Richard Nienaber

Richard Nienaber

Senior Software Engineer at vTail

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Professional Skills Summary

Backend Development: Typescript/Node.js, Ruby, Go

DevOps: Docker, Terraform, Ansible, HAProxy, Zabbix, AWS, GCP, Pulumi

Databases: MySQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, Mongo, DynamoDB

Methodologies: Agile, Scrum, DevOps, TDD, BDD

Work Experience

2020-12-28 to Present

Senior Software Engineer at vTail

vTail (Series A start up) is a mobile app for health clinicians and sales representatives. Working on the AWS serverless backend, including DevOps.

Standardized database access to DynamoDB and use of EventBridge

2018-09-30 to 2021-03-31

Senior Software Engineer at Warner Media

Worked in an agile team that owned content portals including warnerbros.com. Reduced operating costs of content portals by 75%.

Migrated from hosted Drupal to JAM stack

Developed content delivery system from Drupal to AWS S3

Primary engineer for DevOps/Terraform work

Migrated search from Solr to ElasticSearch

Introduced and maintained real-time monitoring (Zabbix/Sentry)

Ensured <a href='https://www.spacejam.com/1996/'>spacejam.com</a> continued to function in all its 1996 glory

2018-05-31 to 2018-08-31

Senior Backend Developer at Mixtiles

Mixtiles converted a user's photo albums to wall photos. Was responsible for backend systems including retail, order processing, manufacturing and delivery tracking for a multinational product.

Worked on integration with 3rd party systems dealing with payments (Stripe), customer service (Front), delivery tracking (EasyPost) and image processing (Cloudinary)

2018-01-31 to 2018-04-30

Senior DevOps Engineer at Salesforce

Streamlined workflows with Chef and Windows Server deployment onto GCP.

Created Ruby gem to simplify MFA registration for department

2016-07-31 to 2017-12-31

Senior Node.js Engineer at RentReporters

RentReporters improved users rental scores by reporting their rental payments to credit bureaus. Took a leading role in developing and maintaining microservices to support a rewrite of a legacy PHP application.

Researched and implemented zero-downtime deploys

Implemented configuration management with Ansible

Setup monitoring (Zabbix) and observability (StatsD/Graphite)

2015-01-31 to 2016-06-30

Technical Lead at Currencycloud

Currencycloud provides an international payments API for companies around the world. In this role, I was responsible for shaping the direction of software development.

Developed technical plans for new product features e.g. direct debits

Prototyped and oversaw improvements to FIX trading system

Managed technical debt by consensus of multiple development teams

Ensured frameworks and libraries in all applications were kept up to date

2014-01-31 to 2015-03-31

Team Lead:

Development was expanded to Ukraine and was one of two team leads that helped manage the outsourced developers.

For a period of time, managed 2 teams of 4 developers and 2 testers

Functioned as a remote team lead and conducted standups, reviewed code and elaborated on requirements

Developed the specification for v2 of the API and oversaw its implementation

2012-07-31 to 2013-12-31

Senior Software Engineer:

Took part in the full software development lifecycle

Introduced code reviews and a testing culture

Mentored other developers in the team

2011-06-30 to 2012-07-31

Senior Software Developer at Spotlight

Spotlight is an online directory that connects performers, agents and casting directors. Worked as a fullstack engineer on multiple applications.

Tasked with speeding up the site with caching

Created a real-time dashboard for caching server

2009-02-01 to 2011-06-30

Software Developer at The Travel Corporation

Worked on a legacy ASP.NET booking system with a focus of introducing new features while managing technical debt.

2008-08-31 to 2009-01-29

Developer at SkillsMarket

Worked as a C# developer maintaining a backend system responsible for processing thousands of CVs per day.

2008-01-31 to 2008-08-31

Consultant at NorthPoint Solutions

Developed and supported financial portfolio management systems

2005-08-31 to 2007-12-31

Software Engineer at Korbitec

Worked on a web service that helped attorneys communicate securely between themselves and financial institutions.

2005-01-31 to 2005-07-31

Developer at lianolink

Developed a back-end system that allowed satellite users to connect to a server to send and receive email and view news

Education

2001-01-01 to 2004-12-31

Nelson Mandela University

B. Tech: Information Technology