Zach is available for hire
Hire ZachZach Goldstein
Verified Expert in Engineering
Web Scraping Developer
Location
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal Member Since
May 2, 2016
Zach is a software engineer with a decade of experience developing software across a wide variety of platforms. His focus now is on distributed systems and back-end development with Python, Golang, and Node.js. He has built data pipelines processing hundreds of millions of unique data points, and mobile payment platforms processing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Portfolio
Airbrake.io
TypeScript, Angular, JavaScript, Go
Appmonsta
Spark, Python
Spring
Go
Experience
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Amazon Web Services (AWS), GitHub, Linux, Docker, Atom, PyCharm
The most amazing...
...work I've done was on a high-performance data pipeline with Spark and Python that processes hundreds of millions of unique data points every day.
Work Experience
Distributed Systems Engineer
2016 - 2018
Airbrake.io
- Improved and maintained the distributed systems code (Go) that accepted and ingested large quantities (~10 million/day data points) of error data.
- Built front-facing features in JavaScript and TypeScript using AngularJS—focusing on improving the user flows linking error data to deploys.
Technologies: TypeScript, Angular, JavaScript, Go
Distributed Systems Engineer
2015 - 2016
Appmonsta
- Built Spark (Python) pipelines processing more than 200 million unique data points per day.
- Implemented more-intelligent crawling strategies for high-performance Python web spiders scraping more than 1 million items a day which reduced the operational load of the crawler infrastructure significantly.
- Fixed bugs and maintained the high-performance crawling infrastructure.
Technologies: Spark, Python
Contract Software Engineer
2015 - 2015
Spring
- Helped the company scale their web scraping infrastructure by building critical components with golang.
Technologies: Go
Engineer
2014 - 2015
Rockpool Labs
- Worked with Golang on the Google app engine building high performance, auto-scaling services.
- Built out core service libraries, including logging, error handling, and others critical components.
Technologies: Go
Senior Software Engineer
2013 - 2014
Aston Club
- Initiated and won internal support for a set of Node.js-based software development best practices that minimized duplication of work. This became the lynch-pin for the refactoring of internal code and a key part of the company's plans to tackle problems of scale.
- Championed a complete switch in infrastructure management to Ansible, rewriting deployment, testing, and changes to development procedures to increase productivity.
- Played a part in developing a custom auto-updater in C# and .NET, getting up to speed quickly with the evil land of Microsoft (perhaps learning it's not so evil).
- Developed a new POS integration that increased the total number of active venues (at the time) by 10%.
- Wrote a communications library to drastically simplify the methods of inter-service message routing through message brokers (RabbitMQ).
Technologies: Ansible, .NET, AngularJS, Node.js
Software Developer
2012 - 2012
Better Place Australia
- Prototyped an IOS application to give the company's customers direct feedback about the Better Place network.
- Designed and built the early mobile client API for communicating with the Better Place network; utilized the Typesafe stack, Salesforce, and MongoDB.
- Improved and maintained internal tools that directly affected the workflow of employees testing devices in the field.
Technologies: MongoDB, Scala, iOS
Founder | Sole Developer
2011 - 2011
Reindeer Flotilla
- Founded a small business that created games for the web.
- Led a remote team of five people across nine time zones to build Sapphire Skies, an action game with strategic elements that has been played 9,400 times to date.
- Coded all elements of the game, from the UI to the back-end, integrating and heavily modifying an open source ActionScript engine called Flixel.
- Utilized a small test group to make informed improvements based on analytics.
Technologies: CSS, HTML, Flash ActionScript
Software Developer
2011 - 2011
Electronic Arts Montreal
- Worked closely in a team of developers, artists, and economists to develop "Trouble Makers," an iPhone game that was played by tens of thousands of users.
- Contributed to all layers of the application, from the server to the UI to the tools.
- Added new features, fixed bugs, and pushed development towards a polished finished product.
- Worked with Unity 3D and C# on the client end in addition to Java on the back-end.
Technologies: C#, Java, Unity3D
Games Developer
2010 - 2010
HitGrab Inc.
- Helped drive the conceptualization, development, and analysis of a Flash-based Facebook game.
- Contributed to all layers of the application, creating code on the PHP-based back-end and the ActionScript front-end.
Technologies: PHP, Flash ActionScript
Prototype Software Developer
2009 - 2009
Research In Motion
- Architected the front-end development of a major conceptual prototype intended to explore new uses of advanced user interfaces.
- Worked closely with a team of hardware engineers, graphic designers, and industrial designers to develop software to create a cutting-edge product concept.
Technologies: C, Java, Flash ActionScript
Interactive Development Intern
2009 - 2009
Fantasy Interactive
- Worked alongside seasoned industry experts on projects for major clients (Electronic Arts and Burton).
- Created CSS and HTML widgets that formed the basis of a community-based portal website.
- Brainstormed and designed wireframes that were used to create the Kontain (FI’s home-grown social network) iPhone app.
- Worked in Flash to rapidly create an application for Burton Snowboards that would interactively reveal a portion of a map with smoothly animated movements.
Technologies: HTML, CSS, Flash ActionScript
Software Developer
2008 - 2008
Autodesk
- Created a Java-based web tool for a project management system that increased usability and saved employees considerable amounts of time each day.
- Performed basic use and administration of the Perforce source control system.
- Wrote Python scripts to automate processes in Perforce.
Technologies: Perforce, Python, Java
Software Developer
2008 - 2008
DesignAxiom
- Learned an in-house Flash development framework and applied knowledge to contribute major deliverables in the development of a complex Flex application for a pharmaceutical analytics company.
- Contributed to an intricate Flex application in the children’s entertainment sector.
- Created JSFL scripts to simplify animation tasks and solve interaction problems between animations and the Flex application.
- Added features to a a desktop-based educational video player.
- Fixed bugs with a Facebook-based Flash game.
Technologies: Flex, Flash ActionScript
Experience
Metadroner
http://metadroner.comI built a search engine for drone and multicopter (mechanically simple aerial vehicle) parts, after getting involved with racing drones and getting frustrated with searching numerous stores for the hobby products I needed. This was built to serve a personal itch, and I'm proud to say that the small community received it quite well. It's grown to serve almost a thousand users.
This project was a solo endeavor, and included building the following:
• A Python-based web scraping infrastructure collecting data on over 25,000 products every day.
• An advanced search engine leveraging Elasticsearch and a Node.js back-end.
• A React single page app front-end.
This project was a solo endeavor, and included building the following:
• A Python-based web scraping infrastructure collecting data on over 25,000 products every day.
• An advanced search engine leveraging Elasticsearch and a Node.js back-end.
• A React single page app front-end.
Skills
Languages
Python, JavaScript, Go, Scala, Java, C#, Flash ActionScript, HTML, CSS, PHP, C, TypeScript
Frameworks
Scrapy, Flask, Django REST Framework, Apache Spark, Spark, AngularJS, Unity3D, Flex, Angular, .NET
Platforms
Linux, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), iOS
Storage
MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch
Other
Big Data, Web Scraping
Libraries/APIs
Node.js, React
Tools
PyCharm, Atom, GitHub, Ansible, Perforce
Education
2007 - 2013
Bachelor's Degree in Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Certifications
FEBRUARY 2019 - FEBRUARY 2022
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate
AWS
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