Dustin Cass, Developer in Irvine, CA, United States

Dustin Cass

Software Developer

Location
Irvine, CA, United States
Toptal Member Since
September 26, 2018

Dustin has been a professional front-end engineer for over ten years and has worked at companies and agencies large and small. He's passionate and dedicated to his craft, and he always goes the extra mile for his employers and clients.

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Portfolio

Amazon
Redux, React, JavaScript, Spring, Java, Swift, React Native, TypeScript
Blizzard Entertainment
Git, Subversion (SVN), PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle SQL, C#, Sinatra, Ruby, Sass...
Oakley
PHP, WordPress, Melissa Data, Quality Assurance (QA), Bazaar, Google Maps...

Experience

CSS - 15 yearsJavaScript - 13 yearsGit - 10 yearsNode.js - 5 yearsAngular - 3 yearsReact - 2 yearsTypeScript - 2 yearsReact Native - 2 years

Location

Irvine, CA, United States

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), MacOS

The most amazing...

...project I've worked on is a Google Maps style data visualization tool for the World of Warcraft development team which plotted various data points onto a map.

Work Experience

2018 - PRESENT

Web Development Engineer II

Amazon
  • Served as the primary team member of the Alexa companion app’s Skill Store replatform from web views to React Native TypeScript.
  • Instituted style guides, linting rules, and best practices for the project.
  • Drove initiatives for performant, well-tested code and an architecture that reduced redundancy and provided more freedom to update the customer experience independent of scheduled app releases.
  • Lead operational management of the front-end of the Skills & Games section of the Alexa app, including bi-weekly release oversight, pipeline and deployment management, and significant performance improvements. Additionally, developed proprietary tooling in TypeScript for a React Native package to emits metrics to monitoring dashboards and alarms in order to improve operational visibility of a live experience.
  • Designed the front-end architecture for and lead the development of the Wedding Registry Alexa Skill Blueprint Editor for the Amazon Retail Website. This package was built in React and has integrations with a Spring-based back-end for saving drafts, retrieving, publishing, and sharing custom Wedding Registry Alexa skills, and included React form components such as an audio recorder, image picker, and file uploader.
Technologies: Redux, React, JavaScript, Spring, Java, Swift, React Native, TypeScript
2014 - 2017

Senior Web Front End Engineer I

Blizzard Entertainment
  • Architected, created, and maintained several internal tools used by the engineering and design departments of the World of Warcraft team ranging from full-stack projects to front-end single-page applications driven by APIs.
  • Created a performance report tool for technical artists backed by the World of Warcraft Oracle database. Users could query and sort the data in the report to surface information most relevant to them. This was a front-end only single page application built primarily on the Aurelia framework that used an HTTP API to send queries to the database.
  • Developed a database viewer single-page application using Angular 1, jQuery, and LESS that was used extensively to navigate and query data from the various World of Warcraft database schemas. This tool was backed by a separate application that made the data available through a RESTful HTTP API.
  • Architected and implemented the second evolution of our tools build system, which was split into two separate applications. The build system itself was developed in Ruby and used a listener thread to pull jobs from the PostgreSQL database when they were entered from the website. The website was a full-stack application built on Sinatra and ES2016 which used Server Sent Events to provide immediate updates to the front-end for displaying currently queued items and logs. Authentication was implemented through the corporate LDAP to connect users to builds. Build notes were created from SVN logs for each build and were automatically emailed to QA when a build was accompanied by a testing request.
  • Created an interactive map viewer (similar to Google Maps) for users and automation tools to plot various data such as spawn density, node changes between builds, point lights, zone lights, quest givers, and much much more on minimaps. This was a full-stack project built on an Express back-end, an SQLite database, handlebars templates, with Leaflet.js, ES2016, Canvas, and LESS for the front-end. Authentication Server-Sent with NTLM SSO negotiation.
  • Collaborated with other internal teams to update and maintain a web-based pipeline management tool for moving builds, data, and assets to and from internal and external CDNs. Built with C# .NET, Python, jQuery, HTML, and LESS.
  • Maintained the website for creating builds of the World of Warcraft client and server. Primary work was on the front-end, which ran on simple HTML, CSS, and jQuery. Occasionally, additional work was needed on the back-end, which was built with PHP and MySQL.
Technologies: Git, Subversion (SVN), PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle SQL, C#, Sinatra, Ruby, Sass, Less, CSS, HTML, jQuery, LeafletJS, Aurelia, Angular, JavaScript
2011 - 2014

