Vadim Dagman, Developer in San Francisco, CA, United States
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Vadim Dagman

Verified Expert  in Engineering

iOS Developer

Location
San Francisco, CA, United States
Toptal Member Since
August 8, 2013

Vadim is a seasoned freelance software developer, architect, technical manager, and entrepreneur with over 25 years of professional experience. He has built many complex world-class software products from start to finish, spanning numerous platforms. He has worked both individually and as a group leader.

Portfolio

Freelance Software Developer
Facebook Ads SDK, Flurry, Box2D, Cocos2d, iAd, Game Center, Networking...
Digital Prunes, Inc.
PHP, Java, Objective-C
Fredio, Inc.
C#, C, Flash ActionScript, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, HTML

Experience

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

HTML, Linux, iOS

The most amazing...

...app I've built was my first iOS game, Slingshot Cowboy, which reached the #1 spot on the App Store and was downloaded over 15 million times.

Work Experience

Software Developer | Technical Lead

2011 - PRESENT
Freelance Software Developer
  • Developed and delivered dozens of apps to the iOS and Android stores, including games and personal banking, video streaming/sharing, healthcare, election registration, and messaging apps as well as a variety of other kinds of apps.
Technologies: Facebook Ads SDK, Flurry, Box2D, Cocos2d, iAd, Game Center, Networking, Core Animation, Core Data, Core Graphics, UIKit, Android, MacOS, iOS, C++, C, Swift, Objective-C

Founder | CEO

2009 - PRESENT
Digital Prunes, Inc.
  • Developed and produced nine original games for iOS devices, including the #1 free game in the App Store, Slingshot Cowboy.
  • Put together and managed a distributed off-shore team of developers.
  • Extensively used analytics, such as Flurry, to collect and analyze user behavior data.
  • Managed the entire process from concept through project planning, graphic design, marketing, and launch, and finally post-launch ongoing development and marketing.
Technologies: PHP, Java, Objective-C

CTO on Contract | Co-founder

2010 - 2015
Fredio, Inc.
  • Put together an offshore development team to create a smart TV app and a distributed cloud system to crawl, index, and deliver premium video content from various websites to a smart TV.
  • Made the app available on the LG Smart TV App Store.
  • Developed the REST API for third-party integration that provides metadata about video clips in the JSON format.
Technologies: C#, C, Flash ActionScript, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, HTML

Co-founder | CTO

2004 - 2009
Monsoon Multimedia, Inc.
  • Conceived, designed, architected, and managed the development and market delivery of an innovative video streaming consumer device and client viewing applications for Windows PC, the Microsoft Media Center machine, and mobile phones.
  • Put together and managed distributed engineering teams working from the US, Russia, and India.
Technologies: MacOS, Windows, Mobile, Video Streaming, Video Compression, DSP, Embedded Linux, C#, C++, C

VP of Software Engineering

2001 - 2004
Emuzed, Inc. (sold to Flextronix)
  • Architected, managed, developed, and delivered to the market multiple video capture products on the Emuzed product line. Products were shipped by major PC and retail OEMs such as HP, Dell, Gateway, Samsung, Pinnacle, and others.
  • Initiated, forged, and championed a relationship with Microsoft. These efforts helped Emuzed be selected by Microsoft as its preferred hardware supplier of TV tuner devices for Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) systems.
  • Put together and managed a 20+ person team of software engineers, QA engineers, and contractors distributed between the US and India.
Technologies: Windows Media Player SDK, Windows, C++, C

Principal Software Architect | Director of Software Engineering

1997 - 2001
Dazzle Multimedia (sold to Pinnacle Systems)
  • Worked as one of the first employees of Dazzle.
  • Built and managed the software and QA team (more than ten people).
  • Architected, developed, and managed the development of all Dazzle software products, including everything from drivers to applications.
Technologies: Firmware, Windows, C++, C

Senior Software Engineer

1996 - 1997
MediaShower, Inc.
  • Developed a set of DirectShow filters and ActiveX components that plug into the DVD playback graph and overlay graphic elements over video frames in real-time.
Technologies: Multimedia, C++

Staff Engineer

1996 - 1996
C-Cube Microsystems (sold to LSI Logic)
  • Developed drivers for hardware assisted video and DVD playback on the PC.
Technologies: C++, C

Senior Software Engineer | Director of Software

1993 - 1996
Ring Zero Systems
  • Created hardware decoder boards as well as drivers for video capturing.
  • Built serial port virtualization drivers for Windows 95.
Technologies: C++, C

Software Engineer

1993 - 1993
Linus Pauling Institute
  • Developed a software toolkit for DNA sequence matching and analysis.
Technologies: C++, C

Software Engineer

1989 - 1993
Server, Ltd.
  • Created a task switching resident program providing a pseudo-multitasking environment in MS-DOS.
Technologies: Microsoft Assembly x86 (MASM), C++, C

Software Engineer

1986 - 1989
Computer Systems Institute
  • Wrote an assembly-level implementation of proprietary networking protocols for IBM PC.
Technologies: C, Microsoft Assembly x86 (MASM)

Virtual Web Cam for Mac

Implemented Virtual Web Cam for the Mac desktop that inserted itself into the camera pipeline and allowed adding various post-processing effects on the fly for video conferencing applications such as Skype and Zoom.

Medical Device Control App

iOS app that communicates with a medical device over Bluetooth. The device is worn by the user as therapy and the app collects sensor data continuously and sends it up to the cloud for analysis.

Interact with Computer Screen via Hand Gestures

A macOS app that uses computer vision to analyze video coming from a 3D camera (attached to the user's head) and detect motion and gestures of the hand positioned in front of the screen. The app enables the user to interact with the screen using their hand emulating a touchscreen. I used machine learning models for gesture recognition and OpenCV for motion tracking.

