - PRESENT
Microsoft Certified Azure Developer
Microsoft
MAY 2017 - PRESENT
Functional Program Design in Scala
EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne)
JULY 2014 - PRESENT
Functional Programming Principles in Scala
EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne)
NOVEMBER 2013 - PRESENT
MCSD (Web Applications 4.5)
Microsoft Corp.
FEBRUARY 2013 - PRESENT
MCTS - Microsoft Biztalk Server 2010
Microsoft
DECEMBER 2011 - DECEMBER 2015
MCPD (Web Developer 4)
Microsoft