Kalman Olah

Kalman Olah

Tech Consultant, Full Stack Problem Solver

Summary
Freelance Full-Stack Engineer, Team Lead / Tech Lead / Technical Architect, Infrastructure / DevOps Engineer. 12+ years of expertise in Symfony and PHP, but also experienced with Django, python, Vue.js, ansible, Docker, IaC, monitoring / Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment setups, Azure and more. Proven ability to contribute individually as well as in a leading role.
I'm a perfectionist and craftsman with a passion for solving technical problems with elegant and performant solutions. My skillset encompasses full-stack development, infrastructure engineering, DevOps, and technical architecture, allowing me to contribute as both an individual contributor and a team leader within agile environments.

Throughout my career I've had the privilege of working with organizations of various sizes across industries such as shipping, law enforcement, leisure and more. I have experience leading and mentoring team members while ensuring projects are delivered to the highest standards. I'm particularly confident in leveraging 12+ years of professional experience with Symfony and PHP to build robust and scalable web applications.

I'm a firm believer in adopting best practices, embracing agile methodologies and striving to continuously improve. My excellent problem-solving and analytical abilities allow me to quickly grasp complex challenges and adapt to evolving business needs. Furthermore, my strong communication and interpersonal skills foster effective collaboration with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and clients.

I'm always excited to be a part of anything where I can directly feel the positive impact I have on the product and customer.

Languages

Dutch (Native) English (Bilingual)

Skills

Industry Knowledge

Software Project Management Functional Analysis Technical Analysis Software Architecture Infrastructure Architecture Cross-Functional Team Leadership Code Review Coaching and Mentoring

Web Development

Symfony Django Vue.js Flask Laravel Drupal Silex HTML CSS/LESS/Sass/SCSS Javascript TypeScript Webpack Yarn Gulp RESTful API development GraphQL OAuth2 OpenLayers Leaflet Angular SAML

Mobile App Development

React Native

Software Development

Python PHP LUA Javascript Bash RabbitMQ MQTT AMQP RQ Apache Storm Streamparse

Config Management

ansible Puppet

Continuous Deployment/Integration

Jenkins CI Foreman FPM

Containers

Docker LXC

Monitoring, Logging

Logstash Kibana Grafana collectd

Databases

MySQL MongoDB Elasticsearch InfluxDB SQLite

Web/Proxy Servers

Nginx Apache stunnel gunicorn

Storage

LVM

Operating Systems

Ubuntu Debian CentOS

Cloud Providers

Azure

Testing

cypress selenium JMeter PHPunit blackfire

Interests

Home Automation

Home Assistant Zigbee ESPHome

Other

Gaming My wife

Miscellaneous

Open Source DevOps

References

Geoffrey Schampaert
Product Owner, Bluecentury BV / Managing Director, Argus VOF

As an inland shipping veteran, Geoffrey has been my non-technical counterpart for over 5 years at Bluecentury. Where I make the technical decisions, he seeks to connect with customers and envision our product on a functional level.

Jan Laureys
Managing Director, Bravas BV

Jan and I worked closely together on projects in the law enforcement, leisure and pharmaceutical sectors during our time at Inuits. At Bluecentury, we worked together on building better applications and a better developer experience.

Axel Vankrunkelsven
Managing Director, axelvnk GCV

Axel and I attempted to combine coaching, recruitment and developer advocacy into one, as we helped fellow developers advance to the next stage in their career at Raket. At Bluecentury, Axel and I overhauled existing software development workflows and brought the company up to date with modern best practices.

Work experience

Technical Architect | Bluecentury

March 2019 — Present
https://bluecentury.eu
Bluecentury is the company behind Vemasys, a leading software platform for the inland shipping industry. Vemasys provides users with end-to-end business control and includes modules catered to barge operators, fleet owners, terminal operators, insurance agents, certification authorities, shipping agents, accountants and more.

As Technical Architect, my responsibilities include managing the Development and Systems Administration team, designing solutions, implementing infrastructure and software architecture and more. Ultimately I am responsible for the technical team, software/mobile/firmware development, systems administration and DevOps.