Virtual Reality App for Interior Design

An iOS app that provides an intuitive UI for placing virtual furniture objects on floors/walls and ceilings. It uses an accelerometer to navigate through 3D models of rooms and walkways and gesture controls to attach the furniture to surfaces of the space.

Monorail

A personal finance app with a very sleek UI. I developed the most essential components for the app to support complex user interactions and fluid animations and transitions. I helped prepare and file the app and was listed as co-inventor on the patent application for Vimvest's unique approach to personal financing.

Unwrapping Video from 180 and 360 Cameras

A MacOS/iOS app combo that allows the user to navigate through a 180/360-degree video rendered on Mac by rotating an iPhone connected to Mac computer wirelessly, imitating rotation of the user's head. The video coming from the 180- or 360-degree camera is rendered on a curved 3D surface using SceneKit so that it looks as if you are looking around with your head in a real world.

Primer - Virtual Wall Painting App

An iOS app that enables the user to virtually "paint" a wall in their house by viewing through the iPhone camera how the wall would look like if it's painted with a chosen color. Uses ARKit to detect walls in the video feed coming from the camera and attach a virtual color swatch over the real wall taking into account lighting and other factors to make it look realistic. Used metal shaders for high performance rendering while performing complex calculations on every pixel to make the colors "mix" properly.

Snakt

Snakt is like video legos: Every video you see can be re-utilized in your own posts. Including the millions of GIFs, Vines, and posts by your favorite creators and stars. Developed by me from scratch, the app offers a wide variety of sleek animations and gesture controls. Takes full advantage of AVFoundation for efficient and elaborate video editing right on the device.

PollPad - Voter Registration System for Polling Places

An iPad app that helps poll workers keep track of registered voters. Involves processing of a massive amount of records, peer-to-peer synchronization between multiple iPads within the polling place, continuous synchronization with the back-end, scanning of licenses, printing of receipts on a portable printer, and many other futures. Fully customizable for any county, including the look and feel and accommodating different voting/registration rules. The app has been widely deployed all over the US and has processed millions of voter records to date.

Kasper - Event Management and Messaging App for University Campuses

Kasper connects students of the same university to help them plan events, exchange information about their area of interest, and trade learning courses, complete with real-time chat and messaging.

HealthWatch 360

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/healthwatch-360/id791944229?mt=8
Built from scratch for one of Toptal's clients. Helps people track their health choices and watch their calorie intake.

Deep Seep

This is an underwater adventure game.

Slingshot Cowboy

This casual cow tipping game has become the #1 free game on the App Store, with over 15 million downloads.

US Patents

I hold seven US patents.

US 6,297,800: Performing color adjustments on image data.
US 8,218,941: Method and system to transfer video from a video source to optical media.
US 8,220,027: Method and system to convert conventional storage to an audio/video server.
US 7,934,239 & 8,464,298: Method and system to daisy-chain access to video resources.
US 8,386,316: Method and system to grant remote access to video resources
US 8,376,853: Hand held self-orientating targeting game.

Video and Photo Effects App

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tezza/id1393061654
Swift based iOS app to add visual effects and filters to photos and videos. Implemented professional quality effects utilizing Core Image filters, Metal Performance shaders and custom Metal shaders. Required a lot of creative thinking and domain knowledge to come up with the right approach or combination of approaches for each of the effects while keeping performance under control.

Video and Photo Effects and Editing App for Content Creators

https://www.shoptezza.com/pages/tezza-app
As a lead iOS developer, I have implemented most of the app's features from the ground up, including cool visual effects using Core Image and Metal. Almost single-handedly developed a full-fledged non-linear video editor as one of the app features, allowing stitching video and photos together on a single timeline, adding effects, captions, music, and voice-over. Extensively used AVFoundation for real-time preview and export to camera roll.

Lead iOS Engineer

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tezza-aesthetic-photo-editor/id1393061654
A video editing and image processing app with a multimillion-user base. I was the principal developer and primary contributor responsible for the overall architecture and the flagship features of the app. The features I worked on include real-time video processing using Core Image and Metal, a nonlinear multi-track video editor that allows one to stitch together videos, images, audio, voiceovers with effects and text overlays, and pretty much all other features of the app.

Languages

C, Objective-C, C++, Swift, Assembler x86, C#, HTML, PHP, CSS, Flash ActionScript, Java, Microsoft Assembly x86 (MASM), JavaScript, C++11

Frameworks

AFNetworking, UIKit, Cocos2d, iOS SceneKit, ARKit, Box2D, Core Data, SwiftUI, Metal, RealmSwift, React Native, Flutter

Libraries/APIs

Firebase iOS SDK, Core Animation, RxSwift, Facebook API, Core Graphics, Game Center, Flurry, Windows Media Player SDK, Core Image, React Native for Web

Paradigms

Functional Reactive Programming, Mobile Development, Distributed Computing, Parallel Computing, Reactive Programming

Platforms

iOS, Android, MacOS, iAd, Embedded Linux, Mobile, Windows, Linux

Storage

JSON, Realm

Other

Video Streaming, Video Compression, Video Editing, Augmented Reality (AR), Video Games, Mobile App Development, Game Development, Software Architecture, Mobile Apps, Senior Android, Crypto, Image Processing, Computer Vision, Networking, DSP, Firmware, Multimedia, AVFoundation, Async/Await, Videos, Image Manipulation

Tools

Adobe Photoshop, Facebook Ads SDK

1986 - 1989

M.S.C.S. Degree in Computer Science

Novosibirsk University of Electrical Engineering - Novosibirsk, Russia

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