Hi,
I'm Dobson

Welcome! I'm a tech enthusiast with interests ranging from full-stack web development to cybersecurity and cloud computing. I love to learn on-the-go while tackling real-world problems with long-term solutions.
I'm driven by curiosity, collaboration, and building awesome things with awesome people.

Experiences

Full-Stack Software Engineer

May 2024 - present

Savvas Learning Company (EdTech)

  • Developing full-stack solutions for Outlier.org, an industry-leading dual-enrollment ed-tech platform, using React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, Jest, and Google Cloud within an Agile workflow
  • Leading WCAG2.2AA accessibility audit across each of the 5 React frontends, ensuring the platform is accessible to all users, regardless of disability.
  • Containerizing development environments, allowing devs to run a single command to handle end-to-end environment setup, thereby improving developer and onboarding efficiency
  • Contributing towards planning for various upcoming Google Cloud to AWS infrastructure migrations
React
React
Node_js
Node_js
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
AWS
AWS
Google_Cloud
Google_Cloud
Docker
Docker

Full-Stack Software Engineering Co-Op

Sep 2023 - May 2024

Mercedes-Benz & IFA Group

  • Led team of 4 to develop a portable inventory scanning system using React, Flask, AWS, PostgreSQL, OpenCV, Tesseract OCR and YOLOv8 for real-time, small-part tracking in industrial settings to enable inventory awareness and supply-chain analytics
  • Authored Software Requirements & Design Specification documents (SRS and SDS), gathering then defining functional and non-functional requirements which were then used in system design.
  • Designed and implemented restful HTTPS communications via AWS API Gateway to SAP APIs, enabling real-time, scalable inventory transactions
  • Achieved 98% inventory accuracy and SAP integration, delivering a fully end-to-end solution, significantly surpassing the existing accuracy and efficiency benchmarks
React
React
Flask
Flask
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
AWS
AWS
OpenCV
OpenCV

Software Engineering Intern

May 2023 - Aug 2023

Savvas Learning Company (EdTech)

  • Developed full-stack solutions for Savvas Realize, an industry-leading K-12 ed-tech platform, using Angular 16 MFEs, Apollo, GraphQL, RxJS, Spring, PostgreSQL, and Jest
  • Resolved 11 high-priority Jira tickets, contributing to sprint goals within an Agile team
  • Designed API sequence diagrams, illustrating the end-to-end lifecycle across Angular micro-frontends, Apollo GraphQL, Spring services, and PostgreSQL, for use in understanding and optimizing within a module federation architecture
  • Built a comprehensive, all-in-one Confluence knowledge hub, covering content from day 1 new-dev onboarding guides to custom micro-frontend build steps, reducing redundant knowledge-sharing and improving developer autonomy/efficiency.
Angular
Angular
GraphQL
GraphQL
Spring
Spring
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
Jest
Jest
StoryBook
StoryBook

Data Engineering Intern

Sep 2022 - Jan 2023

Vision Software Solutions (FinTech)

  • Migrated from a monolithic desktop app to a microservice web app using React, Django, PostgreSQL, and AWS services (EC2, Lambda, S3, Athena), enhancing system efficiency and scalability
  • Optimized API and query logic, utilizing AWS ElastiCache with in-memory data store for real-time data caching, reducing user load time by 23\% (measured by AWS CloudWatch)
  • Containerized Python ETL tasks and credit scoring algorithms using Docker Containers, encapsulating isolated processes and minimizing single-point failures
React
React
Django
Django
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
AWS
AWS
Docker
Docker

Sales Engineer & Scrum Master

March 2018 - March 2021

Ceterus (FinTech startup)

  • Engineered technical solutions for over 125 clients by delivering solutions that directly fit client needs, creating real business value while increasing client happiness/retention.
  • Achieved a domain-high 23% year-over-year increase in customer retention by delivering client-aligned solutions, conducting regular feedback sessions, and consistent, personalized follow-ups, leading to stronger client relationships and improved satisfaction
  • Achieved a 21% reduction in time blocked within six months by addressing common blockers while facilitating knowledge-sharing between interdependent teams for more efficient sprint planning and execution
Jira
Jira
Excel
Excel
QuickBooks
QuickBooks

Resume

Dobson's Resume

Blog

2024-09-15

The Evolution of Managing “State" in Web Development

A simple journey through the different ways we have managed “state” throughout the history of web development.

2024-05-08

Asynchronous Programming 101: From Operating Systems Class to JavaScript’s Async/Await

From understanding concurrency and parallelism in the classroom, to applying them to in modern web development.

2023-08-29

My Approach to Managing Imposter Syndrome in Tech

Starting a career in tech can be daunting. There are some things you know, and a million you don't. Imposter syndrome is real, but I argue there are worthwhile ways to combat it.

Contact Me!