Thibaud Colas

Technical Lead

About

I’m Thibaud, a Technical Lead specialized in Web technologies.

I’m interested in impactful work that makes a difference, open-source software, and sharing my learnings with others. If you care about diverse communities and fighting the good fight, we’ll do great things together.

Experience

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    Senior developer and Wagtail consultant, 

     —    a month

    UI architecture & Wagtail consultant. Open source governance, Senior Management Team for Wagtail proposition, accessibility, digital sustainability.

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    Software Architect, 

     —    10 months

    Technical architecture, project management, and front-end development for a variety of projects, with a focus on full-stack JavaScript with React and Node backends.

    • Single-page apps, React, Redux, react-router, TypeScript
    • Node, Express, Knex.js, Hapi, MongoDB, PostgreSQL
    • PHP, WordPress, MySQL, SQL
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    Technical Director - Front-end Development, 

     —    a year

    Front-end leadership for a team of 10 developers. Front-end Direction for a 40-person agency. Oversight of web development projects, either CMS-driven or data-driven single-page apps. Strategic direction, technical architecture, training plans, sales and recruiting.

    • Direction on 10+ API-driven web app projects, with React, API backends, and client-side routing
    • Direction on 10+ content-driven site projects, with a CMS, front-end component library
    • Technical architecture and project planning for long-term build and maintenance projects
    • HR management, career progression (OKR), training direction, hiring, and public relations
    • Front-end lead for a large-scale CMS redevelopment, built with a pattern library and headless CMS
    • Team standards definition - open-source contributions, code reviews rollout, performance targets
    • JavaScript (ES2015+), React, D3, REST APIs, BEM, Express, Django, Wagtail, GitHub, CodeShip, Travis
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    Senior Front-End Developer, 

     —    2 years

    Front-end development for websites and web apps, primarily with React, Django and Node. Mentoring and training for other front-end developers, R&D, tooling, and pre-sales activities.

    • Front-end lead for the kick-off of a new data-driven digital platform for a major New Zealand pension fund. Single-page app with React
    • Interactive data visualisation development (D3) for New Zealand’s statistics department and other statistics agencies
    • Other CMS-driven sites and apps for organisations such as NZ Red Cross and Kiwibank
    • QA expertise, roll out of systematic CI pipelines for all projects as well as front-end unit & integration tests
    • Switch to ES6 JavaScript and bundled modules with npm and Browserify, then Webpack
    • Participation to bids & proposals, marketing, hiring
    • JavaScript (ES2015+), React, D3, REST APIs, BEM, Express, Django, Wagtail, GitHub, CodeShip, Travis
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    Lead Web Software Engineer, 

     —    10 months

    Team Lead during design and development of an e-commerce portal (six developers, 500 man-days). Consulting and technical expertise activities at all stages of the project.

    • International project with teams in France, Denmark, Sweden.
    • Frequent client meetings abroad and by telephone.
    • Participation to presales projects with innovative technology stacks (POC with Angular, Polymer, Spring microservices).
    • Participation to the CGI Web Factory’s Excellence Team, dedicated to improve tooling and processes throughout all projects.
    • Deployment of Selenium on the agency’s Continuous Integration platform (Jenkins), available for all projects.
    • Mentoring of three interns.
    • LAMP, Drupal, JavaScript, Angular, jQuery, RWD, SOAP, REST, Jenkins, Selenium, Git, Redmine, JIRA, Scrum
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    Web Software Engineer, 

     —    a year

    Web Application Development — Participation to PHP development projects with the CGI Web Factory, from design to maintenance.

    • Technical referee and Project Lead backup on two portal maintenance projects. Team of six developers.
    • Direct mentoring of two developers.
    • Improvement on functional regression rates by adding Selenium to the team’s testing process.
    • Customer Satisfaction: 9.6/10
    • LAMP, Drupal, JavaScript, jQuery, RWD, SOAP, Jenkins, Selenium, Git
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    Graduate Teaching Assistant, 

     —    4 months

    Organization of three groups in a JavaScript class (Master’s degree) and a Computer Science initiation class (Bachelor’s degree).

    • Teaching of HTML, CSS, JavaScript
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    Web Developer, 

     —    6 months

    Design and development of new features for Datalift, as part of an internship. Datalift is a linked data publication platform for the Semantic Web. Data Visualization and transformation in the SemWeb spirit.

