Nicholas George Wieland (ngw) resume

I've been hired by Chorally to rebuild their legacy system.

I've gathered all specs of the old system and rebuilt it on a wildly improved architecture: services in a mixture of Golang and Ruby (Grape mostly, with a lot of Karafka) to be ran on a K8s environment.

The software now runs using a fraction of the resources it used to use, with improved performances, stability and correctness.

I have had the opportunity to work on OPEN, an exceptional Ruby on Rails application designed specifically to efficiently manage all IFAD procurement processes.

The project focused on developing multiple subsystems and improving the overall system performance. My main involvement was in implementing the help system backend and frontend to aid staff in using what is a very complex system. I also implemented file uploads for activities using ActiveStorage, and was involved in improving the internal journal. At the same time, I've corrected many bugs in the system backend.

IFAD is an international organization that operates in different countries. A big issue we faced was dealing with localization and managing multiple currencies. I had to develop everything with the UI in mind, making it available in English, French, and Spanish.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework, PostgreSQL database.

I have built the Data Catalogue web application from scratch, leading a young team of developers.

I developed the backend for the application's main functions. This involves the development of an API endpoint that allows ministries to effortlessly upload their API endpoints and data catalogues using JSON. Furthermore, I also implemented the ability to set up a background job to fetch endpoints and catalogues from HTTP endpoints.

Other than this, I managed to dockerize the application and deploy it on Heroku.

As the most experienced developer on the project, I found great satisfaction in mentoring my fellow developers.

The application was a huge success and, being an MVP, granted the continuation of development.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework, PostgreSQL database, Docker and Heroku.

I worked on releasing their MVP on the web, Apple Store and Play Store.

I've worked extensively on some of their microservices. My main focus was the administration service, a Ruby on Rails application that had to authenticate against a SSO server and manage all the other services through HTTP calls. I was also involved in the development of user-serviuce, the microservice used to manage all their users.

We launched and had to respond to a stunning rise in traffic, and scale the services in collaboration with a team of DevOps.

The software was a huge success, effectively giving Africa access to a crypto wallet.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails and Grape framework, PostgreSQL, Docker and AWS.

I was part of the connect team, helping on a number of projects and services throughout SohoHouse microservice architecture, most notably profile-service, checkin-service and hook.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework, PostgreSQL, Docker, , Kubernetes and Github.

I helped to build the Early Career Framework application

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework, PostgreSQL, Docker, and Github.

I was in charge of updating a number of applications managing dependencies and fixing security vulnerabilities.

These applications had to be dockerized and moved into the cloud, scanned to check for vulnerabilities, and updated.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework, AWS, Docker, CircleCI and Jenkins.

I was for most of the time the main backend developer in charge of the rewrite of the Lawbite platform.

Work included building several microservices, writing the administration panel for the company's CMS, helping external developers in rebuilding the main portal.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework, AWS with Kubernetes.

I was for most of the time the only backend developer in charge of the book a secure move API application.

Work included normalizing the data structure, implementing document uploads with ActiveStorage, and implememntig Webhooks.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework, AWS with Kubernetes. I also acquired some good experience of Swagger and JSON API.

My duties involved maintaining the old application, developing new features and, after the merger with Dacast, work on splitting the two main applications in microservices.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework, AWS and the Serverless framework.

I was involved in evaluating the old application and move development to London.

My duties involved traveling to Ljubljana to make an evaluation of the software we had in house, then recruiting a developer to move the development to London. I could choose my own stack and mentor a junior developer, but also build the whole system, including rebuilding the AWS infrastructure under the supervision of a senior engineer at The Scale Factory.

The technologies involved were Ruby with the RubyOnRails framework. I also had the immense pleasure to use the Elm language to build the frontend.

I worked in the Payments team developing the main administration interface that manages all their services.
The project is built from the ground up using the Phoenix Framework and PostgreSQL.

As part of my day to day duties I also had to build the authentication layer for all their Ruby API endpoints, and later an Elixir library to let the administration application query these services.

The technologies involved were Ruby and Elixir with the RubyOnRails and Phoenix frameworks.

During my short stay I helped in the development of their new E-Commerce site . I was the only developer working for them and I had to manage the project with external developers: the website was very complex as Antonioli is available worldwide and has to take care of the different tax rates and regulations and also have a very thorough administration interface to allow non techinical users to manage the products and the sale process.

