Varshneya Rao
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Toptal member since January 29, 2021
Varshneya is a skilled engineer and an award-winning technical architect with experience setting up and scaling projects for teams at Airmeet, Zynga, and IBM. He is passionate about optimizing human-computer interaction and has received technical achievement awards. He specializes in end-to-end web technologies and has extensive full-stack experience, including React, Next.js, NestJS, Node.js, Java, SQL/NoSQL, and DevOps over AWS. His passion for automation builds products with long-term value.
Portfolio
Experience
- Node.js - 10 years
- Express.js - 9 years
- JavaScript - 9 years
- React - 6 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 5 years
- TypeScript - 5 years
- NGINX - 4 years
- Styled-components - 3 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
JavaScript, Chrome, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), MacOS, React, Node.js, Next.js, NestJS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MariaDB
The most amazing...
...product I've helped build from scratch is airmeet.com, a virtual events platform where I shaped the product journey and scaled the team to a global sensation.
Work Experience
Senior Engineer
Gathered Here
- Worked closely with the founding team to build the technology foundations and processes for the company, utilizing existing expertise within the team to minimize impact on workflows.
- Built an ecosystem of apps to provide will creation as a service to users and reporting and customer relationships toward not-for-profits. This enabled us to take the entire process of wills and their bequests into the digital realm.
- Utilized the latest in modular architectures with React/Next.js and Express/NestJS, in addition to automation via GitHub workflows and Amazon ECS, to enable minimal maintenance and faster delivery for a growing startup.
- Helped source talent and enabled the successful onboarding of a team of engineers.
Lead Engineer
MailHub Inc
- Designed and developed a crypto-based payment gateway using React, Next.js, and NestJS to allow merchants to accept crypto payments on eCommerce sites through a single-button integration.
- Implemented a secure and deterministic state machine using XState for transaction management with detailed tracking and wallet management at a transaction level. Introduced mechanisms for fine-grained control over auto-settlement and fiat conversion.
- Deployed a highly available MariaDB cluster to support large bursts of transaction volumes, with a Redis and SQS-based message queue to streamline processing.
- Integrated with Prime Trust and created a pluggable payment provider architecture, allowing the company to maintain the core functionality with additional flexibility to switch out third-party wallet and custody providers based on the evolving market.
- Automated the end-to-end development workflow with tests and deployment suites, reducing time to production by leveraging GitLab CI/CD workflows and self-hosted workflow runners. Introduced a robust testing suite with self-documenting tests.
- Created a strongly typed codebase using TypeScript and NestJS, with 3rd-party API contracts typed using automated tools.
Lead Engineer
Superguard
- Developed a web-based fraud detection and prevention software, using NestJS and Next.js on top of Express.js and React. Designed an architecture to perform face and liveness detection using FaceTec APIs in a self hosted Docker and AWS Fargate environment.
- Implemented an end-to-end CI/CD pipeline on top of GitHub Actions, Docker, and AWS ECS. This reduced the delivery cycle from over a week to multiple releases in a day, allowing faster review and feedback in a pre-release stage.
- Implemented a mobile-first client portal for the web, built on Next.js using React 18. Implemented custom hooks and a lightweight state management solution using Context API to deliver a fast and deterministic ID verification web app.
- Prototyped and integrated, in a very short timeline, a self-hosted solution based on the FaceTec Server API for ID and liveness detection in a secure Docker environment hosted on hardened Linux images deployed via AWS Fargate for seamless scaling.
Principal Software Engineer
Airmeet
- Designed and implemented a virtual events platform software using React, Express, and PostgreSQL. The web-based software used WebRTC for P2P audio, video, and text, integrating with Agora's WebRTC implementation.
- Developed modular architectures based on React best practices with extensive custom hooks that served as the foundation for the product and allowed scaling the conferencing software from very few participants up to thousands of concurrent users.
- Introduced HTML5 web workers to offload the application's processing heavy tasks from the main thread, improving the frame rate and eliminating the lag in user experience.
