Vincent is available for hire
Hire VincentVincent Fazio
Verified Expert in Engineering
Lead Full-stack Developer
Alden, NY, United States
Toptal member since February 25, 2019
Bio
Vincent is an agile software development leader with a proven track record of leading cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality, scalable software solutions. He is passionate about fostering collaboration and driving business value through Agile and Lean practices. Vincent is adept at building solid relationships with stakeholders and mentoring teams to improve and innovate continuously. He is experienced in architecture, data engineering, project management, and guiding technical teams.
Portfolio
Blackwater Pragmatic Inc
Data Lakehouse, Data Security, Event-driven Design (EDD), PySpark, AWS Glue...
Blackwater Pragmatic Inc
Application Architecture, Amazon Web Services (AWS)...
Blackwater Pragmatic Inc
Java, Node.js, Management, Team Building, PySpark, Data Engineering...
Experience
- Java - 20 years
- Application Architecture - 14 years
- Technical Leadership - 12 years
- Team Mentoring - 11 years
- Microservices - 11 years
- Agile - 10 years
- Node.js - 4 years
- Data Engineering - 2 years
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Java, Agile, Team Leadership, Node.js, Microservices, Application Architecture, Data Engineering, AWS Glue, Team Mentoring
The most amazing...
...compliment I've received is that I helped my teammates and partners achieve more than they previously thought possible.
Work Experience
Data Architect
2013 - PRESENT
Blackwater Pragmatic Inc
- Led the design and implementation of an AWS Data Lakehouse, optimizing data workflows and ensuring scalability, security, and cost efficiency.
- Architected resilient, secure ETL processes, empowering internal and external stakeholders to gain critical data insights.
- Created training materials and presentations to communicate technology goals and project milestones effectively to key stakeholders.
- Utilized AWS Cost Explorer to analyze and optimize cloud expenses, identifying opportunities to reduce costs by over 50%.
- Implemented real-time monitoring, alerting, and auditing to enhance data access protections.
Technologies: Data Lakehouse, Data Security, Event-driven Design (EDD), PySpark, AWS Glue, Cloud Architecture, AWS Cloud Architecture, Python, IT Project Management, Team Leadership, Architecture, Application Architecture, Software Architecture, PostgreSQL, Leadership, Team Mentoring, Spark, Database Architecture, NoSQL, Distributed Systems, Large Scale Distributed Systems, Relational Database Services (RDS), REST APIs, Code Review, Software Development
Solution Architect
2013 - PRESENT
Blackwater Pragmatic Inc
- Led architecture design and technical reviews, focusing on scalability, security, and long-term sustainability.
- Facilitated daily technical reviews with an offshore development team to evaluate and refine implementation options.
- Served as a vendor liaison, contributing to technology selection, vetting, technical review, deployment planning, and managing the production support of these solutions.
Technologies: Application Architecture, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Content Management Systems (CMS), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Service-oriented Architecture (SOA), APIs, AWS Cloud Architecture, Cloud Architecture, IT Project Management, Team Leadership, Architecture, Software Architecture, Leadership, Team Mentoring, Software Evaluation, Database Architecture, NoSQL, Distributed Systems, Large Scale Distributed Systems, Relational Database Services (RDS), REST APIs, Code Review, Software Development
Technical Team Lead
2013 - PRESENT
Blackwater Pragmatic Inc
- Drove technical innovation while mentoring cross-functional development teams, fostering a collaborative environment. Empowered team members to exceed expectations and deliver high-quality solutions on time and within budget.
- Optimized development processes, driving increased release frequency, system stability, and automation efforts.
- Guided the successful adoption of automated testing tools and change/release management software, improving development efficiency and product reliability.
- Led daily stand-ups and technical reviews, ensuring alignment between business needs and technical execution.