I also had to maintain their legacy website, which was a disgraceful mess in RubyOnRails 2.0 developed by many people in the time span of more than 6 years.

The technologies involved were Ruby and RubyOnRails, the new website was built using the Spree framework.

I worked with the founders to build the Sportboom website project from the ground up, starting from a website in PHP/MySQL that I was in charge to port to RubyOnRails/PostgreSQL with many new features.
A very important part of the job was to obtain good rankings on the main search engines, and to accomplish this I had to work close to a SEO and implement all the features he needed. The company wanted to build a marketplace for sport enthusiasts were users could find recreation activities to engage at the cheapest price.

I also had to search and hire a designer and a junior developer to help me out as part of the job.

The technologies involved were Ruby and RubyOnRails, with PostgreSQL as database.
I could also use Bootstrap for the first time to build the frontend.

I obtained a seed fund from H-Farm to develop an idea I had while at my previous job.

I implemented the whole StyleJam platform again from the ground up.
The startup was a reinterpretetion of the old CSS Zen Garden where designers could enter their personal data and style with CSS a common page with their data and their own designs, pretty much like Carbonmade meets the CSS Zen Garden.

I also wrote on the blog, took care of public relations, marketing, sales, accounting, system administration, and pretty much everything you can eventually think someone can do in a company.

The tecnhologies I used were Ruby and RubyOnRails with MongoDB. The portfolios were static websites hosted on S3 very cheaply and composed by a service I built with Goliath.io.

I developed the Zooppa website from the ground up, caring about the implementation, maintenance , architecture, and taking every technological choice from the very beginning.
Zooppa generates high quality video and graphic design content for advertising campaigns. Marketers and agencies from the world’s top brands use Zooppa’s crowdsourcing platform to connect with an online creative community of over 350,000 members.

I managed the product for clients like Google, Microsoft, Sun, AT&T, Samsung, Fiat and many others, interacting with their development teams on a daily basis.
I also built the development team from the very beginning hiring the developers, designers and system administrators I needed.

The tecnhologies involved were Ruby and RubyOnRails on a MySQL RDBMS.

I helped the team to startup the company, rewriting a Java application in Ruby on Rails. The rewrite was a huge success, the codebase was completely covered by tests so we’ve been able to release a product with very few defects and a reduced / cleaner codebase.

Hotchalk leverages data and technology to support all phases of the student life cycle, and enables industry-leading student retention and graduation rates. The site had more than 30k registered users on the first day, and is now helping hundreds of schools to keep pupils, teachers and parents connected.

The tecnhologies involved were Ruby and RubyOnRails on a MySQL RDBMS.

I worked with the Assembla team to the initial implementation of their Breakout system, a website very similar to what Github became years later, but based on svn and trac, and aimed at helping developers hosting their source code and manage the whole development team.

Initially, Breakout was written in Ruby and RubyOnRails on a MySQL RDBMS. It also used extensively Subverision and Trac.

I authored a chapter of the first book in italian language about Ruby Ruby per applicazioni web, explaining how to use databases in Ruby. The book is still around and I find mentions of it pretty much everywhere on italian IT groups.

After my first work experience I wanted to gain as much experience as I could, so I started to work as a consultant for many italian companies while working myself on some free software projects like the Application Server Zope.

My customers included Monte dei Paschi di Siena (they still has some of my systems in production), Telecom and many others.

I wrote everything I could, from websites to client software for Fax Servers. The languages involved were mainly Python, PHP and to a minor extent Java.

At neato I built their e-commerce, their CRM systems and I administered their servers.
It was my first working experience and I learned a lot.

The e-commerce site was in PHP, ported from an ASP3 site. The CRM in Zope. Their 3 servers were using FreeBSD and hosting some internal services.

I always loved animals and dogs in particular, and I wanted to build something to help stray dogs find a new home.

I developed the PetsWantPats website to help people in search of a new dog to find the perfect match.
PetsWantPats is a search engine that lets dog shelters list their dogs for adoption.

The entire project is financed by me and is a nonprofit.

The website is in RubyOnRails with some Javascript. I wanted to experiment a bit and learn in the process, that's why the whole frontend is in HAML.
The DBMS is PostgreSQL and the search engine is built around Elastic Search.