    • This position required a high level of autonomy as the development team was scattered across France.
    • JEE, Jersey, Knockout, Bootstrap, D3, SPARQL, Sesame, RDF, Git
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    Webmaster, 

     —    3 months

    Integration, Development and Webmastering as part of an internship for the end of the DUT.

    Contact with clients and teamwork with the Webmaster and designers.

    • PHP, MySQL, JS, jQuery, SEO, UX, accessibility, hosting, Photoshop

Projects

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    , Member

     —    a month

    Community participant sharing knowledge and resources to help tech professionals take climate action

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    , Board member

     —    a month

    Django is a high-level Python web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

  • #

    , Volunteer

     —    a month

    Volunteer for the 2024 conference; on Code of Conduct, Django Girls, Programme

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    , Participant

     —    a month

    Community group participant supporting the creation of the Web Sustainability Guidelines (1.0)

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    , Organizer and mentor for Wagtail

     —    5 months

    Organization admin and mentor for Wagtail projects through the Outreachy program, with a focus on accessibility

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    , Volunteer & organizer

     —    a year

    Code of Conduct team volunteer, opportunity grants for DjangoCon Europe 2023

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    , Organizer and mentor for Wagtail

     —    4 months

    Organization admin and mentor for two Wagtail projects through the Google Summer of Code program, with a focus on climate impact

  • #

    , Mentor

     —    a few seconds

    A free programming workshop for women, held at PyCon UK 2023 in Cardiff

  • #

    , Organizer and mentor for Wagtail

     —    6 months

    Organization admin and mentor for Wagtail projects through the Outreachy program, with a focus on accessibility

  • #

    , Volunteer

     —    4 days

    Code of Conduct team volunteer for DjangoCon Europe 2022

  • #

    , Organizer and mentor for Wagtail

     —    4 months

    Organization admin and mentor for three Wagtail projects through the Google Summer of Code program for 2022: Contrast Themes, Editor's Guide, UX Unification

  • #

    , Participant

     —    a month

    Community participant sharing knowledge and resources to help tech professionals take climate action

  • #

    , Volunteer

     —    4 days

    Code of Conduct team volunteer for DjangoCon Europe 2021

  • #

    , Accessibility team

     —    a month

    Django is a high-level Python web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

  • #

    , Mentor

     —    2 days

    In June 2020, 15 young people have been learning Git, Python and Wagtail to make a website for a charity in need of an online presence.

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    , Mentor

     —    a day

    A free programming workshop for women, held at Torchbox offices in Bristol

  • #

    , Core team

     —    a month

    Wagtail is a content management system built on Django. It’s focused on user experience, and offers precise control for designers and developers.

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    , Organizer & founder

     —    9 years

    A Meetup.com group about Web Development, open to everyone from professionals to newcomers, creative types to technical. Each event explores a specific topic in the form of presentations, open discussions or workshops.

    • Local, english-speaking group of common interest
    • Meetups every month
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     —    a month

    A configurable rich text editor based on Draft.js, built for Wagtail.

    • ES2015+, React, Draft.js, Jest, Prettier, Webpack, Rollup
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     —    a month

    Library to convert Draft.js ContentState to HTML

    • Python, pypi, PEP8, Draft.js, BeautifulSoup, lxml
  • #

     —    a month

    A curated list of awesome packages, articles, and other cool resources from the Wagtail community. Wagtail is a Python CMS powered by Django, focusing on flexibility and user experience.

  • #

     —    a month

    Filter Draft.js content to preserve only the formatting you allow. Built for Draftail and Wagtail.

    • ES2015+, React, Draft.js, Jest, Flow, Prettier, DangerJS
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    , Organizer and Coach

     —    2 days

    A free programming workshop for women, held at Springload

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    , Coach

     —    2 days

    A free programming workshop for women

  • #

     —    3 years

    A reference and starter kit for front-end development.

    • Pattern library
    • Code styleguides and quality checklists
    • Job descriptions and OKRs
    • Webpack, React, Sass, BEM, ITCSS
  • #

    , Organizer and Coach

     —    2 days

    A free programming workshop for women, held at Springload

  • #

    , Coach

     —    a day

    Free two-day beginner workshop about Ruby on Rails

  • #

     —    a month

    Bioinformatics (biochemistry) data processing scripts for NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), and protein data analysis (PyMOL)

    • Python, PyMol, Statistical inference
  • #

     —    a month

    Test-drive D3 is an intro to D3 via a set of self-guided workshops

    • D3, Node, SVG, jsdom, NodeSchool
  • #

     —    a month

    A command-line quest where your goal is to invent Rube Goldberg machines in bash! Create the longest one-liners you can, the more pipes (|) the better. Master Rube ((◕‿◕) Hi there!) will help you during your quest.

    • Bash, Heroku, Node
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     —    5 months

    A real-time link sharer using Firebase as its backend and AngularJS on the front-end.

    • Side-project built with friends to use together and to discover Firebase.
    • AngularJS, Firebase, RequireJS, Bootstrap, Gulp, Bower, npm
  • #

     —    2 days

    Cross-platform transportation app built with Sencha Touch and Cordova. Node.js backend dispatching transportation data from data repositories (time tables) and SOAP/REST services (real time data, weather data).

    • Built by a team of four during the Montpellier Unlimited Hackathon, won second prize.
    • Sencha Touch, Sass, Cordova, Node, SOAP, REST
  • #

     —    2 days

    Skimbo is a social-networks mash-up. It helps you manage your social networks, for example by viewing and posting to a lot of social feeds at once.

    • First started by the Froggies team for the TypeSafe contest, development continued during the Montpellier Startup Weekend.
    • Scala, Play 2, AngularJS, Less, MongoDB, WebSockets
  • #

     —    a month

    DataCubeViz is a Datalift module which helps visualizing statistical datasets using the DataCube ontology. It was created to fulfill the needs of the Datalift project to work with statistical linked data.

    • Datalift, SDMX, DataCube, Knockout, RequireJS, jQuery, Datatables, D3
  • #

     —    a month

    A benchmarking app for interconnected triple stores (Semantic Web).

    • Integrates a GUI SPARQL client and an interface to select triple stores on which to execute the query
    • Java EE, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Jena TDB, Jena SDB, D2RQ, Sesame, Bootstrap, jQuery, Google Charts, D3
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     —    2 months

    D4 is a Datalift module to visualize RDF statistical datasets using the DataCube ontology. D4 is built with Bootstrap, D3.js and CoffeeScript.

    • D4 was made as part of a Master’s degree Web Development course.
    • JEE, Jersey, CoffeeScript, Knockout, Bootstrap, Underscore, D3, NVD3, SPARQL
  • #

     —    a month

    An arcade game for iPhone and iPad, with parallax horizontal scrolling and adaptive sound effects

    • iOS, Objective C, XCode, FMOD Designer

Education

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    Web Architecture and Software Engineering, Master’s degree

     —    a year

    Montpellier University

  • #

    Computer Science, Bachelor’s degree

     —    3 years

    Paris 11 University

Skills

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    Web Development: Front-end

    • HTML
    • CSS
    • SVG
    • JavaScript
    • TypeScript
    • React
    • Redux
    • Next.js
    • Stimulus
    • Vue
    • D3
    • Angular
    • Knockout
    • jQuery
    • Sass
    • Draft.js
    • Electron
  • #

    Web Development: Back-end

    • Python
    • Django
    • Wagtail
    • DRF
    • Node
    • Express
    • Ruby
    • Firebase
    • PHP
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    Web Development: Architecture

    • SPA
    • REST
    • SSR
    • MVC
    • CRUD
    • AJAX
    • SOAP
    • WebSockets
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    Platforms

    • Wagtail CMS
    • Django
    • Drupal 7
    • Contentful
    • AWS EC2
    • Heroku
    • React Native
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    Consulting

    • Technical Expertise
    • Functional Design
    • Project Lifecycle
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    Direction

    • Partner relationships
    • Strategic thinking
    • Business development
    • Strategic planning
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    Sales

    • Proposals
    • Presales
    • Workshops
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    Project Management

    • Agile
    • Scrum
    • TDD
    • Quality Assurance
    • Team meetings
    • Cost estimates
    • Code reviews
    • Documentation
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    Team Management

    • Team leadership
    • Mentoring
    • Training
    • OKR
    • Workshops
    • HR management
    • Hiring
    • Team standards
    • Code styleguides
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    Front-end Practices

    • Accessibility
    • Pattern libraries
    • RWD
    • Code Reviews
    • A/B Testing
    • Feature Detection
    • Mobile First
    • Performance Optimization
    • Progressive Enhancement
    • SEO
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    Testing Practices

    • Unit Testing
    • Performance Testing
    • Accessibility Testing
    • Functional Testing
    • UI regression testing
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    Public relations

    • Meetups
    • Conference talks
    • Events sponsorships
    • Technical writing
    • Social media
  • #