Lead Web Front End Engineer

Oakley
  • Served as the architect and technical lead for the front-end development of the Oakley.com website launched in early 2014. The new site used jQuery as the base library with many custom built jQuery plugins for code reuse. We used require.js to organize code and load dependencies for different pages, and Dust.js templates for highly dynamic pages with reusable blocks. For a CSS pre-processor, we used LESS.js to ease CSS organization and repetition. We also use Modernizr for some feature detection, and Grunt for running tests, building and minifying our front-end files. In addition to those libraries, we also hooked into a number of 3rd party APIs such as Google Maps, Bazaar Voice, QAS and Melissa Data for address verification, and more.
  • Managed code reviews, standards, and expectations for an external agency that augmented our internal team for the front-end development of the new website, and regularly communicated with their lead developer to ensure that both teams were on the same page.
  • Developed numerous custom components for the Hybris CMS using JSP, JSTL, XML, and impex files.
  • Forked and maintained an internal version of Less.js to enforce a stricter structure for our LESS files.
  • Managed a team of three internal developers, assisted BSAs in documentation work, and collaborated with the back-end Hybris developers on implementations of new features.
  • Developed the first Oakley mobile experience using responsive design via CSS3 and JavaScript-based media queries targeting specific resolutions for delivering a unique experience to supported devices.
  • Developed the Holiday 2011 Interactive Guide campaign which led customers through an animated, interactive, holiday shopping experience and highlighted promotions and deals. The application was powered with JavaScript and CSS3 animations and transitions.
  • Developed a JS and Rails powered interactive LookBook — a single page application for marketing complete winter outfits.
  • Developed the WordPress theme for the site of the Infinite Hero Foundation, including working with PHP, HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.
Technologies: PHP, WordPress, Melissa Data, Quality Assurance (QA), Bazaar, Google Maps, Subversion (SVN), Git, Ruby on Rails (RoR), ImpEx, XML, JSTL, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), CSS, Less, HTML, Grunt, Modernizr, Dust.js, RequireJS, jQuery, JavaScript
2009 - 2011

Web Developer

Sports Warehouse
  • Maintained multiple live websites using Panic Coda, including hand coding in XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, Ruby, and a proprietary server-side scripting language specific to the company's POS system.
  • Managed databases, files, and moderate use of Git version control through SSH in Terminal.
  • Converted mock-ups provided by graphic designers to fully functional eCommerce websites.
  • Ensured that all development was cross-browser compatible.
  • Developed and maintained web systems for managing product information, managing employee efficiency, comparing product specifications, advanced product searching, and customer contests.
  • Organized a team of people to coordinate new site designs going up, and dealing with any problems that arise in a high-volume eCommerce environment.
  • Worked with graphic designers to ensure new designs adhere to many accessibility and user experience best practices.
  • Collaborated with the web server engineers to improve stability and speed on all sites.
Technologies: Git, Ruby, PHP, CSS, HTML, jQuery, JavaScript
2008 - 2009

Web Development Intern

Etna Interactive
  • Maintained multiple live websites using Adobe Dreamweaver, including hand coding in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and ColdFusion.
  • Designed various buttons and feature blocks with Adobe Photoshop to match the appearance of a site's current design.
  • Built sites out from a single template page and mockup.
  • Cropped photos for before and after photo galleries, and uploading using a back-end photo gallery management system.
  • Used SourceControl Vault to manage file versioning, history, and prevent conflicts between users.
  • Developed a Microsoft Word macro written in VBScript to easily convert Word Documents for press releases into standards compliant XHTML.
Technologies: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe ColdFusion, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
2007 - 2008

Webmaster and Systems Administrator

The Music Factory
  • Maintained a live eCommerce website and a local administration/CMS website, including programming in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ASP VBScript, XML, XSLT, and MSSQL.
  • Maintained, built, and managed computers for 10 desktop systems running Windows NT/2000.
  • Maintained one server running MS Server 2003, IIS, Exchange Server 2003, and MSSQL Server 2000.
Technologies: Microsoft SQL Server, XSLT, XML, ASP, VBScript, HTML, CSS, JavaScript

Experience

Oakley.com

https://www.oakley.com
Led the front-end development effort in an entire site and platform overhaul, from a basic Ruby stack to the omnichannel commerce platform Hybris.

Skills

Languages

XML, CSS3, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, ES7, ECMAScript (ES6), Less, CSS4, Sass, TypeScript, Swift, VBScript, XSLT, Bash, Java, PHP, Ruby, C#, SQL

Tools

Sublime Text 3, Gulp, Git, Subversion (SVN), Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Grunt, Adobe ColdFusion

Platforms

Visual Studio Code (VS Code), MacOS, Firebase, WordPress

Other

Front-end Development, Regular Expressions, ImpEx, Bazaar, Quality Assurance (QA), Melissa Data

Frameworks

Express.js, React Native, Angular, Aurelia, Dust.js, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Spring, Redux, ASP, Sinatra, Ruby on Rails (RoR), CakePHP

Libraries/APIs

Node.js, jQuery, RequireJS, Modernizr, LeafletJS, React, Google Maps, JSTL, Polymer

Paradigms

Agile, Kanban, Waterfall Development

Storage

Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite