Xander Gottlieb, Developer in Brighton, United Kingdom
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Xander Gottlieb

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Front-end Developer

Location
Brighton, United Kingdom
Toptal Member Since
September 6, 2018

An expert in modern UI development, specifically React and Flutter, Xander built cross-platform, UX-focused apps that have thousands of users helped doctor’s offices in the UK and showcased by Google and Prince Charles. As head of web development for a London firm, he developed and maintained 30+ WordPress sites for companies like CBRE. Xander has also led coding workshops for eight-to-eleven-year-olds. His Stack Overflow contributions put him in the top 2%.

Portfolio

Toptal Clients
React, WordPress
Blastoff Design
User Experience (UX), React, Flutter
Think Digitally
WooCommerce, React, WordPress, User Experience (UX)

Experience

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Flutter, React, GitLab, GitHub, Docker

The most amazing...

...app I've developed is the StirCrazy.app which has been featured by Google's Flutter team and has hundreds of paying customers.

Work Experience

Front-end Developer

2018 - PRESENT
Toptal Clients
  • Remotely jumped into teams from all over the world and produced value from day 0.
  • Developed bespoke WordPress themes and plugins, using my React skills to build custom Gutenberg blocks and my experience in UX to bring frictionless interactive experiences to the front end.
  • Trusted with rewriting existing JavaScript, CSS/Sass, and PHP for maintainability and improved loading speed.
  • Received positive feedback from every client: "You've been a huge help and the team has had nothing but great things to say. Everyone's been very impressed with both your speed and quality of work."
Technologies: React, WordPress

App Developer

2018 - PRESENT
Blastoff Design
  • Invented, designed, and developed iOS and Android apps including Stir Crazy, Grammapp, and Concurrency. These Flutter apps have been featured by Google and now have thousands of happy users — and successful monetization strategies.
  • Collaborated with doctors across the UK to bring a cross-platform Flutter app to 300,000+ patients. Provided each doctors office with a comprehensive, easy-to-use dashboard (written in React and making full use of React hooks).
  • Helped 1,000+ children learn maths by volunteering my Flutter skills to numberline.school: a cross-platform Android/iOS/web app which is being rolled out in classrooms across Europe.
  • Directed small teams of illustrators, translators, and designers to bring mobile apps to life.
Technologies: User Experience (UX), React, Flutter

Head of Web Development

2015 - 2018
Think Digitally
  • Promoted within two years to head of web development, responsible for developing, maintaining, and hosting over 30 WordPress websites.
  • Contributed to both designs and code to a region-dependent blog, a digital health tracker built with React, and close to a hundred bespoke WordPress themes/plugins for industries from real estate to eCommerce.
  • Maintained strong relationships with clients (including CBRE and Ogilvy) and strategized for practically every project that crossed the company’s desk.
Technologies: WooCommerce, React, WordPress, User Experience (UX)

Digital Marketing Consultant

2015 - 2016
Towergate Insurance
  • Learned from a large, multidisciplinary team of specialists with skills ranging from development, to design, to pay-per-click advertising.
  • Automated much of the SEO team's workload by writing custom web crawler scripts for keyword mining.
  • Developed a new approach to the company’s online forms — devising an intuitive user interface and JavaScript validation which measurably reduced abandonment.
Technologies: JavaScript, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Designer | Developer

2012 - 2016
Freelance
  • Created bespoke WordPress themes/plugins, and interactive CSS/JavaScript animations, for Spider PR UK — enlivening an array of websites and digital adverts.
  • Implemented a WordPress dashboard for monitoring the national rollout of a startup internet service provider.
  • Consulted for Evora Global on digital design and marketing, conducting UX and SEO site audits, which helped grow their mailing list and reach the front page of Google.
Technologies: CSS, JavaScript, WordPress

ReputationManagement.com

https://www.reputationmanagement.com/
Effectively collaborated across time zones with a leading New York SEO firm to upgrade this and other content-rich WordPress sites to the React-based Gutenberg editor.

Designed and developed custom content blocks that had to be as easy to manage in the dashboard as they were visually appealing on the front end.

Grammapp: German Grammar

https://grammapp.com/
Invented this cross-platform Flutter app, which teaches the most challenging aspects of German grammar on Android and iOS.

Fast, intuitive swipe gestures and innovative color-coding are now making German grammar more accessible to 2000+ learners every month.

Help @ Hand

Developed this suite of apps, rolled out to doctors across the UK — and 300,000+ patients.

Help @ Hand is a cross-platform Flutter app that connects patients with local support groups and wellness activities. The app is managed via a secure React dashboard with real-time collaboration and minute-by-minute version history (enhanced by React hooks and event sourcing).

As seen on Prince Charles's Instagram!

Interactive Popcorn Simulation

Designed and developed a mouth-watering physics simulation that's easier to experience than to describe.

The accompanying tutorial for simulating 2D physics in JavaScript using Matter.js has reached 13,000+ readers and counting.

Languages

JavaScript, HTML, CSS, PHP, Sass, TypeScript

Frameworks

Flutter

Libraries/APIs

React, Liquid

Tools

Gutenberg Editor

Paradigms

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Responsive

Platforms

WordPress, WooCommerce, Android, iOS, Docker

Other

User Experience (UX), Mobile Apps, Page Speed Optimization, eCommerce, UI Animation, Natural Language Processing (NLP), GPT, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT)

Industry Expertise

Marketing, Healthcare

2015 - 2018

Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science with Philosophy

Durham University - Durham, UK

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