Technologies: Java, Node.js, Management, Team Building, PySpark, Data Engineering, Technical Leadership, Quality Management, Team Mentoring, AWS DevOps, APIs, Cloud Architecture, AWS Cloud Architecture, IT Project Management, Test-driven Development (TDD), AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Apache Maven, Team Leadership, Architecture, Application Architecture, Software Architecture, PostgreSQL, Leadership, Scrum, Software Evaluation, CI/CD Pipelines, Database Architecture, NoSQL, GitHub, JSON, Distributed Systems, Large Scale Distributed Systems, Relational Database Services (RDS), REST APIs, Code Review, Software Development
Sprint Manager
2013 - PRESENT
Blackwater Pragmatic Inc
- Facilitated Agile ceremonies and task prioritization with business stakeholders and technical teams to ensure timely delivery of high-priority features.
- Managed backlog, estimation activities, and project schedules while motivating teams to deliver on time, improving both team satisfaction and business outcomes.
- Championed cross-functional collaboration, aligning technical and business priorities through clear communication and focusing on value delivery.
Technologies: Agile, Jira, Business Requirements, Team Scheduling, Agile Project Management, Requirements Analysis, Product Roadmaps, Software Evaluation, IT Project Management, Team Leadership, Leadership, Scrum, Team Mentoring, Software Development
Full-stack Developer
2013 - PRESENT
Blackwater Pragmatic Inc
- Provided full-stack development, specializing in legacy application enhancement and new product development. Architected several microservice and REST implementations leveraging Amazon Web Service (AWS) scalable infrastructure components.
- Architected diverse solutions, including microservices and REST web services, utilizing various storage and messaging technologies on AWS scalable infrastructure.
- Spearheaded the integration of chaos engineering concepts into mission-critical enterprise applications, verifying performance and resiliency through load tests.
- Provided DevOps, release, and production support, finding ways to deliver more automation, better analytics, and real-time monitoring capabilities.
Technologies: Java, JavaScript, Node.js, React, Angular, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microservices, APIs, Cloud Architecture, AWS Cloud Architecture, IT Project Management, Test-driven Development (TDD), AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Apache Maven, Team Leadership, Application Architecture, Software Architecture, PostgreSQL, Leadership, Team Mentoring, CI/CD Pipelines, Database Architecture, NoSQL, GitHub, JSON, Distributed Systems, Large Scale Distributed Systems, Relational Database Services (RDS), REST APIs, Code Review, Software Development
President | Independent Contractor
2013 - PRESENT
Blackwater Pragmatic
- Placed customer services at the forefront of all software activities, ensuring customer satisfaction with deliveries are receiving value during engagements.
- Led all marketing and sales activities to procure new contracts.
- Managed billing, payroll, bookkeeping, and other front-office activities.
Technologies: GraphQL, JUnit, Mockito, MyBatis, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), Amazon Route 53, Amazon CloudSearch, Ajax, RESTEasy, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Angular, Swagger, Git, SQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), AWS Lambda, Amazon EC2, Agile, Amazon Web Services (AWS), HTML, CSS, JavaScript, REST, Spring, Node.js, Java, Headless CMS, Gatsby, Architecture, Software Architecture, Leadership, Technical Leadership, IT Security, PHP, HIPAA Compliance, TypeScript, PySpark, Extreme Programming, Team Mentoring, Software Development
Lead Consulting Software Developer
2022 - 2023
Stride
- Worked as a Databricks engineer to horizontally scale and productionalize forecast data pipeline.
- Drove decisions to define Azure architecture components, focusing on observability and data security.
- Followed extreme programming (XP) practices as a lead consultant software developer to deliver custom software solutions to clients.
Technologies: Databricks, PySpark, Extreme Programming, APIs, Cloud Architecture, Python, IT Project Management, Test-driven Development (TDD), Team Leadership, Architecture, Application Architecture, Software Architecture, Team Mentoring, Spark, Software Evaluation, CI/CD Pipelines, Database Architecture, JSON, Distributed Systems, Large Scale Distributed Systems, Relational Database Services (RDS), Code Review, Software Development
Senior Software Engineer
2013 - 2014
Negawatt Business Solutions
- Led enhancement and maintenance of a 3rd-party custom software application critical to the business' success. Implemented several performance improvements and refactored code to meet software best practices.