Highlights

  • Defined and executed the technical roadmap and architecture for the Vemasys application and infrastructure
  • Managed and mentored a high-performing team of 10+ engineers in an agile environment through leadership, coaching, and performance management
  • Oversaw the development of the Vemasys core application utilizing (Symfony, PHP, python)
  • Designed and implemented firmware for asset tracker/engine monitoring hardware with CANbus integration using (C++ on Particle.io platform)
  • Developed a hybrid mobile application for Vemasys, ensuring compatibility across Android and iOS platforms (React Native)
  • Led the successful migration of the entire Vemasys infrastructure to Azure Cloud
  • Established and maintained robust continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines utilizing (Jenkins CI, ansible, Docker)
  • Managed and optimized system administration and monitoring processes leveraging DevOps principles (Grafana, Elastic Stack, ansible)
  • Development and refined processing software to analyze real-time navigation data for over 200.000 vessels
  • Designed and implemented a self-improving routing service for waterways (Google Maps, but for ships)

Tech Consultant / Owner | Bitsmith

February 2019 — Present
https://bitsmith.be
At Bitsmith, I offer my services in the areas of software engineering, infrastructure engineering, DevOps, technical architecture and technical management.

Managing Partner | Raket

August 2020 — April 2022
https://raketgroep.be
Raket was a 3-man operation with the goal of sharing expertise and knowledge gained from our careers in IT consultancy. Aside from providing support and guidance to help talented individuals become successful self-employed professionals, we would also connects top-tier freelancers with exceptional clients, resulting in successful partnerships and mutually beneficial outcomes.

Open-Source Consultant | Inuits

April 2013 — February 2019
https://inuits.eu
Inuits is a consulting firm with a unique focus on open-source technology, a leading open-source integrator in Belgium and neighbouring countries and an expert in all domains related to open-source software, virtualization/cloud computing and devops practices.

My task as an Open-Source Consultant was to develop bespoke applications for various customers using open-source technologies and components, as well as setting up the occassional monitoring/CI/CD toolchain.

Highlights

  • Created a OCR Engine-As-A-Service for Digipolis and the city of Antwerp
  • Developed a track & trace and reporting application suite for Lokale Politie Antwerpen, the Antwerp Police Department
  • Developed a multi-tenant Point Of Sale (POS) and accountancy application suite for Sportoase, a chain of sports and fitness centers, along with cash register hardware
  • Developed a multi-tenant application suite for European Datacomm, a telematics company, consisting of a full-blown fleet/vehicle track & trace system, CRM, call center/incident handling system, REST API behind an OAuth2 server, SMS/GPRS gateways for receiving/sending tracker data, protocol implementations for a large range of tracking devices
  • Development of a dictionary-like web application to aid non-native minorities in learning the Dutch, French and German languages by providing them with audiovisual supplementary materials
  • Development of a time-tracking/timesheeting web application for Kras Jeugdwerk, for use by their (HR) employees
  • Assisted in development of a CRM and shipment management system for IMS International Shipping, a company active in the field of international shipping

Software Engineer / Consultant | Digipolis

November 2018 — December 2018
https://digipolis.be
Digipolis is the company supplying all of the ICT solutions to the cities of Antwerp and Ghent. For them, I was asked to create a OCR Engine-As-A-Service which various parties/services could use to extract text from images.

Tools used: Python, RQ, Docker, Tesseract, Flask, Bamboo

Serverside Developer / Consultant | November Five

June 2017 — February 2018
https://novemberfive.co
November Five is a company specialized in the creation of digital products and experiences. I was brought in as a serverside developer to build the M2M integration between Telenet Group/Base and Spotify, but I ended up staying for a few more projects due to the amazing environment and colleagues.

Highlights

Software Engineer / Consultant | Lokale Politie Antwerpen

January 2016 — June 2017
https://www.politieantwerpen.be/
Developed a track & trace and reporting application suite for Lokale Politie Antwerpen, the Antwerp Police Department. This included developing various components such as a REST API, a front-end client, a report builder, hardware communication gateways, real-time message processing systems, (reverse) geocoding services and more.

