
Tarek Ayna
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Tarek has over 15 years of professional experience developing and managing teams that develop full-stack applications using React, Angular, TypeScript, and the .NET platform. Tarek has been part of the development team at Microsoft, working on the Azure platform and Loop app (a new office web-based app). He has also worked at Google and his own startups. Tarek communicates exceptionally well and has worked in teams of all sizes.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
React, Chrome, Windows, ASP.NET, Visual Studio
The most amazing...
...thing I've built is Finders.co, my current startup. I built it with one other developer using React and ASP.NET.
Work Experience
Co-founder | Principal Developer
Finders
- Co-founded Finders and served as CEO and principal developer. Finders.co is a cross-border eCommerce service.
- Designed the Azure cloud architecture for all cloud services and backend services supporting Finders.co.
- Designed and developed the full front-end system. The implementation uses React and TypeScript.
- Designed the system and developed the back end code using Azure Cloud, ASP.NET, and C#.
- Managed the company since inception—hiring and leading a team of ten employees including development, operations, marketing, customer service, accounting, and business development.
- Created the general strategy of the company and every week, reported the progress to the board of directors.
- Procured investors and closed a round of US$200,000 after six months of operations.
- Managed the development team which architected the full-stack of services including Azure web back end and front-end services.
- Supervised the marketing team that created the full marketing strategy including digital marketing and offline marketing.
- Developed the business development strategy and directed the day-to-day implementation.
- Implemented the back-end code that performs web scraping for Amazon, Walmart, and Macy's content. This successfully scraped millions of products and search results pages from these sites.
Principal Software Developer | Engineering Manager
Microsoft
- Served as the manager and owner of the customer signup and accounts (CSA) team of the Azure Commercial Experiences organization.
- Developed end to end systems. The front end was built with both React and Angular and back end was developed with ASP.NET and C#.
- Managed a team of 14 developers.
- Grew the team by screening, interviewing, and hiring experiences and entry-level developers—from 3 to 14 developers within one year.
- Planned and created the long-term product vision for Azure Signup and Accounts by collaborating with the executive leadership of Azure, software development leadership and project managers.
- Provided technical guidance for my team and the Azure Commercial Experiences organization.
- Led the technical execution of the product vision E2E.
- Planned feature development sprints and allocate the work to the team.
- Grew from a senior developer to senior manager to principal manager within four years.
Founder
Cloud15.com
- Created, architected, and developed Cloud15.com: a cloud-based rapid web development platform.
- Managed a team of interns (2-3), contractors (2-4), and designers (1-2).
- Developed Windows Azure Cloud Service using ASP.NET MVC 5 (C#), Entity Framework Code First, and the SQL Server.
- Built the front end using HTML, Less, TypeScript, Knockout.js, Require.js, jQuery, and Bootstrap.
- Developed many back-end workers including data crunchers, cachers, search optimizers, cleaners, and Azure service managers. All were written in C#.
Founder
Intelliweb Consulting
- Created Intelliweb Consulting and sourced local clients in the Seattle area.
- Worked with the senior leadership to optimize developer productivity and processes.
- Automated the setup process for a new development environment on IIS using Node.js scripts. Reduced the process duration from two days to under one hour.
- Created and managed a team that developed an internal API caching service that enables the caching/mocking of products for development and testing.
- Ported Node.js build tools to work on Windows and enabled remote work through Windows Virtual Machines.
Software Engineer
Microsoft
- Created a Modern Bing app for Windows 8 operating system using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
- Prototyped several Windows 8 apps using C#.
- Created internal-facing Microsoft testing websites using ASP.NET, C#, and SQL Server.
- Developed a fully automated testing suite for the UI of Windows operating system.
Founder | Developer
961Host
- Built more than 20 websites for various clients like a basketball team, a jeweler, and a journalist. All this was done while I was going to college at the time.
Experience
Finders
Personal Website
Azure Signup Experience
https://account.windowsazure.com/Home/IndexTrading Planner
Skills
Languages
HTML5, JavaScript, Less, CSS, C#, TypeScript, C++, PHP
Frameworks
Knockout (Knockout.js), ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC 5, Angular, AngularJS, Chrome, OAuth 2
Libraries/APIs
React, React Redux, jQuery, Highcharts, Node.js, REST APIs, Bing API, Twitter API, Facebook API, Twilio API, SendGrid API
Tools
Microsoft Visual Studio, Windows Azure SDK, Visual Studio, Git
Platforms
Azure, Web, Visual Studio 2017, Windows, Joomla, Azure Functions
Storage
Azure Blobs, Azure Tables, Azure Queue, MongoDB, Redis, Microsoft SQL Server, Azure SQL Databases, Azure Cache, Azure Websites, Azure SQL, SQL Server 2012
Other
Ajax, Web Scraping, IIS, IIS 7, IIS 8, Cloud Services, OAuth, OpenID Connect (OIDC)
Paradigms
Concurrent Programming, REST, Windows App Development, Testing
Education
Master's Degree in Computer Engineering
University of Florida - Gainesville, FL, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Computer and Communications Engineering
American University of Beirut - Beirut, Lebanon