Richard (Smiley) Robinson

Former CEO turned Full Stack Software Engineer with a passion for React and Problem Solving.

Born in Jamaica

Yes, I'm that lucky. I'm now a US Citizen 🇺🇸 living in (mostly) sunny Florida, but I grew up on Bob Marley and I have Reggae coursing through my veins.

Did Undergrad at McGill

The plan was to become a doctor, but the spark lit by my first computer (a Sinclair ZX81 with all of 64K RAM) quickly saw me switching to Engineering where I learned Fortran. I graduated with a B.Eng. (Mechanical).

The Closet Developer Years

I went on to get my Masters degree in Management Information Systems, but the Corporate world kept sucking me into senior management roles. I took every opportunity I could to contribute through code over the years, writing many dozens of programs in dBase, Visual Basic, PHP, Adobe Flex onto more modern times in React, Node / Express, Apollo GraphQL, MongoDB and more (visit my tech section)

Software Engineer - Full Time

In 2017 I woke up from the Matrix and became a full time Software Engineer. Despite my years of coding experience, I dedicated 6 months into further honing my skills with a 1000-hr intensive coding bootcamp at App Academy. I knew a lot before. Now I know much more. Have a look at my projects.

EventLight

A clone of the popular Eventbrite web site. We created it with the MERN Stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node) as a 100% JavaScript single page application. We leveraged Mongoose for object relational mapping to the MongoDB database, allowing for easy data access. We also incorporated both client-side and server-side authentication using JSON Web Tokens, allowing for persistent login even after refresh.

Trolle

Trolle is clone of the popular Trello web app. I used React to get a performant, component-based UI and Redux to attain reliable, single-source-of-truth state management. I optimized database access and eliminated N+1 queries of the Postgres database by observing SQL, Active Record and JBuilder best practices. I also leveraged a balance of global and component-based CSS styling to maintain a cohesive theme while keeping component code modular.

JustDecide

JustDecide is an original app designed to help groups make a decision. We constructed this app with the MERNG Stack (MERN plus GraphQL), allowing for a single endpoint API. We also leveraged Apollo on the client side to manage local state and queries. JustDecide was designed as a mobile-first responsive app, allowing for easy use on a mobile device.

ReserveDock

ReserveDock is a commercial product I created to help owners of warehouses "hand off" the scheduling of docks to the incoming truckers. I incorporated a sophisticated yet flexible rules system that allows for very unique control of the conditions under which individual dock can be booked. I used React-Redux for the UI and state management, and Laravel/PHP for the API. It used a MySQL database.

FlipMaster

Flipmaster is a minimalist physics-based skills game written without the use of any libraries. 100% original source code. I leveraged the HTML Canvas element for all UI, making it playable in the browser. I also incorporated sprite sheets for fast graphic switching and smooth play. Give it a try!

My Tech

Technology is always changing, and so must our knowledge of (and expertise in) what's available. There's no perfect language or tech, but the more tools in the toolbox, the more likely it is I will choose the right tech for the given task at hand.

JavaScript React Redux Node Express Apollo GraphQL MongoDB PostgreSQL MySQL Ruby Rails Docker PHP

Get in touch

I'd love to hear from you, whether it be a job offer, and exciting project you'de like to partner on, advice or help with a coding issue.