Resume of Lawrence Stewart

Introduction

I started to code when I was about 6 or 7, maybe earlier. With my Dad’s help on his Tandy 1000 in QBasic we wrote my simple first programs like “hello, what is your name?”. It wasn’t long before I realized I could replicate these code blocks, using their PRINT, INPUT, and GOTO commands to create text based adventure games. I then tried recreating various games and apps out of programming books and magazines, with varying degrees of success. It wasn’t much later I cracked open the case of the Tandy 1000 to swap in a 3.5″ floppy drive to get a little more storage than the 5.25″.

I’m committed to scalable and performant applications. I like to focus on the entire stack and development life cycle.

Expertise

Work History

FOUNDER, AutoMudo.com, Victoria, BC.

2019 – Present

Founded AutoMudo.com, an automotive classified search engine that allows you to search multiple classified sites.

• Built scrapy based (Python) web crawlers for Craigslist, Kijiji, Dupont Registry, and AutoTrader
• Designed and developed the front-end in Next.js
• Used ElasticSearch + MongoDB to power results
• Automated front-end deployments with Gitlab CI/CD
• Went through Y Combinator startup school
• Used Firebase for user authentication, and user options like favorites and alerts
• Used Pelias (opensource geocoder) to enhance location structure and support localized search on the front-end and geo tagging of extracted data
• Currently going through Viatec market validation

Tech stack: Next.js, Python, ElasticSearch, MongoDB, Kubernetes, GitLab CI/CD, Pelias

TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANT, Self Employed, Victoria, BC.

2016 – Present

Worked with multiple companies in the eCommerce and marketing space to grow revenue and scale technologies.

• Designed an implemented SEO strategies
• Developed industry specific WooCommerce template
• Developed industry specific meta data to support SEO and UI goals
• Implemented viral loops and referral campaigns to support marketing efforts
• Developed automated email campaigns to reduce cart abandonment and improve customer retention
• Oversaw the technology stack and viral growth of one company as they grew from a few thousand to over $400,000 monthly revenue

Technologies Used: WordPress, WooCommerce, Drip, CodeIgniter, Active Campaign, Docker

FULL STACK DEVELOPER, GRAVITY LAB, VICTORIA, BC. 

February 2016 – December 2016

Developed internal tools to support media buying activities, data analytics, and reporting goals of advertising campaigns.

• Developed MySQL schema to support campaign data from multiple supply side and demand side partners.
• Developed scripts in PHP to extract and transform advertising data from partners
• Developed reporting front-end and Rest APIs in CodeIgniter(PHP) and used Chart.js for plotting
• Integrated into into Xero accounting to automate the process of generating invoices and journal entries created from advertising campaigns
• Developed and tested methods to work towards programmatic media buying
• Used ansible to setup and manage provisioning of servers

Tech Stack: Docker, CodeIgniter, Xero, JavaScript, MySql, Chart.js, Ansible

Full Stack Developer, YTZ INTERNATIONAL, Victoria, BC. 

November 2014 – October 2015

Main developer working on front-end, back-end and server side technologies for a smart VPN service.

• Head developer working with a web designer and project manager to take an idea from concept to viable product while meeting business objectives
• Used various split testing techniques to optimize conversions
• Developed a user focused application using Bootstrap, PHP, MySQL, Cassandra, LUA, HAProxy, and PowerDNS
• Integrated with multiple Rest APIs including, Recurley, PayPal, Stripe, Google and facebook
• Managed server infrastructure of 17 servers and growing across cloud providers, and maintained ansible deployment scripts
• Implemented a QA and deployment environment

Full Stack Developer, WordPress, Beanstream, Victoria, BC.

August 2013 – October 2014

Designed and Built a responsive marketing site in WordPress for Beanstream receiving over 15,000 unique visits per day.

• Responsible for the 7 user focused sites
• Led UX and UI at Beanstream, providing input and designs for mobile applications
• Led SEO optimizations on Beanstream.com and guided practices for digitalriver.com
• Helped and guided a team of 7, to reach the developers by developing the community page developer.beanstream.com
• Designed and implemented deployment and QA infrastructure for a small marketing team
• Taught current infrastructure, responsive design and completed successful hand-off to web designer returning from maternity leave
• Contributed and guided Google Adwords team

CEO, Gnarly Inc

January 2009 – Current

Founded my own design firm that developed consumer focused sites for Sport Organizations, events and businesses.

• Met with clients to take organizational goals to a completed product
• Focused on responsive design, modern UX principles, and cost effective maintenance for clients, often delivered as a WordPress website

Technology Summary

Programming Languages

PHP, jQuery, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, LUA, cURL, Node JS, Python, LESS, SASS, Regex

Development Tools, Methodologies, & Environments

Object Oriented Programming, MVC, Procedural Programming, Responsive Design and Development, Bootstrap, WordPress, Asynchronous JavaScript, SEO, API integration and design, Web Optimization, GIT, HAProxy, PowerDNS, React, FLUX, Ansible, Docker, Firebase, Kubernetes, Pelias, React, Redux, Next JS, SWR, Material UI, Elastic Search, Kibana, Logstash, Segment, Strapi, Directus, Project Management, MVPs, S3, Cloudflare, Gitlab / Github / Git, CI/CD automation, App Search, REST & GraphQL, Scrapy

Systems

Linux(Ubuntu Preferred), LAMP (Linux, Apache, Mysql, PHP), LEMP (Linux, NGINX, Mysql, PHP)

Database

MySql, Cassandra, DynamoDB, Firebase, Elastic Search, MongoDB, GraphQL

Education

University of Manitoba, Faculty of Arts

Completed 90 credit hours towards an International Relations with a minor in International Business.