
Yoosif Sherif
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Surrey, BC, Canada
Toptal member since May 21, 2018
Yoosif is persistent and adapts to new environments quickly. As proof, he graduated with a master's degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of British Columbia without having a bachelor's in this area. He built the most known (at its time in its language) open-source TTS without prior experience in the TTS field. Yoosif specializes in back-end services and front-end web applications. He values simplicity and efficiency and writes super-readable and maintainable code.
Portfolio
Experience
- Back-end - 8 years
- Node.js - 6 years
- React - 4 years
- Web Scraping - 4 years
- Python - 4 years
- Chrome Extensions - 3 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 3 years
- Go - 2 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Jira, Bitbucket, Slack, Lean, Agile, Teams, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), GitHub, MacOS, Chrome
The most amazing...
...software I've developed is an Arabic text-to-speech synthesizer, the most popular open-source Arabic TTS at that time.
Work Experience
Software Developer
A Healthcare Institute
- Designed a pipeline in AWS for extracting and uploading text from one S3 bucket to another. The pipeline involved two S3 buckets, an SNS topic, two CloudWatch alarms, two Lambdas, and Amazon Textract. I also used AWS CDK as IaC.
- Used a Chrome extension to crawl complex data from a website that required parsing scripts from the page to extract information like authorization tokens. Uploaded the data to Amazon S3 after crawling.
- Developed the front and back ends of a chat interface that used OpenAI's API. Each user had custom data used as context for the API.
- Converted a web app to Android and iOS apps in three days using Expo and React Native. The apps had a chat interface, authentication forms, and data tables.
- Created React components as part of a Chrome extension, where the components appear as a modal on specific pages, adding custom functionality.
- Leveraged Expo and React Native to build an app with a chat interface, speech recognition, speech synthesis, OpenAI integration, authentication forms, and data tables.
Full-stack Developer
Synthesis AI
- Oversaw feature development, maintenance, and release of a web application that served hundreds of users, including several Fortune 100 companies.
- Developed and maintained a Go API integrated with a PostgreSQL database and other external APIs, like Stripe API, interfaced by a web app and a CLI.
- Built features and fixed bugs in an existing codebase from day one.
- Refactored a React codebase, which led to removing about 500 lines of code using React Hooks.
- Refactored a Go codebase, which led to removing about 1,000 lines of code by integrating SQLBoiler ORM.
- Reduced bug arrival rate in the data layer by about 60% after integrating SQLBoiler ORM, replacing standard library SQL queries.
- Completed tasks ahead of schedule in over 90% of sprints.
- Achieved the highest frequency of merged pull requests (PR) among a team of four, averaging about two PRs per workday, with each PR representing one Jira task on average.
Back-end Developer
Multiplayer Games Platform
- Developed a back-end service for multiplayer games with video calling capability between players.
- Reconfigured the Socket.IO connection so that the server still recognizes registered clients, even after a server crash.
- Integrated a Cloud Firestore database with an existing codebase.
- Refactored an existing codebase for a multiplayer gaming platform and decoupled and modularized the code.
Front-end Developer
Telecommunications Company
- Scraped production-level websites to replicate them locally and performed updates on them.
- Implemented CSS changes on the fly, using the browser only where the code was not convenient for use.
- Adapted styles to a variety of screen sizes and different browser environments.
Software Engineer
Speech Morphing
- Saved over 90% of compute costs for ML inference GPU instances by developing an app feature that allows stakeholders to turn the instances "off" when not needed.
- Developed microservices for a text-to-speech (TTS) system.
- Oversaw feature development, maintenance, and deployment of microservices and a web application that allows users to try a TTS system.
Full-stack Developer
Confidential Toptal Client
- Developed a crawler that sends log messages in semi-real time to the front end using Socket.IO. The crawler has options for filtering URLs and for maximum crawl depth.
- Crawled websites that were saved as a zipped archive in an S3 bucket. Links to those files are kept in a MongoDB database.
- Used Angular on the front end to build the admin panel for monitoring crawls.
Full-stack Developer
Auto Auction Company
- Developed an admin panel that managed cars for auctions, featuring a sophisticated image uploader/sorter and chips.
- Migrated from an old Python Flask API service to a Node.js service.
- Migrated 3rd-party data to the system's MongoDB database.
Software Engineer
Manufacturing Company
- Built an admin panel with sophisticated client-side state management that enabled a manufacturing company's admins to create and monitor jobs and parts manufactured along with an employee management system.
- Developed a Node.js API service and handled the deployment of the admin panel and a MongoDB database.
- Showcased my UI components with Storybook and built unit tests to test the front- and back-end logic.
- Used the Hygen code generator to generate UI components and routes quickly.
Senior Developer | Technical Team Lead
ThoughtDesign
- Optimized the build and bundling process for three Angular apps within two weeks, leading to about 30% faster bundling.
- Conducted interviews and evaluated candidates as part of the hiring process that led to five hires.
- Led a team of three that was recognized as the top-performing team by one of the company's major clients.
- Developed new features in Angular for an enterprise project, collaborating effectively with other developers within a Scrum framework.
