Hussain Abbas

Engineering Leader

www.hussainabbas.com

[email protected]

/superhussain

Skills

Frontend

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, React Native, Preact, Vue.js, AngularJS, WordPress, Webpack, Gulp, Redux, Jest, Enzyme, BEM, SASS, Stylus, PostCSS, Storybook, Atomic Design, ITCSS, Data Visualization

Backend

Nodejs, Express, Python, Go, PHP, CakePHP, Meteor, Nginx, Apache, MySQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB, ElasticSearch, Redis, WebSockets, GraphQL, Serverless

Weekend

AWS, Netlify, Docker, Service Workers, PWA, SSR, Machine Learning, Neural Networks, WebGL, SVG, Canvas, Next.js, Gatsby

About

Hi there! 👋 I'm Hussain Abbas and I lead the technology team @ Squaredance.

I'm an experienced engineering leader with over a decade of experience building software. My passion lies in creating beautiful, user-friendly, and high-performing digital experiences.

Focusing on front-end architecture, I develop systems to build lightweight, high-performing, scalable products.

I am dedicated to building and leading teams, and take pride in nurturing individual growth within them. I believe in a collaborative and high-trust leadership style that fosters an environment that encourages personal and team success.

Experience

Squaredance

Director of Engineering & Acting CTO | January 2024 - Present

Spearheaded the transition plan and took ownership of the technology department when the previous CTO and co-founder of Squaredance left the company
Led product, data, and engineering; coordinated organizational changes; built failover plans; managed and right-sized our infrastructure; collaborated with external vendors balancing cost and business growth; developed cross-functional relationships; aligned with senior leaders; and created a vision and strategy forecasting years ahead

Technical Development Manager – Front-End | April 2021 - January 2024

Managed over a dozen engineers and was responsible for individuals’ growth, mentorship & coaching, performance evaluation, and the team’s overall performance
Led the project to build messaging into the Squaredance platform using the Serverless Framework, AWS API Gateway, Lambda, Node.js, TypeScript, and Redis
Spearheaded the project to support agnostic branding — this was achieved by leveraging multi-tiered design tokens using Style Dictionary, consuming tokens as CSS variables in Tailwind, and building the mechanism to identify and switch between brands at runtime
Consistently executed with high output and quality: ~60% increase in points per sprint, ~20% increase in sprint completion, maintained over 85% sprint completion rate and sustained an average of fewer than 24 hours of PR stale time

Senior Front-End Developer | August 2020 - April 2021

Refined the Front-End ecosystem by introducing technologies like Tailwind to improve developer productivity & experience, and ECharts to replace overly complex D3-based charts
Collaborated with the Front-End team to consolidate and improve atomic components to maximize reusability and developer efficiency

Keyhole

Lead Front-End Developer | April 2016 - August 2020

Designed and developed several different social media analytics & tracking products
Improved the Front-End ecosystem by orchestrating migration to modern technologies like Gulp, Webpack, SCSS, React, Redux, Storybook, Stylus, Node.js, and more
Built and iterated on a design system and component library using Storybook, React, and Stylus with the Atomic Design methodology
Built a real-time streaming service to stream social media data to a real-time dashboard using Kafka, Redis, Node.js, and Socket.io
Led the team on front-end strategy, focusing on performance, maintainability, accessibility, and scalability

Plexxis Software

Software Specialist | September 2012 - January 2016

Designed and developed reports and forms using the ORACLE development suite and PL/SQL
Worked with multi-billion dollar companies providing custom end-to-end reporting solutions
Built an internal employee directory application using Backbone.js and packaged it as a native iOS app using Apache Cordova

Projects

BlockBusters Trivia Competition

January 2011 - January 2019

Winner of the 2018 CUTC Maker Fair
Established in 2011, this annual trivia competition takes place across multiple countries, with thousands of participants attending
Designed and developed the game platform with registration, admin portal, team management, question management, and tournament management using Vue, Node.js, Express, Socket.io, and MySQL, all hosted on AWS
Built the platform to support multiple different tournament & game styles, including round-robin, double round-robin, elimination, team seeding, and exhibition games
Orchestrated multiple clients when a game is being played: a TV view for the audience, a tablet app for the host, an input-only client for physically connected buzzers, and a master view for any onsite techs
Onboarded multiple teams to manage their trivia competitions where they can have contestants register, create & join teams, oversee the tournament, and play the game

Bl4ck0ut Project

January 2012 - January 2015

A custom firmware that brings the look & feel of newer iPhones to older devices no longer supported by Apple
Spearheaded branding and design for the custom firmware and website
Hosted the online forums using XenForo and maintained the community
Over 10,000 downloads of the custom firmware
Generated nearly 2 million hits and 50,000 unique visitors a month

Certifications

Blueprint Management Training Program

Raw Signal Group | Issued June 2021

Skills: Recruiting, Performance Management, Management, Leadership, Team Leadership, Teamwork