- Researched and developed a prototype architecture for new applications. Dove deep into new technologies for next-generation application stack, including Cassandra, MongoDB, Dart, Google Go, ZeroMQ, and RabbitMQ.
- Designed and developed integration solutions with 3rd-party feeds, automating resilient ETL processes to ingest data from these sources.
Technologies: JUnit, Ajax, Spring, JavaScript, SQL, Agile, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, RabbitMQ, ZeroMQ, Dart, MongoDB, Cassandra, Java, Leadership, Technical Leadership, IT Project Management, Apache Maven, Team Leadership, Architecture, Application Architecture, Software Architecture, Team Mentoring, Software Evaluation, Database Architecture, Relational Database Services (RDS), Code Review, Software Development
Senior Software Engineer
2007 - 2014
CTG
- Acted as a project manager and technical leader for a team developing software as a service (SaaS) solutions, following Agile software development practices, as a dedicated driver.
- Mentored a team of engineers focused on "bridge the gap" between educational and professional development. Topics included software patterns, debugging, profiling, version control, unit testing, and code quality.
- Developed rich-internet-application (RIA) interfaces in FLEX and GWT/AJAX. Database design combines JPA with elements of Ruby on Rails to create a flexible ORM layer.
- Leveraged Spring Security, OpenSSO/OpenAM, and LDAP to provide authentication and authorization with single sign-on (SSO) capabilities.
- Implemented ontology-based solutions for semantic applications written using SPARQL and Jena.
- Served as an integral member of the team contracted to deliver SOA solutions to a leading healthcare provider. Automated business processes to integrate legacy systems through JMS, MQ, web services, and traditional database components.
- Piloted process to unit test and profile SOA components to identify performance bottlenecks and implement targeted enhancements.
- Led data integration efforts with Dun and Bradstreet and Experian, defining API and troubleshooting data quality issues.
- Developed generic X12 EDI parser framework to process and customize the various message structures common in health care implementations.
Technologies: JUnit, Ajax, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), Adobe Flex, JSF, Spring, SQL, Agile, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, HIPAA Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), X12, Java Composite Application Platform Suite (JCAPS), OpenAM, Apache Jena, SPARQL, JavaScript, GWT, Java, Leadership, Technical Leadership, Scrum, HIPAA Compliance, APIs, IT Project Management, Test-driven Development (TDD), Apache Maven, Team Leadership, Architecture, Application Architecture, Software Architecture, Team Mentoring, Software Evaluation, Database Architecture, XML, JSON, Distributed Systems, Large Scale Distributed Systems, Relational Database Services (RDS), REST APIs, Code Review, Software Development
Owner
2009 - 2010
Ask About The Mouse
- Founded AskAboutTheMouse.com, a Stack Exchange-based site designed to help users get answers to their Disney related questions. Gained experience in community building, customer service, and managing Google ad campaigns.
- Leveraged social media tools to help promote the site and encourage user adoption.
Technologies: Ajax, Google Ads, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Leadership, Technical Leadership, Software Development
Senior Software Engineer
2005 - 2007
Janya Inc.
- Led the development of a web application targeted to showcase the abilities of Janya’s Information Extraction technology. JavaServer Faces (JSF) and CSS were combined to provide a flexible layout and presentation.
- Architected client-side application to configure and monitor Janya’s Information Extraction engine. Eclipse RCP chosen to provide a cross-platform user experience. SOAP/XML web services communicated with distributed engine components.
- Leveraged Spring and Hibernate to access application's MySQL database. Completed integration effort with third party client-side applications. Responsible for identifying MySQL database performance bottlenecks and implementing database improvements. Used Ruby and Rails to quickly prototype and test solutions.
