Hi, I'm Usman
Full Stack Developer
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Passionate full stack developer with a love for clean code, elegant UIs, and solving hard problems. I build products that people actually enjoy using. Based in London, open to relocation for the right opportunity.
Skills & Technologies
A curated collection of tools I use to build fast, scalable, and beautiful products.
Selected Projects
Projects I built for myself — hover any card to explore the repo or live demo.
Parity
Benefits comparison workspace for a Reward Director: a fictional company's package laid over the legal minimums in the UK, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, with a summary of every gap, live what-if editing, and per-company branding from config. 28 statutory figures researched from official government sources, each linked and dated. An AI assistant (Anthropic Claude, behind a serverless proxy) streams answers that cite only the data on screen, with stop, cancel and retry handled by Redux-Saga, and a scripted fallback if the AI is unavailable. Built to WCAG 2.2 AA with 170 unit and integration tests, 22 Playwright tests with axe, a strict Content Security Policy and 8 architecture decision records.
Switchboard
Accessible electricity switching journey: postcode to region, usage estimate, a comparison of real tariffs priced from the public Octopus Energy API, and a multi-step signup. A GraphQL backend-for-frontend (Apollo Server in a Next.js route handler) turns six or more REST calls into one query, with Next.js Cache Components, CDN caching and graceful handling of upstream failures. Variable tariffs like Agile are estimated from 30 days of half-hourly prices weighted by a typical usage profile. Includes a tariff layout A/B test assigned before rendering, a privacy-safe funnel dashboard that counts distinct sessions in Upstash Redis HyperLogLogs without storing any ids, Sentry, Lighthouse CI budgets and a k6 load test, all built to WCAG 2.2 AA and tested with Vitest and Playwright with axe.
Pulse
Real-time crypto market dashboard streaming every Binance symbol over public WebSockets straight into the browser, with no backend. Updates arrive at wire speed but reach React at most once per animation frame, with ring buffers for fixed memory, a virtualised grid of 2,000+ symbols with canvas sparklines, and a hand-built canvas candlestick chart with zoom, pan and touch gestures. Includes a live order book and trade tape, a portfolio valued against streaming prices, automatic reconnection with backoff and staleness detection, and an on-screen performance HUD showing updates per second, renders, FPS and memory.
Study Buddy
Full-stack student matchmaking platform for University of Portsmouth. Students sign in via Google OAuth, complete a profile with course, availability, and topic confidence levels, then get matched using a Jaccard similarity algorithm. Features session booking, an interactive dashboard, post-session ratings, and automated email notifications.
UK House Prices: Find Your Area
Interactive choropleth map and price-history chart showing UK house price trends since 2015, powered by HM Land Registry data. Features scroll-driven storytelling, postcode lookup, an AI voice narrator, and editorial annotations marking Brexit, COVID, and the 2022 mini-budget.
Scrabble
Browser-based Scrabble game with single-player and real-time multiplayer via Socket.IO. Features drag-and-drop tiles (mouse and touch), authentic bonus-square scoring with word breakdowns, dictionary API word validation, lobby-based rooms with host/join, turn enforcement across clients, and background music with sound effects.
Parity
Benefits comparison workspace for a Reward Director: a fictional company's package laid over the legal minimums in the UK, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, with a summary of every gap, live what-if editing, and per-company branding from config. 28 statutory figures researched from official government sources, each linked and dated. An AI assistant (Anthropic Claude, behind a serverless proxy) streams answers that cite only the data on screen, with stop, cancel and retry handled by Redux-Saga, and a scripted fallback if the AI is unavailable. Built to WCAG 2.2 AA with 170 unit and integration tests, 22 Playwright tests with axe, a strict Content Security Policy and 8 architecture decision records.
Switchboard
Accessible electricity switching journey: postcode to region, usage estimate, a comparison of real tariffs priced from the public Octopus Energy API, and a multi-step signup. A GraphQL backend-for-frontend (Apollo Server in a Next.js route handler) turns six or more REST calls into one query, with Next.js Cache Components, CDN caching and graceful handling of upstream failures. Variable tariffs like Agile are estimated from 30 days of half-hourly prices weighted by a typical usage profile. Includes a tariff layout A/B test assigned before rendering, a privacy-safe funnel dashboard that counts distinct sessions in Upstash Redis HyperLogLogs without storing any ids, Sentry, Lighthouse CI budgets and a k6 load test, all built to WCAG 2.2 AA and tested with Vitest and Playwright with axe.
Pulse
Real-time crypto market dashboard streaming every Binance symbol over public WebSockets straight into the browser, with no backend. Updates arrive at wire speed but reach React at most once per animation frame, with ring buffers for fixed memory, a virtualised grid of 2,000+ symbols with canvas sparklines, and a hand-built canvas candlestick chart with zoom, pan and touch gestures. Includes a live order book and trade tape, a portfolio valued against streaming prices, automatic reconnection with backoff and staleness detection, and an on-screen performance HUD showing updates per second, renders, FPS and memory.
Study Buddy
Full-stack student matchmaking platform for University of Portsmouth. Students sign in via Google OAuth, complete a profile with course, availability, and topic confidence levels, then get matched using a Jaccard similarity algorithm. Features session booking, an interactive dashboard, post-session ratings, and automated email notifications.
UK House Prices: Find Your Area
Interactive choropleth map and price-history chart showing UK house price trends since 2015, powered by HM Land Registry data. Features scroll-driven storytelling, postcode lookup, an AI voice narrator, and editorial annotations marking Brexit, COVID, and the 2022 mini-budget.
Scrabble
Browser-based Scrabble game with single-player and real-time multiplayer via Socket.IO. Features drag-and-drop tiles (mouse and touch), authentic bonus-square scoring with word breakdowns, dictionary API word validation, lobby-based rooms with host/join, turn enforcement across clients, and background music with sound effects.
Career Journey
From intern to senior developer — here's the road that got me here.
Software Engineer (Frontend lean)
Built and maintained a TypeScript/Storybook component library with WCAG 2.1-compliant markup, used as shared UI infrastructure across multiple enterprise client platforms. Took end-to-end ownership of a greenfield React/TypeScript interactive calculator with complex financial logic and custom SVG chart visualisations. Engineered a custom Mapbox integration for em-trak.com with geo-spatial search and performance-optimised marker clustering. Collaborated on ifastat.org building interactive charts and complex filtering systems for global datasets in Vue.js. Integrated OAuth/OIDC (Okta) and third-party REST APIs. Hardened Playwright E2E suites in CI/CD and managed Azure DevOps pipelines across concurrent client engagements.
Software Engineer (Frontend lean)
Built and maintained a TypeScript/Storybook component library with WCAG 2.1-compliant markup, used as shared UI infrastructure across multiple enterprise client platforms. Took end-to-end ownership of a greenfield React/TypeScript interactive calculator with complex financial logic and custom SVG chart visualisations. Engineered a custom Mapbox integration for em-trak.com with geo-spatial search and performance-optimised marker clustering. Collaborated on ifastat.org building interactive charts and complex filtering systems for global datasets in Vue.js. Integrated OAuth/OIDC (Okta) and third-party REST APIs. Hardened Playwright E2E suites in CI/CD and managed Azure DevOps pipelines across concurrent client engagements.
Junior Software Engineer
Built a Python system for real-time serial communication with safety-critical hardware — binary protocol parsing, state machine logic, and full pytest/BDD test coverage with 100% pass rate across 30+ tests. Reduced attack surface by 15% through embedded security hardening. Worked within EN 54 safety-critical regulatory frameworks.
Junior Software Engineer
Built a Python system for real-time serial communication with safety-critical hardware — binary protocol parsing, state machine logic, and full pytest/BDD test coverage with 100% pass rate across 30+ tests. Reduced attack surface by 15% through embedded security hardening. Worked within EN 54 safety-critical regulatory frameworks.
BSc Software Engineering — First Class Honours
School of Computing Project Excellence Award & Highest Final Year Course Average
Dissertation: built an end-to-end Python/PyTorch deep-learning pipeline to train and benchmark YOLOv5, YOLOv8, and Faster R-CNN for human and livestock detection in aerial imagery — best result 92.14% accuracy. Built a comprehensive eSports database in PostgreSQL with 40+ table schema. Selected to represent UoP at UKIEPC for three consecutive years (2021–23).
BSc Software Engineering — First Class Honours
School of Computing Project Excellence Award & Highest Final Year Course Average
Dissertation: built an end-to-end Python/PyTorch deep-learning pipeline to train and benchmark YOLOv5, YOLOv8, and Faster R-CNN for human and livestock detection in aerial imagery — best result 92.14% accuracy. Built a comprehensive eSports database in PostgreSQL with 40+ table schema. Selected to represent UoP at UKIEPC for three consecutive years (2021–23).
What People Say
Kind words from the people I've had the pleasure of working with.
“Usman is a valuable asset to the team — taking ownership of projects with increasing scope and consistently delivering to a high standard. His technical ability is matched by strong communication and attention to detail, and he actively supports and elevates those around him. Proactive, receptive to feedback, and confident in his own opinions, his reliability and desire to grow make him an integral part of the team. ”
Let's Work Together
Whether it's a new project, a freelance opportunity, or just a chat — my inbox is always open.
Currently open to full-time roles and select freelance projects. Response time: within 24 hours.