Front-end Developer | Full-stack Developer
34ML Logo + Slogan
- Optimized MongoDB queries, reducing response time by about 80% and facilitating a better UX for respective users.
- Developed and maintained a back-end service that integrates with an iOS and Android app to allow thousands of multinational pharma company employees to conduct phone tests.
- Learned and applied various technologies rapidly to meet project demands.
- Fixed bugs and built features for AngularJS admin panels that involved real-time notifications and hierarchical access control.
Experience
Arabic Tacotron TTS
https://github.com/yoosif0/arabic-tacotron-ttsDevelop a text-to-speech system with a higher naturalness score for the Arabic language for small businesses that can't afford the costs of proprietary systems.
OUTCOME
Created a 20% more natural-sounding TTS system compared to the legacy state-of-the-art open-source TTS system.
Ask.fm Web Automation Tool and Chrome Extension
Allow entrepreneurs and small businesses to conduct market research affordably.
OUTCOME
Created a browser automator that asks Ask.fm users (filtered by their interests) for responses, cutting the cost per question answered by over 90% compared to traditional tools like SurveyMonkey.
D3.js and Chart.js Linter and Runtime Checker
KEY FEATURES
• Enforcing consistent color schemes in bar charts.
• Ensuring horizontal label orientation for improved readability in bar charts.
• Limiting the number of pie chart categories to enhance comprehension.
• Verifying data sorting in pie and bar charts for logical presentation.
• Enforcing color-blind-friendly palettes for line charts.
• Limiting the number of lines in a line chart for better readability.
• Disallowing y-axis cutting in line charts.
The tool aims to improve visualization clarity, accessibility, and adherence to data visualization best practices.
iGrant
https://github.com/yoosif0/data_access_blockchain_iotTacola App
• An Angular app deployed on Zeit
• A synthesizer deployed on a server that has a GPU in Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• An Arabic Diacritizer deployed on Heroku
• A controller deployed in Heroku that turns on and off the GPU server, communicates with the Diacritizer, and interfaces with the front-end app
I also used Google Cloud Storage to store machine learning models and another GPU server in GCP for training.
Blood Donation Real-time Map
https://github.com/yoosif0/blood-donation-real-time-mapYouTube Channel Course
https://www.youtube.com/@yoosif0OpenXML Resume Generator
Reduce the time needed to update a .docx resume.
OUTCOME
Developed a system that extracts relevant data from a YAML file and generates a .docx resume, reducing the time to customize resumes by more than 90%.
COVID-19 Alert System
CORE FEATURES
1. Building status management:
• Enables admins to update the building's COVID-19 status via SMS.
• Stores building data in Airtable (name and status).
• Allows the public to view the building status via a web interface with green/red indicators.
2. User registration system:
• Includes a phone number verification via Twilio SMS.
• Provides a multi-step signup process: The system verifies the phone number with an SMS code and collects user details such as name, email, and building association.
• Stores user data in Airtable.
Education
Master of Applied Science Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of British Columbia - Vancouver, BC, Canada
Certifications
Toptal React Academy Graduate
Toptal, LLC
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React Redux, REST APIs, NGXS, React, Node.js, OpenAI API, API Development, Puppeteer, Twilio API, ArcGIS API 4, Socket.IO, RxJS, React Router, React Native for Web, Web3.js, Stripe, Stripe API, D3.js, Chart.js
Tools
GitHub, JSX, Chrome Developer Tools, Git, Mocha, MongoDB Atlas, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Bitbucket, GNU Wget, Jira, Slack, Gulp, Webpack, Karma, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Textract, Firebase Authentication, Expo, CircleCI, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Makefile, SMART on FHIR
Languages
HTML, Go, ECMAScript (ES6), TypeScript, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Solidity, SCSS, Sass, SQL, C#, Less
Frameworks
Jasmine, Jest, Express.js, Angular, Redux, Flask, Chrome, Swagger, AngularJS, Tailwind CSS, React Native, .NET, Material UI, Selenium
Paradigms
MEAN Stack, Web Architecture, REST, Microservices, Automation, Agile, Scrum, Continuous Delivery (CD), Continuous Integration (CI), Page Object Model (POM), Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Heroku, Vercel, Twilio, Docker, Firebase, Ethereum, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), AWS Lambda, Kubernetes, MacOS
Storage
JSON, MongoDB, Data Integration, Google Cloud, Google Cloud Storage, Cloud Firestore, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), PostgreSQL, Data Pipelines, OpenXML
Other
Chrome Extensions, Full-stack, Web Scraping, Front-end, API Design, Socket Communication, Browser Automation, Engineering, Back-end, Architecture, Software Development, API Integration, DOM Parsing, Data Scraping, Scraping, Web Crawlers, APIs, Full-stack Development, Software Architecture, Software Design, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), ChatGPT API, Email Automation, CAPTCHA, Technical Leadership, WebSockets, Google+ Authentication, Authentication, Material Design, Code Generators, Encryption, IPFS, Lean, Teams, Storybook, JSDOM, OpenAI, Code Review, Extensions, Decentralized Applications, Payment Gateways, Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Large Language Models (LLMs), Strapi, Charts, Airtable, Data Processing, Bots
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring