Lead Architect and Team Lead
2011 - PRESENTNew Media Labs- Help develop the Nedgroup Investments secure investor website using ASP.NET MVC 3.
- Guide the Logimeter team in building a new single-page app style web portal using AngularJS.
- Help develop Sparrow Communicator, a Xamarin-based iOS application meant for use by parents to keep track of their kids' busy school schedules.
- Architect an EDA (Event Driven Architecture) style system, using NServiceBus and Azure Service Bus and ensuring it is scalable enough to handle millions of messages per day.
- Start various initiatives at New Media Labs, like conducting one-on-one feedback sessions, spearheading an innovation program, and ensuring teams adhere to good practices like continuous integration and automated testing.
- Act as technical team lead for a team of 5 developers.
Technologies: .NET, ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, C#, Xamarin, JavaScript, AngularJS, SQL Server, KnockoutJS, NUnit, Couchbase, TeamCity, GitTeam lead
2010 - 2011Fin24.com- Extended a public-facing news website and ensured that it did not experience any down-time during deployments.
- Ensured that the website could handle a large number of requests during peak times (especially during certain times of the year).
- Added rich financial charting using Dundas web charts.
- Led a team of 2 developers using the Scrum methodology.
Technologies: ASP.NET Web Forms, SQL Server 2008, Spring.Net, Dundas charts, NAnt, CruiseControl, MSBuild, NUnit, SVNSenior Developer
2005 - 2009Silverminute/Bytes (acquired 2007)- Implemented an SOA-style services layer at Pam Golding, a South African estate agency specializing in high-end properties.
- Built an interactive WPF prototype to help sell the concept for a power plant-specific staff management application.
- Developed Cradle, a pregnancy tracking application using Windows Forms for the local government.
- Acted as deployment manager for the new smart-card system used by the State of Victoria in Australia.
- Built a WPF application framework for use by developers at Lonmin Platinum, to help them develop their own business-specific applications faster.
Technologies: .NET, C#, WPF, Axapta, SQL Server, Cruise Control, MS Test, NUnit, NAnt, SVNDeveloper
2005 - 2005Saratoga- Integrated with Microsoft Money via its API.
- Helped develop ActNow, a staff-management application for the tech support industry.
- Built a Windows Forms product, styling it as much as possible to stand out from the crowd (a difficult feat with Windows Forms).
Technologies: .NET, C#, Windows Forms, SOAP web services, Microsoft Money, SVNDeveloper
2003 - 2005Microgen/AFA Systems (acquired 2004)- Designed the web-based version of Common Knowledge, a knowledge management system, using ASP.NET Web Forms.
- Built an XML-based query engine used to query the Common Knowledge database.
- Adopted unit testing, a first for the company at that time.
- Maintained and extended the existing version of Common Knowledge, a VB6 application.
Technologies: .NET, C#, VB.NET, VB6, ASP.NET Web Forms, TFS.Junior Developer
2002 - 2003Delos/Software Futures (acquired 2002)- Extended the Kalahari.net eCommerce website using Classic ASP.
- Extended in-house applications for Delos using ASP.NET Web Forms (still very new at that stage).
Technologies: VB.NET, ASP.NET, Classic ASP, SQL Server 2000Junior Developer
2002 - 2002Hawaii Clothing- Built a garment manufacturing database system using Java and Swing.
- Acted as a line manager half of the time to learn how garments are really made.
Technologies: Java, Swing GUI, ODBC
Willem Odendaal
Encryption Developer in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Member since May 27, 2015
Willem has been programming ever since he touched a computer at age 6. He has studied Java, but has spent most of his 13-year professional career using .NET. The last few years have mostly been spent leading and mentoring developers, interacting with clients, and building public-facing websites focused on security, usability, and performance.
Willem is now available for hire
Portfolio
- New Media Labs.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, C#, Xamarin, JavaScript, AngularJS...
- Fin24.comASP.NET Web Forms, SQL Server 2008, Spring.Net, Dundas charts, NAnt...
- Silverminute/Bytes (acquired 2007).NET, C#, WPF, Axapta, SQL Server, Cruise Control, MS Test, NUnit, NAnt, SVN
Experience
- C#, 12 years
- NUnit, 7 years
- Encryption, 6 years
- Azure, 1 year
- AngularJS, 1 year
- Browserify, 1 year
- WebStorm, 1 year
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
WebStorm on OS X and Visual Studio on Windows, Git
The most amazing...
...application I've built was a personal budgeting website using Python and a CQRS-style architecture and running on the Google App Engine.
Employment
Experience
- Fin24.com (Development)http://www.fin24.com/Company/JSE-Ltd
Helped develop several Fin24.com market data pages, showing financial info and charts about companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Ensured that the site can handle large amounts of concurrent users by adding effective ASP.NET caching.
- Nedgroup Investments (Development)http://www.newmedialabs.co.za/work/showcase/NGISS
The Nedgroup Investments secure website is used by investors with existing investments. We ensured the new website is better looking, faster and more robust than the previous version. Among many features, we also added the ability for investors to transact via the internet, whereas previously investors had to transact via phone and physical forms.
- Logimeter (Development)http://logimeter.com/
Logimeter is a system used by small businesses and call centers to record client calls, rate calls and other useful features like notifying the business when calls have been missed. I helped the Logimeter team develop a new JavaScript, HTML, and CSS-rich front-end.
- Sparrow Communicator (Development)http://www.newmedialabs.co.za/work/showcase/sparrow-communicator
Sparrow Communicator is an iOS app used by parents to track their kids' busy schedules, and to view public information like the school's official schedule and general school events.
- Large Service Bus Implementation (Development)
Architected and helped develop an event-driven system (confidential in nature) that is able to handle millions of messages per day and to scale up and down as necessary.
Skills
Languages
C#, HTML, JavaScript, T-SQL, CSS3Frameworks
NUnit, Entity, Knockout.js, AngularJS, Entity 6, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET, Express.js, ASP.NET Web API, Windows Communication Framework (WCF), Bootstrap, Json.NET, QUnit, Jasmine, Windows Identity FoundationTools
Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft Unity, TeamCity, NPM, Browserify, WebStorm, Grunt, Jira, Gulp.js, BowerPlatforms
Windows, Azure, MacOS, Ubuntu, Xamarin, iOSLibraries/APIs
jQuery, AutoMapper, Moq, Node.js, NServiceBus, Moment.js, Underscore.jsParadigms
Scrum, Asynchronous Programming, Agile Software Development, RESTStorage
Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 R2Other
Single-page Applications (SPA), Azure Service Bus, Encryption, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