    Front-end Tools

    • npm
    • Webpack
    • yarn
    • ESLint
    • Prettier
    • Rollup
    • Gulp
  • #

    Testing Tools

    • Jest
    • Selenium
    • Karma
    • Mocha
    • Chai
    • Jasmine
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    Project Management Tools

    • Git
    • GitHub
    • GitLab
    • Trello
    • Redmine
    • JIRA
    • Monday
    • Google Workspace
  • #

    Design Tools

    • Figma
    • Design tokens
    • Sketch
    • Zeplin
    • InVision
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    Sysadmin & Ops

    • CI
    • CD
    • Vagrant
    • Docker
    • Build pipelines
    • Jenkins
    • GitHub Actions
    • CircleCI
    • CodeShip
    • DangerJS
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    Databases

    • PostgreSQL
    • SQLite
    • MySQL
    • MongoDB

Awards

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    Torchbox J-P Memorial Prize 2023

    Awarded on: 

    A commemorative prize by Torchbox to remember J-P and his values: Be the change you want to see in the world - Do the right thing; not the easy thing - Help others to shine more brightly.

  • #

    Startup Weekend Wellington Health 2015 - Second place

    Awarded on: 

    Arrived second with our "Paper Preen" project. An automated quality control / linting and reviewing tool for research papers, prototype built with React and a Node.js backend

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    JS1K 2014 — Honorable Mention

    Awarded on: 

    Honorable Mention by the JS1K Jury for Dragonsnake, a mash-up between snake and fruit ninja written in less than 1K (1024 bytes) of JavaScript!

  • #

    Montpellier Unlimited Hackathon — Second Prize

    Awarded on: 

    Second Prize for a public transport route calculation app (handles tramway, buses and bikes) in the Montpellier Area. Cross-platform app built with Sencha Touch and Cordova. Node.js backend dispatching transportation data from data repositories (time tables) and SOAP/REST services (real time data, weather data).

Publications

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    Published on: 

    Notes, Thoughts and Open-source software.

  • #

    , HTTP Archive

    Published on: 

    Writing & data analysis for the Accessibility chapter of HTTP Archive’s annual state of the web report

Interests

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    Programming

    • Open-Source Software
    • Data Visualization
    • Machine Learning
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    Hobbies

    • Cooking
    • DIY
    • Literature
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    Sports

    • Rollerskating
    • Basketball
    • Sumo
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    Traveling

    • France
    • India
    • New Zealand
    • Japan
    • Finland
    • United Kingdom
    • Canada
    • Belarus
    • Iceland

Languages

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    French, Native speaker

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    English, Bilingual

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    Finnish, En oikein hyvin

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    French Sign Language, Elementary proficiency

References

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    I highly recommend Thibaud.
    I have been working with him for the past 2 years and he has been a great workmate and then director.

    His technical skills are really good and he is always keen to learn and explore new technologies. He is a keen teacher and happy to share about his experiments so everyone can jump on board. Thibaud is also really focused on code quality and a keen advocate for code formatting, unit testing, performance improvement, etc.

    In terms of management skills Thibaud has been a great manager. Always supporting his team and always trying to understand the situation to get the best compromise for all the parties involved. He knows how to be strict if required but also how to trust his team when needed. He has a great diplomacy sense and knows how to get the most of everyone. This gives a great emulation inside the team to deliver better work in better conditions.

    Vincent Audebert - Front-end Developer - Springload
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    Thibaud is an avid developer. He quickly grasps complex problems and goes beyond the expectations of his managers. Thanks to his great coaching skills and clear explanations, he helped his colleagues to improve themselves. It’s a pleasure to work with him and I recommend him with my eyes closed.

    Anthony Dardilhac - Project Lead, Head of tooling - CGI WebFactory
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    An incredible analytical capability, an undeniable technical background and a great customer relationship.
    Thibaud is a leader and he knows how to drive his team throughout the project.

    Arnaud Paul - Project Lead, Open-Source Consultant - CGI WebFactory
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    Thibaud was an excellent intern and collaborator.
    Motivated and passionate, always on the lookout for new tools or processes to improve quality and productivity. Thibaud is also an excellent speaker able to animate interesting presentations and Lightning Talks, especially around JavaScript, Web Performance and Open-Source Solutions.

    Guillaume Kulakowski - Open-Source Solutions Expert, Head of the Technical Expertise Team - CGI WebFactory