- Improved the developer experience by eliminating all manual deployment steps and integrating deployment systems into everyday tools, allowing hundreds of concurrent live builds and cutting downtime to production by more than a week.
- Added support for zero-downtime deployments over AWS CodePipeline, which allowed multiple releases within a day and helped the team improve the release cycle from once a week to multiple times within a day.
- Implemented monitoring and verbose debugging systems for the production application, with the ability to automate issue discovery and reporting.
- Mentored new engineers with limited experience to quickly understand the platform and team vision, propelling them to achieve high-quality and proactive delivery with a high degree of ownership.
- Assisted the team in outlining product roadmaps and technology architectures that align with business goals to address the technology debt and scale development for larger teams.
Full-stack Engineer
Freelance Clients
- Built a cloud-based code editor (IDE) in React, supporting multiple tabs and file types, autosave, and configurable plugins. The editor was driven by a server configuration curated for user needs. Used React, Redux, and SCSS.
- Built a web audio widget with React used to replace text-based user feedback widgets in modern sites. The widget was optimized for size and highly configurable, driven by a server config created by users. Used React Hooks and styled-components.
- Built an eCommerce rewards platform for a global bank. Adhered to strict style guides for the brand and rendered large lists of products, integrating them with an external SSO for authentication. Used React Hooks and styled-components.
- Built a one-on-one video consultation application in React using the Twilio Video SDK. The app was completely themeable and initially released for doctors running on the NowFloats Boost 360 platform. Used React Hooks, styled-components, and Twilio.
- Developed unique marketing pages for local businesses with React, allowing dynamic themes and headless content management integrated into day-to-day business tools such as Google Docs. Used React, Redux, SCSS/styled-components, and Node.js.
- Built a React-based swiping game for the web. The game was swipe-enabled, mobile-first, and used server-driven configuration to simulate a user's savings for the future based on game choices. Used React Hooks, styled-components, and Framer Motion.
Senior Software Engineer
Zynga
- Led a 2-member team to develop an HTML5 + JavaScript-based data-driven game engine and designed an Entity-component-based architecture that allows reskinning features.
- Assisted in automating developer operations in the company and introduced a clean coding paradigm for better reuse and maintenance across teams.
- Assisted with the Farmville 2 franchise, developing data-driven features based on an ActionScript3 + Flare 3D game engine.
Software Engineer
IBM
- Developed Java-based frameworks to support mobile device management protocols on Windows devices for the MaaS360 enterprise mobility management platform back end.
- Architected and developed a highly secure back end capable of monitoring Windows devices (phone, tablet, and PC) and supplying policies and actions in real time using Jakarta EE and the Spring framework extensively.
- Designed and implemented an award-winning framework for managing and delivering identity certificates to all Windows devices under the MaaS360 umbrella.
- Implemented an award-winning algorithm to detect and assign groups to devices in real time as they enrolled on the MaaS360 platform.
- Led independent automation and tooling projects, from design and prototyping to delivery and support, which eased the developer experience through more verbose, error resistant, and simplified builds.
- Developed a secure container application in C# for managing Enterprise data on the Windows Phone platform. Ensured secure access while utilizing the platform's native APIs for speed and reliability.
- Designed and implemented a communication backbone as a bridge between C# and an encrypted SQLite database compiled for the Windows Phone platform.
- Implemented algorithms for the fast tiling of calendar items and secure preloading of email data for arbitrarily large mailboxes. This ensured performance comparable to the native email client with all the security of the Maas360 platform.
Software Development Intern
Navyug Infosolutions Pvt
- Developed a cross-platform gaming application using the Handlebars templating engine for two-way data binding working with the Apache Cordova framework.
- Developed a Node.js REST API layer with Mocha test cases and storage on a MongoDB-based NoSQL database.
- Created prototypes using native C extensions on the Android platform for video processing using FFmpeg.
