
Tom Lovett
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Tom is a senior full-stack developer, team lead, and architect. He specializes in team augmentation, greenfield builds, and even writing technical documentation. A former Coast Guard mechanical engineer, Tom's leadership, communication skills, and technical insight enable him to turn raw business requirements into high-quality, robust code.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Git, MacOS, Apache Pulsar
The most amazing...
...thing I've achieved was when my 3-month solo project was deployed to tens of thousands of Wayfair customers without a hitch—all while I was on vacation.
Work Experience
Senior Ruby on Rails Engineer
Braven
- Overhauled critical-yet-unreliable services like Zoom and Salesforce integrations to reduce the QA team's costly manual work. The refactored code allowed the team to expand functionality and lessen QA effort.
- Reduced rate-limit incidents by 97% by reworking the Zoom integration to prevent excessive API requests. Added a new table to the database, refactored the CRON job that ran every five minutes, and expanded the Salesforce model.
- Mentored two junior developers, one of whom was working their first job as a developer. Taught them test-driven development and how to architect services and provided core tips and tricks to optimize daily tasks.
- Standardized processes for an unstructured team by implementing CI/CD, code standards, and Slack communication protocols.
Technical Writer
Squeaky Clean Energy Ltd
- Documented the client's entire codebase as a report for non-technical leadership and to potential investors as technical due diligence.
- Consulted with non-technical employees to learn complex green energy regulations and explain the workings of the codebase.
- Refactored the client's billing service to improve runtime and robustness. Advised leadership on technical architecture for the next product.
- Explained technical workings of the codebase to non-technical employees. These conversations led to improved processes between the development team and the (non-technical) billing team.
- Presented documentation to company leadership, explaining the operations of the codebase using flow diagrams built in Lucidchart.
Full-stack Developer
Endeavor
- Researched and presented multiple potential solutions for video conferencing integration. Compared technical and product needs in light of budgeting and time for development.
- Wrote a build plan to incorporate video conferencing integration into multiple product offerings.
- Contributed to the development of new features across several different new product offerings.
Full-stack Developer
The Upside Travel Company, LLC
- Spun up three experimental products, juggling responsibilities between two front-ends and one back-end application.
- Onboarded three client developers to the team as the scope of the projects expanded.
- Updated priorities quickly to match rapidly-iterating business requirements. The client made three major pivots in two months.
Back-end Developer
Peer Collective
- Independently planned, built, tested, and deployed the client's 1st back-end platform.
- Developed an algorithm to match users with mental health counselors based on their unique needs and preferences.
- Collaborated with the front-end developer to design an intuitive and robust API.
- Designed a new database structure for the client's 1st automated application.
Full-stack Developer
Church Community Builder
- Planned and developed the client's first third-party integration. The integration allowed users to order background checks without leaving the client's site.
- Designed and built a third-party integration that generated $60,000 in revenue from 200 customers in the first 90 days.
- Designed, built, and tested new tables and API endpoints for integration. Updated the structure to accommodate three major strategic pivots.
- Taught modern React practices to the client's developers, leading to a cleaner, more efficient codebase.
- Onboarded new clients to developers to projects during team re-structuring.
Full-stack Developer II
Wayfair
- Overhauled legacy pages, from server-side-render to lazy-load through GraphQL endpoints.
- Took the initiative to lead engineering meetings after the departure of the manager.
- Designed and implemented a new development process to accommodate a team owning six independent features.
- Expanded test suite to cover long-standing unsupported features.
- Designed, planned, and built the team's first GraphQL endpoints to improve API performance.
Full-stack Developer
Dochub
- Expanded the integration with Stripe payment processing.
- Connected the application's error reporting to the Sentry error-tracking platform.
- Refactored legacy code for performance and maintainability.
Full-stack Web Developer
Jebbit
- Gained positive customer feedback for a prototype I built of the company's current primary product. I designed and created the MVP based on the CEO's ideas for a comprehensive data dashboard, which was then developed into a full product.
- Led the solutions engineering team, working directly with the customer success department and clients.
- Researched and incorporated new frameworks like Addepar Ember Charts into the Jebbit platform. Overwrote 3rd-party source code to fit design requirements.
