Hi, I'm Blake 👋
I build Websites & Apps using...
React (Native), TypeScript, Node.js, Ruby, Rails, and more.
About Me
Hi 👋 Good to meet you!
I'm Blake Simpson, a Freelance Full Stack Engineer with over 15 years of experience.
I have developed many websites, iOS apps, Android apps, APIs, Frontends, Backends, and even desktop apps for a range of companies and clients. I specialise in software development and team leadership.
I have citizenship in the UK and Germany. Therefore, I am permitted to work in both the EU and the UK. Additionally I speak both German and English.
Skills
JavaScript
TypeScript
React.js
HTML
CSS
React Native
Ruby on Rails
Node.js
AWS
API Design
MySQL/Postgres
PHP
Projects
FoBizz
FoBizz is a German EdTech company that provides online training, digital tools, and AI assistance for teachers and schools. The company's mission is to promote digital education and support teachers by providing them with the resources they need to be successful.
FoBizz offers a variety of online courses and webinars on topics related to digital teaching, including instructional design, technology integration, and student engagement. The company also provides a suite of digital tools that can help teachers create interactive lessons, collaborate with colleagues, and manage their classrooms.
This project has involved the development of the AI assistance tools using Ruby on Rails, Vue.js, and MySQL.
7fridays
The 7fridays travel booking platform is based in Germany and serves customers looking to book exclusive travel experiences in Germany and surrounding regions.
This project has involved the development of the 7f shop platform as well as the content management systems. Development has been mainly making use of Next.js, Tailwind, and TypeScript on the frontend as well as Nest.js, TypeScript, GraphQL, and Postgres, on the backend.
Celebrate
Celebrate is an app available on iOS and Android that allows people to share memories with their loved ones. It makes the process of sharing photos at events such as weddings or vacations simple, removing the hastle of gathering photos from multiple sources.
The app has a 4.8+ rating with millions of installs from users across the world.
I developed this the app while working at Celebrate Company, going on to build up a team of 8+ developers working with me. I started the initial development utilising React Native, with a Ruby on Rails backend. Later a Node.js backend was added with a strong focus on serverless AWS infrastructure as well.
Open Source: expo-jwt
While working with the React Native toolkit "Expo", I encountered the need to encode and decode JWT tokens. However Expo lacked native cryptographic libraries essential for JWT functionality according to the JWT RFC.
This prompted me to develop "expo-jwt" as a pure JavaScript solution, leveraging Google's Crypto.js. I implemented the JWT specification in both vanilla JavaScript and later in TypeScript.
Since then the project has gained traction as a lightweight JWT encoder/decoder, finding use in numerous web projects. Currently the library has over 3,000 weekly downloads on NPM and is used by hundreds of public repositories on GitHub.
Experience
Self Employed
- Freelance Software Engineer
- 2023 – Current
- Europe, Remote
Developing for Mobile & the Web with React (Native), TypeScript, Node, Ruby, Rails, and more.
Skills: React.js, React Native, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps, TypeScript, JavaScript, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, API design & development
Procuros
- Engineering Manager
- 2021 – 2023
- Edinburgh, UK + Hamburg, Germany
The first engineer to join this VC backed tech startup ($12,000,000+ invested). I led the introduction of development processes with the CTO, with a strong focus on test coverage and stability. Managed the developers (freelance & internal), oversaw the team from 1 team to 3 teams as we grew. A key role in hiring developers + managers.
Continuously documenting our product internally and externally (e.g. https://docs.procuros.io/docs)
I performed 1:1s with my teams, planned career development steps but also still kept a strong hand in the code: architecting our customer facing frontend (React based) as well as designing API interfaces, coding critical-path features, PR reviews, etc.
Additionally I was the system admin for Slack, G-Suite, Notion, Sentry, Cloudflare, AWS, etc.
Skills: React.js (w/ zustand, immer), TypeScript, Electron.js, Node.js, AWS (CDK), PHP (Laravel), API Design
Incentive Games
- Tech Lead (Full Stack)
- 2021
- Edinburgh, UK
Lead a team of 4 developers to build online games. Technologies included: React, Node.js, AWS, Postgres.
As well as architecting and developing new solutions, I lead 1:1s with my direct report developers and crafted their career development plans.
Skills: Node.js, React.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, JSON, AWS, API design & development, Postgres
Celebrate
- Senior Software Engineer / Chapter Lead: Development
- 2017 – 2021
- Hamburg, Germany
At celebrate, I helped found one of the small-venture companies named celebrate.app. I worked to build up and release to the market multiple apps related to photo sharing and photo printing, now rated 4.9+ stars on the App Store.
This began as me being a single FullStack developer building apps for iOS and Android via React Native (Frontend) + Ruby on Rails (Backend) to growing a team of 10+ people including multiple engineering teams that continue to thrive to this day.
Skills: REST APIs, React.js, React Native, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Node.js, HTML, CSS
- Software Engineer (FullStack)
- 2014 – 2017
- Hamburg, Germany
Part of the development team responsible for the XING public API + developer platform (dev.xing.com). This API serves over 500,000,000 requests per day.
I also worked in the mobile notifications team (push notifications, statistics, A/B tests etc.).
On my final project, I collaborated with Microsoft in Seattle to develop the "XING for Outlook" add-in for Microsoft Office.
Skills: GraphQL, REST APIs, React.js, DevOps, TypeScript, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, Ruby