- Assisted in interviewing prospective talent and setting up hiring guides for developers in the C programming language.
Experience
Airmeet
http://www.airmeet.comThis elevated our product from an alpha prototype into a highly scalable, globally available application.
Using React Hooks, I split the monolithic codebase into reusable modules and helper utilities. This helped onboard new team members quickly and scale the product rapidly to meet rising market demand due to the Covid19 pandemic.
Leveraging developer tools and profiling, I introduced chunking and lazy loading to improve the load time of the product by one order of magnitude and reduce the CPU and memory footprint. These reusable utilities are still in place and allow all new development to sustain the higher scale and rapid delivery.
Leveraging my experience with Webpack and Nginx, I improved the developer experience to support a growing team and eliminate testing bottlenecks. I integrated static development builds with unique URL's into the team's daily toolchain, improving delivery and QA timelines exponentially. This reduced our time to production by more than a week.
Telemedicine Web App
https://www.getboost360.com/online-doctor/features/I built the end-to-end application, with hosting on Azure, and integrated the client's custom federated authentication system for a seamless experience.
The app was part of a larger ecosystem of applications offered as part of a digital transformation suite. I continued working with the client to evaluate and upgrade relevant portions of their offerings.
Kitsune IDE
https://www.getkitsune.com/I joined the project as an independent consultant responsible for designing and developing enhancements to the developer experience for the Kitsune IDE. I introduced support for editor plugins using data-driven (JSON) configurations, including visualization of data models and a JSON tree viewer/editor.
I leveraged the reusability of React to modularize the codebase. I expanded the store capabilities to support a multi-tab editor layout, as well as error detection and save capabilities for the same.
Finally, I prepped the codebase for open-sourcing the IDE. This included documenting every aspect of the project, from architecture to utilities, tools, and contribution to development guidelines. I provided support for issues opened against the OSS codebase and ensured end-to-end testing and product delivery for the same.
eCommerce Rewards Platform
https://www.creditcardrewards.hsbc.co.in/I designed and implemented the front end for the eCommerce rewards application for a leading international bank currently in production use. The project involved a fully static React application deployed as a serverless website. The site sourced data from the bank's rewards partner back end and integrated SSO auth via the bank's internal API.
The application used a Redux store to manage user preferences and cache the page data. It implemented fuzzy search and flexible filters based on the incoming data schema.
The project included lazy loading page data, with infinite scrolling for a smooth user experience. It was also designed and implemented as a fully responsive website with mobile support and extra-wide screens.
The project structure was built to be reskinnable for different clients, with a pluggable color theme and logos.
Automated Crypto Liquidation Bot
https://www.silo.finance/Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Birla Institute of Technology and Science - Pilani, Rajasthan, India
Certifications
Outstanding Technical Achievement Award
IBM
Outstanding Technical Achievement Award
IBM
Skills
Libraries/APIs
WebRTC, React, Node.js, React Redux, REST APIs, API Development, HTML5 Web Workers, Redux-Saga, Firebase Web SDK, Shopify API, Stripe, Stripe API, OpenAI Assistants API, Three.js, Amazon API, OpenAPI, Facebook API, Windows API, Handlebars, jQuery, Puppeteer, Web Worker, HTML5 Canvas, Twilio API, Context API, Liquid, Web Audio, PayPal API, WebGL, WordPress API, GitHub API, Web3.js, Plaid API
Tools