- Initiated the usage of a project wiki to help capture feature ideas, document design decisions, and track milestones. Simplicity and accessibility made this concept a winner.
- Created a XMPP (Jabber) chat room monitor in Ruby, reporting to a Java REST web service.
Technologies: Hibernate, Ajax, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), JavaScript, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, Wikis, XMPP, Eclipse RCP, XML, REST, SOAP, Spring, Ruby on Rails (RoR), SQL, CSS, HTML, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), JSF, MySQL, Oracle, Java, Leadership, Technical Leadership, Ruby, IT Project Management, Apache Maven, Database Architecture, Relational Database Services (RDS), Code Review, Software Development
Analyst Business Systems
2004 - 2005
HSBC USA
- Maintained several business automation systems serving large retail clients. Applied Rational Unified Process (RUP) principles to maintain and enhance Websphere hosted applications. Frequent collaboration with teams in remote locations to define project requirements, provide estimates, and track status.
Technologies: SQL, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, Java, Apache Maven, Relational Database Services (RDS), Code Review, Software Development
Software Engineer
2000 - 2003
Cymfony Inc
- Teamed with senior management to identify business requirements and create system specifications. Leveraged Struts to create components for deployment on Silverstream’s portal server. Created scalable database access libraries in Java. Helped to tune and optimize Oracle database tables and queries. Initiated development of Ant scripts to automate build process.
- Developed CORBA C++ modules for distributed Information Extraction engine.
Technologies: Web Services Description Language (WSDL), Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, Ant Design, Business Portals, SQL, Oracle, CORBA, C++, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Java, Relational Database Services (RDS), Code Review, Software Development
Senior Engineer
1997 - 2000
Amherst Systems Inc.
- Became part of a team responsible for developing an integrated EW simulation system. Created a flexible library of reusable C++ utility classes (pre-STL) and converted several Ada libraries to C++. Refined make scripts to improve automated build process. Organized weekly team meetings to discuss issues, development progress, and concerns.
Technologies: Make, Ada, C++, Code Review, Software Development
Application Programmer
1996 - 1997
M&T Bank
- Completed custom reports and made several enhancements to bank's deposit applications.
Technologies: COBOL, Code Review, Software Development
Experience
Solution Architect for an E-learning Platform
As a solution architect reporting directly to the CTO, I excelled in defining robust application architectures that focused on scalability, information security, reliability, and resiliency. I led daily communications and technical architecture reviews with our product team, offshore development team, and other stakeholders, ensuring seamless implementation and exploration of innovative solutions.
With a strong emphasis on deploying solutions to AWS, the solution included a migration plan from an existing monolithic architecture to a microservices approach. It also included integration with various enterprise SaaS products and headless CMS solutions to drive technological excellence and operational efficiency of the platform.
Deliverables included an architecture diagram with a full description of the application components and a migration plan from the existing architecture. A reference architecture was also created to demonstrate concepts with CloudFormation scripts to build architecture components.
With a strong emphasis on deploying solutions to AWS, the solution included a migration plan from an existing monolithic architecture to a microservices approach. It also included integration with various enterprise SaaS products and headless CMS solutions to drive technological excellence and operational efficiency of the platform.
Deliverables included an architecture diagram with a full description of the application components and a migration plan from the existing architecture. A reference architecture was also created to demonstrate concepts with CloudFormation scripts to build architecture components.
Data Architect Implementing a Data Lakehouse
As a data architect, I successfully built an AWS data lakehouse from the ground up, implementing a medallion architecture to handle both near real-time feeds and batch processing from application logs, Salesforce, internal databases, and external systems.
This work included designing secure, performant, and resilient data storage repositories in Parquet and Iceberg with fine-grained data access controls. Glue ETL processes written in PySpark were crucial in delivering valuable data insights to internal and external stakeholders through integrations with Tableau and internal reporting capabilities.
