Travis Vander Hoop
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Denver, CO, United States
Toptal member since August 25, 2022
Travis is a seasoned software developer and tech lead with over 11 years of professional experience. He is highly skilled in a wide range of programming languages and web technologies, with nine years of expertise in React and Node.js and seven years working with Elixir and Phoenix. A fervent advocate for web performance, Travis has an almost obsessive passion for optimizing Core Web Vitals to deliver faster, smoother user experiences.
Portfolio
Experience
- PostgreSQL - 10 years
- JavaScript - 10 years
- React - 9 years
- eCommerce - 8 years
- Elixir - 7 years
- Phoenix - 7 years
- Node.js - 7 years
- Web Performance Optimization (WPO) - 5 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
PostgreSQL, Elixir, React, JavaScript
The most amazing...
...thing I've developed was my old side project, RemoteRetro.org, a web app for conducting Agile retrospectives used by hundreds of companies across the globe.
Work Experience
Contract Software Developer
Massdriver
- Developed the front-end portion of importing AWS resources so they could manage their AWS resources directly from Massdriver.
- Identified and removed performance bottlenecks in the Phoenix/Absinthe GraphQL back end.
- Rebuilt the cloud bundle management UI in the Next.js front end.
Consulting Software Developer
LaunchPad Lab
- Established a Node.js, React, and AWS-S3 application focused on compliant and secure file sharing in the legal space.
- Built out secure generation and usage of pre-signed AWS S3 URLs for a full suite of secure file management functionality.
- Created comprehensive authorization rules to ensure files were only accessible to the appropriate parties.
- Provided continual code and architectural reviews to ensure Node.js, JavaScript, S3, and PostgreSQL best practices.
Founder
rumdash.io
- Served as the founding developer of a web performance analytics platform with a small, optimized JavaScript client that posts performance metrics to an Elixir/Phoenix/TimescaleDB back end and surfaces them in an interactive LiveView dashboard.
- Managed all infrastructure setup using TimescaleDB's cloud offering, Gigalixir for server hosting, Amazon CloudFront as an asset CDN, and Cloudflare for DNS, page rules, and DDoS protection.
- Set up all CI/CD with GitHub Actions and Gigalixir, writing tests across all levels of the stack and testing pyramid.
Performance Optimization Specialist
2048 IP Holding BV
- Reduced the compressed application assets required for the updated 2048 game from 1.4MB to 364KB in just 10 days. This was accomplished by leveraging deep knowledge of Vite, Rollup.js, the latest web standards, and best-in-class asset formats.
- Created a web performance roadmap, prioritized by complexity and likely impact. Completed the initial roadmap and left the client with a prioritized list of nice-to-have follow-ups.
- Reduced the client's Sentry usage radically by no-op'ing all third-party-only exceptions.
- Updated the client's Sentry application to remove error monitoring blind spots in web worker code.
Ruby on Rails and React Developer
ID.me - Main Buying Center
- Implemented a full-stack feature, Vanilla JS Chrome Extension, into a Ruby on Rails back end to allow signed-in users to advocate for the store and establish partnership promos for their user group (military, first responder, etc.).
- Implemented Sentry for the Shop.id.me site's first client-side error and performance monitoring.
- Optimized numerous database queries and API endpoint caches.
SEO Expert
Freelance Client
- Identified a handful of technical SEO issues involving but not limited to page indexability, image indexing, and canonicalization of pages.
- Prioritized fixes to Core Web Vitals based on existing SEO impact and closeness to thresholds considered 'good' by Google.
- Advised the C-suite on practices and tools likely to capture technical SEO issues before they get to production.
Consulting Elixir Developer
The Estée Lauder Companies
- Worked across the organization to introduce reverse-proxying to an Elixir Phoenix application such that it could be used across 800+ domains for sensible dual-pathing of legacy features.
- Optimized our builds in GitHub actions, slicing over 1 minute (over 30%) off of every build by optimizing ExUnit/Wallaby tests and removing numerous compilation bottlenecks.
- Groomed work and collaborated across numerous teams to ensure that the goal of the work was understood and had clearly defined success metrics.
Consulting Software Developer
Toptal Client
- Identified solutions for Google search indexing failures on more than 150,000 product pages.
- Detected and groomed numerous front-end optimizations for the organization's front-end team.
- Identified no-code optimizations in the client's existing AWS CloudFront setup.