Tools used: PHP, Python, Javascript, Symfony, AngularJS, MongoDB, Nominatim, Overpass, Graphhopper, MySQL, PHPUnit, Jenkins CI, Docker, RabbitMQ, Apache Storm, Streamparse, crossbar.io
See also: http://www.gva.be/cnt/dmf20170207_02717317/antwerpse-politie-neemt-nieuwe-combi-s-in-gebruik

Software Engineer / Consultant | Sportoase NV

August 2015 — October 2016
https://sportoase.be/
Developed a multi-tenant Point Of Sale (POS) and accountancy application suite for Sportoase, a chain ofsports and fitness centers, along with cash register hardware.

Tools used: PHP, Javascript, Python, Symfony, AngularJS, MySQL, PHPUnit, Jenkins CI, Ansible

Software Engineer / Consultant | European Datacomm NV

August 2013 — December 2015
https://www.europeandatacomm.com/
For European Datacomm, a provider and developer of track & trace applications, I was asked to implement both the front-end and the back-end of a track & trace application suite, as well as a full-featured REST api.

This application had to consist of:
  • A user management component complete with a custom group, role and permission-based access controlsystem for the rest of the application.
  • An asset, contact and contract management component.
  • An incident handling component, intended for use by call centers/incident handling centers, for emergency assistance. The focus of this component was on receiving real-time updates from GPS transmitters.
  • A fleet management component, intended for use by customers. This component contains many reporting features, such as a report builder and scheduler.
  • A full-featured REST API behind OAuth2 authentication, with per-user client management. This API provides nearly all of the functionality the web interface provides, and is used primarily by external services and mobile applications.

Tools used: PHP, Symfony, RabbitMQ, MongoDB, MySQL, Backbone.js, OpenLayers, OAuth2

Software Engineer / Consultant | Kras Jeugdwerk vzw

July 2013 — April 2014
https://krasjeugdwerk.be/
Kras jeugdwerk, an organization focusing on enriching the daily lives of children based in Antwerp, Belgium, came to us intending to replace their current application for managing not only the members and activities oftheir organization, but also the application for keeping track of their employees, their timesheets, leaves ofabsence, etc.

An application was developed consisting of two primary components:
  • A mostly CRUD-based component allowing them to manage organization branches, members and activities, as well as allowing them to create reports based on the aforementioned.
  • A timesheeting component which allows employees to easily register and manage their schedules, leaves ofabsence, holidays, etc.

Tools used: PHP, Symfony, MySQL

Software Engineer / Consultant | Werkhaven Antwerpen vzw

May 2013 — February 2014
For Werkhaven Antwerpen vzw, a non-profit organization whose mission is to help employ minorities, I created an application for managing employee schedules, timesheets, leaves of absence, holidays and the like. The web equivalent of a punch clock was also involved.

Tools used: PHP, Symfony, MySQL

Software Engineer / Consultant | ABS Creative

June 2014 — September 2014
http://abscreativegroup.com
ABS Creative, part of the Wunderman Group, is a Brussels-based global healthcare agency that helps pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare companies drive business growth through digital marketing and customer engagement.

I was brought in to be the software engineer responsible for developing various applications.

Highlights

  • Took over development of Interactive Training Tool, ABS' next-generation training application aimed at enterprise customers, as well as implementing a message exchange server and an API for said application.
  • Further developed MyMSD, a portal for medical professionals and particulars conceived by ABS for MSD, a large pharmaceutical company.
  • Created a technical datasheet templating and management system for ATG, a safety glove manufacturer.
  • Blew new life into an outdated eCommerce platform by rewriting it using more modern tools.

Junior Software Developer | ContactSkills

March 2013 — March 2013
http://contactskills.be
ContactSkills (formerly "dsk") is a small, Belgian company that specializes in coaching, educating and certifying customer service representatives using their flagship product 'ContactSkills'. My task was to supplement the existing development team, and to expand the features of ContactSkills, tailoring it to suit the needs of their various customers.