Alex Caza

Senior Full-stack Product Engineer

alex@alexcaza.com

(514) 742-9796

linkedin.com/alexcaza

github.com/alexcaza

gitlab.com/alexcaza

Experience

Unsplash | Senior Product Engineer

Jan 2023—Present

Unsplash is one of the largest free (as in beer) stock photography websites. If you've been on the internet for any amount of time from 2015 onwards, you've probably seen an image from their catalog!

Fluent | Founding Product Engineer

May 2021–Present

Fluent is a browser extension that helps you learn new vocabulary as you browse the web.

  • Re-architected the extension messaging system which resulted in a 20x improvement in speed while maintaining backwards compatibility
  • Built prototype of an SMS translation quiz using Twilio and Serverless so users could learn outside of Fluent's core extension
  • Led user research projects to validate potential features, gather customer insights and inform product direction

Firstbloom | Co-founder / CEO

2018–2021

Firstbloom was a mobile app to help people find, brew and rate specialty coffee.
Think Vivino or Untappd, but for coffee.

  • Architected and maintained 3 code bases consisting of a React Native mobile app, Ruby on Rails REST API, and an Angular 2+ roaster platform
  • Built the largest data set of coffee tasting notes and coffee region information known to the industry at the time
  • Built a serverless web-scraper that would pull the latest information on partners' coffee offerings, greatly reducing the time needed to add coffees to our app

Sportlogiq | Senior Front-end Engineer

2016–2019

Sportlogiq is one of the leading sports analytics platforms. As employee 15 I was able to affect the shape of their early products and culture.

  • Mentored junior developers through code reviews, pair programming and internal talks on key technologies in our stack
  • Led the architecture of their soccer analytics single-page web application
  • Co-architected the front-end to their core hockey analytics single-page web application that generated tens of millions in revenue

Koodzo | Lead Product Engineer

2015–2016

Koodzo was a marketplace for influencers and content creators to find brand deals with larger businesses. The idea behind the platform was to help smaller creators get paid for posting or reposting content that companies would create, and take part in ad campaigns.

  • Lead the architecture, design and user-experience of their marketplace single-page application
  • Implemented agile workflows that greatly increased product velocity
  • Lead interviews with business partners and influencers to define product direction

Freelancing | Web Development & UI/UX

2008–2019

Built and designed websites for clients in various industries; including fashion, music, construction and video conferencing

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Hey, I'm Alex đź‘‹

I'm a senior full-stack product engineer.

I have over a decade of experience building things for the web. Alongside developing software, I’ve played a key role in product thinking/management and have always worked extremely close with designers to ensure users get the best experience possible.

Lacking a formal education, I've had to consistently push myself out of my comfort zone to grow and learn. I love to challenge what I think I know, and be challenged to improve by my peers. I'm a big believer in the growth mindset, and work best in teams where that's the default way of thinking.

Say hi!

alex@alexcaza.com (514) 742-9796 linkedin.com/alexcaza github.com/alexcaza gitlab.com/alexcaza

Experience

Unsplash | Senior Product Engineer

Jan 2023—Present

Unsplash is one of the largest free (as in beer) stock photography websites. If you've been on the internet for any amount of time from 2015 onwards, you've probably seen an image from their catalog!

I've also been a contributor since 2021.

Tech used

  • Typescript
  • fp-ts
  • React + Redux
  • RxJS
  • Express
  • fp-ts-routing

Fluent | Founding Product Engineer

May 2021–Jan 2023

Fluent is a browser extension that helps you learn new vocabulary as you browse the web.

Engineering

  • Re-architected the extension messaging system which resulted in a 20x improvement in speed while maintaining backwards compatibility
  • Built and owned core levelling algorithm and mechanics in version 2.0 of the product
  • Built prototype of an SMS translation quiz using Twilio and Serverless so users could learn outside of Fluent's core extension

Product

  • Worked closely with the Chief of Product to help shape product direction
  • Led user research projects to validate potential features, gather customer insights and inform product direction

Tech used

  • Styled Components
  • Typescript
  • GraphQL
  • React + Redux
  • RxJS
  • Express
  • TypeORM
  • Postgresql
  • CouchDB
  • Twilio
  • Serverless + NodeJS
  • Dash + Plotly
  • Jupyter

Firstbloom | Co-founder/CEO

2018-2021

Firstbloom was a mobile app to help people find, brew and rate specialty coffee.
Think Vivino or Untappd, but for coffee.

Video of an early version of the app.
Mockups of Firstbloom running on an iPhone 6s
Screenshots of the app from the early days.

Engineering

  • Architected and maintained 3 code bases consisting of a React Native mobile app, Ruby on Rails REST API, and an Angular 2+ roaster platform
  • Built the largest data set of coffee tasting notes and coffee region information known to the industry at the time
  • Built a serverless web-scraper that would pull the latest information on partners' coffee offerings, greatly reducing the time needed to add coffees to our app

Product

  • Led user interviews with coffee lovers and roasters
  • Setup product management processes for development and data quality
  • Analyzed user behaviour through Amplitude and custom Jupyter dashboard

Tech used

  • SASS + BEM
  • Tailwind
  • Angular 2+
  • RxJS
  • React Native + Mobx
  • Typescript
  • StimulusJS + Turbo
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Postgresql
  • Serverless + NodeJS
  • Plotly
  • Jupyter

Sportlogiq | Senior Front-end Engineer

2016–2019

Sportlogiq is one of the leading sports analytics platforms. As employee 15 I was able to affect the shape of their early products and culture.

Engineering

  • Mentored junior developers through code reviews, pair programming and internal talks on key technologies in our stack
  • Led the architecture of their soccer analytics single-page web application
  • Co-architected the front-end to their core hockey analytics single-page web application that generated tens of millions in revenue

Tech used

  • SASS + BEM
  • Canvas
  • Angular 2+
  • Ngrx
  • RxJS
  • PHP
  • Python
  • HLS

Koodzo | Lead Product Engineer

2015–2016

Koodzo was a marketplace for influencers and content creators to find brand deals with larger businesses. The idea behind the platform was to help smaller creators get paid for posting or reposting content that companies would create, and take part in ad campaigns.

Engineering

  • Lead the architecture, design and user-experience of their marketplace single-page application
  • Implemented agile workflows that greatly increased product velocity

Product

  • Lead interviews with business partners and influencers to define product direction
  • Designed the user interface for the influencer platform

Tech used

  • AngularJS
  • PHP / Laravel
  • MySQL

Freelancing | Web Development & UI/UX

2008–2019

Built and designed websites for clients in various industries; including fashion, music, construction and video conferencing

Most sites were built in the traditional LAMP stack of the day, or were using WordPress themes (custom or modified)

Hobbies & Interests

Outside of programming and playing around with new languages, frameworks and paradigms, you’ll often find me writing blog posts or essays, making photographs, cooking & baking or calisthenics training.