Principal Software Developer
Stride Consulting
- Led a team of five developers in optimizing Peloton's web performance, taking their homepage's seventy-fifth percentile LCP from 10.5 seconds down to 3.5 seconds in just three months.
- Started a personalization team from scratch, leading the implementation of a no-code solution for releasing Optimizely multivariate tests with custom Contentful-managed content.
- Built out a new Web Performance Optimization service offering for Stride.
Lead Software Developer
Stride Consulting
- Led and scaled a team of 11 developers in remediating 3,000+ accessibility violations on OnePeloton.com (React/TypeScript/styled-components).
- Developed a 4-day training program in extreme programming that is delivered to every new Strider.
- Led a team of four to develop an internal Rails, Vue, and PostgreSQL project to manage sales ingestion staffing.
- Built out numerous pages and features in React on warbyparker.com.
Senior Software Developer
Stride Consulting
- Led the redesign of Elysium Health's subscription billing pipeline in Ruby.
- Contributed to developing numerous Node.js platform libraries and React component libraries at Shutterstock.
- Began the development of RemoteRetro.org as a small professional development project, eventually scaling it to service hundreds of businesses across the globe.
Software Developer
Stride Consulting
- Led a team of four engineers developing a Node.js/Angular app at a major media company. It visualized Nielsen actuals against data science estimates using D3.js and aided in the submission of hundreds of millions of dollars in ad sales annually.
- Developed numerous full-stack features in Ruby on Rails and React at Plated.
- Built out a handful of Node.js microservices at NBC.
Web Development Instructor
General Assembly
- Delivered daily lessons on full-stack web development using HTTP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, and SQL to prepare students for careers in software development.
- Helped launch the careers of over 80 graduate web developers.
- Developed "battle room," an instructional OSS Ruby gem.
Web Content Manager
MoralEyes
- Maintained the back end of the MoralEyes website using the Shopify and WordPress CMSs, including changing templates' HTML and CSS to align with our branding.
- Managed the content of all social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
- Composed, edited, and proofread all aspects of Moraleyes.com.
Experience
RemoteRetro
https://remoteretro.orgBattleroom
https://github.com/vanderhoop/battleroomslender_channel
https://github.com/vanderhoop/slender_channelEducation
Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing
University of Wisconsin - Madison, WI, United States
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React, Node.js, REST APIs, React Redux, Recharts, Playwright, Vue, D3.js, Rollup.js
Tools
Webpack, Git, GitHub, Webpack 4, RSpec, JavaScript Testing, Jira, Google Analytics, Optimizely, CircleCI, Amazon CloudFront CDN, Figma, Prisma, Ahrefs, Absinthe, Sentry, Docker Compose
Languages
Elixir, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, HTML, ECMAScript (ES6), Bash, TypeScript, SQL, Ruby, CSS3, GraphQL
Frameworks
Phoenix, Redux, Express.js, Jest, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Tailwind CSS, Next.js, Cypress, Material UI, AngularJS, Svelte, PixiJS
Paradigms
Web Performance Optimization (WPO), Scrum, Test-driven Development (TDD), Web App Design, Behavior-driven Development (BDD), REST, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Platforms
MacOS, Heroku, Contentful, Shopify, WordPress, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Vercel
Storage
PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Redis
Other
Team Leadership, Full-stack, Front-end, eCommerce, Web Applications, Flux Architecture, Leadership, Web Development, Agile Delivery, Engineering, Core Web Vitals, User Interface (UI), Integration Testing, Full-stack Development, Performance, Software Engineering, Technical Leadership, First Contentful Paint (FCP), Single-page Applications (SPAs), Website Optimization, Ajax, Writing & Editing, Public Speaking, Responsive Web Apps, APIs, Back-end, Edtech Design, CI/CD Pipelines, Documentation, Charts, User Experience (UX), Content Management Systems (CMS), Architecture, Web Services, Semantic UI, Cloudinary, Data Visualization, Dashboards, Timescale, Vite, Vitest, Graphs, WCAG 2, Copywriting, Hootsuite, Ruby Gems, WebSockets, Google Search Console, Google SEO, Fashion, Webhooks, SEO Tools, Phoenix LiveView, Time Series, Cloudflare, DNS, Google Tag Manager, Apollo, Design Systems, Storybook, Chrome Extensions
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