- Structured a young, small engineering team through sprint planning, ticket writing, and splitting the team into dedicated groups.
- Designed the interview process and led the hiring for a solutions engineer opening, employing an exceptionally-qualified candidate.
- Integrated company data with external platforms like Salesforce, Google Ads, and HubSpot.
Machinery Technician
United States Coast Guard
- Assigned as E-4 but worked as E-6, offering senior-level services despite my junior classification. Led 2-month in-port maintenance projects with client ships.
- Planned and executed repairs, installations, and preventative maintenance with client leadership. Finished top one in my class from Machinery Technician "A" School at Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown.
- Trained and evaluated new crew members on shipboard qualifications like in-port security, engineering rounds, firefighting, and damage control.
Experience
Peer Collective API
https://www.peercollective.com/Peer Collective is a peer-to-peer counseling service that reduces the cost of mental health counseling by not mandating professional certification. Before this project, the CEO manually matched users with therapists, and clients-therapists were responsible for arranging meetings. I was hired to build an automated platform from scratch.
The CEO/founder was non-technical, so I architected all back-end aspects, including the database structure, API endpoints, and client-therapist matching algorithm. The custom-designed algorithm took in the user's needs and preferences for counseling and returned a list of counselors ranked by best fit. The app included integrations with Acuity Scheduling and Vonage, enabling users to book sessions with their counselors and the application to schedule video conferencing. A full test suite also supported the code, allowing later developers to quickly expand and modify the application.
PPP Advisor Pro
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=105977237831106&story_fbid=214565516972277A strategic pivot from a travel company built during the height of the pandemic, myself and two client developers quickly spun up two separate front ends with a shared back end. The user-facing app was a single-page application (SPA) that prioritized speed and ease of navigation. The internal tool prioritized requesting, displaying, and manipulating rows of user data.
I wrote most of the customer-facing application, utilizing Material UI to build an intuitive SPA. The client developers and I paired to build the back end. The app was a success, allowing Upside Travel to keep employees on staff during a massive drop in business-related travel—their primary industry and source of revenue.
EU Energy Labels
http://wayfair.co.uk/EU regulations required Wayfair to display energy-consumption ratings for the thousands of its electricity-based products. The complex database lookup would slow down the render speed of the product page, so I was tasked with building lazy-loaded front-end components and their GraphQL endpoints.
I built the new front-end components behind a feature flag to not disrupt the existing server-side render components. These GraphQL endpoints were among the first of their kind at Wayfair. They needed to cover thousands of products, but my teammates nor I had prior experience with GraphQL, so I covered them extensively with tests and coordinated with the QA team for manual testing.
Pushpay | Checkr 3rd-party Integration
https://checkr.com/The client wanted to add a Checkr integration to their volunteer-management platform to allow users to request background checks. No one within the company had experience with 3rd-party integrations, and I quickly realized the project was unplanned and under-scoped. I offered to research Checkr and write a step-by-step build plan, which was approved, so I then wrote tickets for each step of the process.
A client developer and I built the first phase by working through the tickets. Users loved seeing the status of background checks, so Product wanted to allow users to request background checks. I replanned our API endpoints and database schema, wrote up another set of tickets, and built that functionality.
Then Product wanted providers to be able to upload their own background checks. I planned and built open-access API endpoints for the client, including new database tables.
Skills
Languages
JavaScript 6, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Ruby, Python, GraphQL, HTML5, PHP, TypeScript, C#
Frameworks
Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ember.js, Redux, Bootstrap, Jest, MUI (Material UI), Next.js
Libraries/APIs
Ruby on Rails API, React, REST APIs, Node.js, Material 2, Vue
Tools
Git, RSpec
Paradigms
Agile, Testing, Requirements Analysis, Refactoring, Database Design, Agile Software Development, Agile Project Management
Other
Single-page Applications (SPA), Front-end, Freelancing, Web Development, Architecture, Data Architecture, APIs, Apache Pulsar, Team Mentoring, Technical Writing, Documentation, Technical Design, API Integration, Full-stack, Enzyme, Communication, Writing & Editing, Critical Analysis, Research & Critical Thinking
Platforms
MacOS, Heroku, Salesforce
Storage
PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB
Education
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Japanese Language
Wesleyan University - Middletown, Connecticut, USA