JSX, Git, Prisma, GitHub, NGINX, Webpack, Figma, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, ChatGPT, Auth0, Sentry, Amazon Cognito, Amazon CloudFront CDN, PM2, Jenkins, Redux Thunk, Mongoose, React Apollo, Twilio Programmable Video, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Cron, AWS Fargate, MongoDB Atlas, Microsoft Intune, Agora, Google Analytics
Languages
JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, TypeScript, HTML, SQL, Sass, PHP, Java, C#, GraphQL, Python, XML, Go, CSS3, ActionScript 3, Groovy, C, SCSS, TypeScript 3
Frameworks
Express.js, Next.js, Tailwind CSS, NestJS, Yarn, Redux, Material UI, Ionic, Electron, Jest, OAuth 2, React Native, Chrome, Swagger, Spring, Hibernate, Phaser.io, Bootstrap, MUI CSS, PixiJS
Paradigms
Automation, Test-driven Development (TDD), Unit Testing, REST, Asynchronous Programming, Web Architecture, ETL, UI Design, Object-relational Mapping (ORM), Database Design, API/Services Architecture, Microservices, Mobile Development, Serverless Architecture, Microservices Architecture, DevOps, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), On-page SEO, Dependency Injection, Continuous Deployment
Platforms
Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Vercel, Mobile, Amazon EC2, Firebase, Java EE, Docker, AWS Lambda, Shopify, Netlify, Kubernetes, WordPress, HubSpot, Directus, MacOS, Ubuntu, Windows Phone, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Azure IaaS, Twilio, Android, Azure, Blockchain, Windows, DigitalOcean, Apache Kafka
Storage
MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Firebase Realtime Database, MySQL, Google Cloud, NoSQL, RDBMS, Neo4j, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), JSON, PL/SQL, SQLite, Amazon DynamoDB, Databases, MariaDB, Redis, Elasticsearch
Industry Expertise
Web Design, Project Management
Other
Code Architecture, Software Design, Software Architecture, Styled-components, APIs, Front-end, React Hooks, Architecture, Startups, Full-stack, Full-stack Development, Front-end Development, RESTful Web Services, Back-end, Technical Leadership, SaaS, Team Leadership, API Integration, Front-end Architecture, CI/CD Pipelines, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), Bots, Third-party APIs, API Gateways, Web Development, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Technical Architecture, Data Architecture, MERN Stack, Technical Consulting, Workflow Automation, Data Engineering, Web Security, Mobile First, Separation of Concerns (SoC), Cloud Patterns, Web App Development, Integration, Templates, Responsive Web Apps, API Design, Software Engineering, Design Systems, Data Visualization, Gatsby, Website Optimization, Webhooks, Fillable PDFs, Headless WordPress, Authentication, Data Encryption, Tailwind UI, Single-page Applications (SPAs), UI Frameworks, UI Libraries, Algorithms, Programming Languages, Amazon API Gateway, Game Engine Programming, Firebase Cloud Functions, Web Components, Game Development, Software Development Management, Charts, Solution Architecture, Leadership, Payment Gateways, Web Scraping, Lambda Functions, Fintech, Front-end Design, Online Payments, Animation, Audio Streaming, Recommendation Systems, Storybook, Amazon RDS, Asynchronous I/O, Web Usability, Headless Software, Google BigQuery, OpenAI, HubSpot CRM, Payment APIs, User Roles, Google Tag Manager, ESLint, AWS Cloud Architecture, Slack App, Slackbot, System Design, Reverse Engineering, PDF, Mobile Game Development, SDKs, OpenAI GPT-4 API, Chrome Extensions, Okta, First Contentful Paint (FCP), Cookies, TypeORM, Payment Processing, CSS Modules, Design, Product Growth, SaaS Optics, Operations Research, AWS CodePipeline, WebSockets, MDM, SSL Certificates, Serverless, Code Review, Performance, Supabase, UX Review, Source Code Review, Games, 3D Games, 2D Games, Gaming, VoIP, CTO, PDF Scraping, Crypto, Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency APIs, ECS, Elastic Load Balancers, Data Modeling, Server-side Rendering (SSR), Transactions, BullMQ, Remote Team Leadership, POS, Trading, Video Streaming, Large Language Models (LLMs), Google Cloud Functions, Meta Pixel, Custom Shopify Apps, Vite, WPGraphQL, GitHub Actions, ACH Payments, Banking as a Service (BaaS), Credit Ratings
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