About

Farid is a full-stack software engineer and tech lead with more than a decade of experience. He has a proven ability to drive global technical teams in tackling ambiguous, challenging problems through high-quality code, system architecture, technical risk management, and engineering best practices.

He has worked across the stack with a wide range of clients, from early-stage startups, to artists, governments, and NGOs.

Farid has excellent communication skills in both English and French, and specializes in helping clients build maintainable, well-tested, scaleable products.

Personal Statement

I’m a full-stack software engineer and tech lead with over a decade of experience.

I lead and guide remote technical teams to tackle ambiguous, challenging problems through high-quality code, system architecture, technical risk management, and engineering best practices. I build and architect systems with an eye for maintainability, scalability, and always with the customer in mind.

Throughout my career I’ve had the privilege to work directly on projects of all sizes from national-scale health systems to small village-based data collection campaigns in some of the most underserved communities in the world, including in India, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Jamaica, Malawi, Canada, and the US.

Past Customers

• Dimagi, Inc - Worked on all aspects of Dimagi’s open-source flagship product, CommCare — the world’s most widely-used data collection and service delivery platform, that has been used by over a million frontline workers in 130 countries.
• Gaiascope - Redesigned database architecture and re-implemented all database code for this early-stage startup following SQLAlchemy best practices and added a testing framework - allowing their team to increase developer velocity and have confidence in their system.
• Provender - Provender was a start-up that built an e-commerce platform to connect local farmers with chefs around Montreal. I led and implemented a full site re-design, and added a fully-featured multi-faceted product search system.
• Cirque du Soleil / Benoit Jutras - Designed and built the Wordpress website for Benoit Jutras, the lead composer of the Cirque du Soleil.

Projects & Accomplishments

• COVID-19 Vaccination QR Codes - Dimagi / Jamaican Ministry of Health: Lead Dimagi’s part of a project with the Jamaican Ministry of Health, UNICEF, and external vendors to build a system that produces all of Jamaica’s COVID-19 vaccination QR codes used by over 500K Jamaicans. Delivered the project on time despite expanded scope and limited budget.
• Patient search and data exploration tool - Dimagi: Designed and built what is now the primary data search and exploration tool for over 250 projects with over 10M data points, enabling users to craft complex queries, previously not possible in the product. This feature is heavily used by COVID-19 contact tracers in the US (NY, CO, AK), and globally (Jamaica, Somalia) to find and track potential COVID-19 cases.
• Won the 2018 “Elastic Cause Award” for work I did on tracking tuberculosis in India, and presented at Elastic{ON} 2018.

Testimonials

Farid is a fantastic software developer. He is conscientious, writes clear specifications, effectively mentors and leads more junior developers, and excels at communicating complex technical concepts to a wide variety of stakeholders. He quickly develops a deep understanding for end users, is eager to jump into new problems, and consistently weighs tradeoffs between technical complexity and end user impact. Farid is positive, constructive and thoughtful in his work, and I would highly recommend working with him.

- Mary Rocheleau (Director of Technology Solutions - Dimagi)

I worked closely with Farid during much of his tenure at Dimagi and he is one of the best developers I’ve ever worked with. Farid was quick to learn new technologies, comfortable jumping into new codebases, and always had good instincts about striking the right balance between perfectly-engineered code and shipping features. Perhaps even more importantly, Farid knows how to get work done. He’s a phenomenal communicator, easy to manage, and is able to navigate the product/specification side of software development with ease. He works great on teams, and consistently delivers great results. I’d hire Farid again in a heartbeat.

- Cory Zue (Ex-CTO - Dimagi, founder of SaaS Pegasus)

Farid is a talented developer who not only knows how to get things done but is wonderful to work with. I was Farid’s manager for 6 years at Dimagi and have seen him take on increasingly large technical challenges as well as a larger leadership role during that time. Farid has taken nebulous requests from our partners, help target in on the actual need, architect and build MVPs, and refine products while working seamlessly with other teams. Farid is an individual whom you would not want to pass over the opportunity to work with.

- Lucina Tse (Chief Operations Officer - Dimagi)

Farid is a pleasure to work with. He was my coworker and mentor at Dimagi for 2 years, and I enjoyed working with him so much that I later hired him as a contractor for Gaiascope, an early-stage startup. At Gaiascope, he was able to modernize our database system in a very short timeframe. He has expertise in both software implementation and architecture, and he is able to convey complicated ideas in a clear and concise way. I would not hesitate to work with him again if the opportunity arose.

- Preethi Vaidyanathan (Lead Engineer - Gaiascope)

Farid was an outstanding coworker over the near two years that we worked together at Provender, an early-stage start-up. He has the rare ability to combine deep technical skills, on the one hand, and excellent social and team skills, on the other hand, making him a leader in the kinds of cross-functional contexts needed for great product building. Farid is also a wonderful and fun person to be around, which lightens the load of even the messiest of challenges. I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to work with him again.

- Jason Stanley (Head of Insights - Local Logic)

Education

B. Eng. (Hons.): Honours Electrical Engineering. (2011) CGPA: 3.61 Minor: Musical Science & Technology Thesis: Engineering for Social & Environmental Justice McGill University, Montreal, QC

M. Arch: Masters of Architecture, History & Theory. (2013) CGPA: 3.93 McGill University, Montreal, QC