Leading all aspects of development from planning through implementation, I also created and conducted training activities and presentations to communicate the significance of this work to key stakeholders, ensuring widespread understanding and support for the project.
The final deliverables included documentation, including diagrams and descriptions of the Data Lakehouse architecture and all components. Also included were scripts to export all architecture configurations for disaster recovery and change management purposes.
This work included designing secure, performant, and resilient data storage repositories in Parquet and Iceberg with fine-grained data access controls. Glue ETL processes written in PySpark were crucial in delivering valuable data insights to internal and external stakeholders through integrations with Tableau and internal reporting capabilities.
Leading all aspects of development from planning through implementation, I also created and conducted training activities and presentations to communicate the significance of this work to key stakeholders, ensuring widespread understanding and support for the project.
The final deliverables included documentation, including diagrams and descriptions of the Data Lakehouse architecture and all components. Also included were scripts to export all architecture configurations for disaster recovery and change management purposes.
Education
1992 - 1996
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Computer Science
Canisius College - Buffalo, NY, USA
Certifications
DECEMBER 2024 - DECEMBER 2027
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Amazon Web Services Training and Certification
OCTOBER 2024 - OCTOBER 2027
AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate
Amazon Web Services Training and Certification
SEPTEMBER 2024 - SEPTEMBER 2027
AWS Certified AI Practitioner Early Adopter
Amazon Web Services Training and Certification
MARCH 2013 - MARCH 2015
Certified ScrumMaster
Scrum Alliance
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, Node.js, MyBatis, PySpark, D3.js, RESTEasy, ZeroMQ, Java Message Service (JMS), React
Tools
GitHub, AWS CodeCommit, Git, Postman, Apache Maven, Jenkins, Eclipse IDE, AWS Glue, Eclipse RCP, Make, Amazon CloudFront CDN, AWS IAM, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon CloudWatch, Java Composite Application Platform Suite (JCAPS), RabbitMQ, IntelliJ IDEA, Apache Tomcat, Jira, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR)
Languages
Java, SQL, SCSS, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, XML, Ada, COBOL, GraphQL, Scala, Ruby, Go, Dart, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), SPARQL, C++, PHP, TypeScript, Python
Paradigms
Agile, Application Architecture, Scrum, Agile Software Development, REST, Test-driven Development (TDD), Microservices, Service-oriented Architecture (SOA), HIPAA Compliance, Management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Event-driven Design (EDD), Agile Project Management, Requirements Analysis, Extreme Programming, Foundation Models
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Jakarta EE, Oracle, OpenAM, Google Ads, Databricks
Storage
Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MySQL, Database Architecture, Database Structure, JSON, Memcached, PostgreSQL, NoSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, Cassandra, MongoDB
Frameworks
Angular, Spring, Swagger, JUnit, Mockito, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Spring Boot, Spark, Thymeleaf, Hadoop, Apache Jena, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ant Design, GWT, Adobe Flex, JSF, Hibernate, Jena Semantic Web Framework, Data Lakehouse
Other
Jakarta EE Design Patterns, Team Leadership, Architecture, Software Architecture, Technical Leadership, Team Mentoring, APIs, Cloud Architecture, AWS Cloud Architecture, IT Project Management, Data Structures, Solution Architecture, Distributed Systems, Relational Database Services (RDS), Code Review, Software Development, Wikis, Headless CMS, Leadership, Data Engineering, CI/CD Pipelines, Large Scale Distributed Systems, X12, HIPAA Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), CORBA, Business Portals, Amazon Route 53, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon CloudSearch, SOAP, Ajax, Ontologies, XMPP, Gatsby, IT Security, Business Requirements, Team Scheduling, Team Building, Content Management Systems (CMS), Data Security, Quality Management, AWS DevOps, Product Roadmaps, Software Evaluation, Computer Science, AWS Lake Formation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Redshift, Identity & Access Management (IAM)
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