Resume

Publish date: Sep 8, 2022

Introduction

Hi! I’m Gabor Torok. I currently work as a full stack web developer. I have the most experience in working Python/Django in the backend, and Elm/JavaScript in the frontend. I also worked extensively with PHP and Emacs Lisp in the past.

Besides programming, I worked as a technical lead, engineering manager, product manager and programming mentor too. I have experience in working with teams across different timezones and locations.

My strongests professional areas are:

I enjoy building communities and tools. I tend to look for ways to improve the processes and team work around me. I have kanban, agile and sociocracy in my toolbox.
I enjoy mentoring other engineers and I’m curious to learn from others. I’ve been a curious Stack Overflow contributor for more than 10 years.
I have experience in working for small startups and bigger organizations too. Therefore I had seen challenges at various levels, and I’d learned how to respond to them in a constructive way.

Notable work experiences

2020-2022 Budapest School

Remote (Spain)

Full stack web developer

I worked for a grassroot, yet state-recognized Hungarian alternative school system that hosts children from kindergarten to high school. We built a school platform from scratch based on Python/Django and Elm that connected teachers, children and parents. I worked in a fully remote team. We practiced pair programming a lot. I was responsible for onboading the other developers.

2018 Babbel

Germany

Engineering training program lead

I designed and managed Babbel Neos, a 6-month software engineering training program. I was teaching and mentoring career changers who wanted to become professional developers. I used sociocratic tools to facilitate the training project.

Key impact: I enabled 9 people to get a full time job as software developers at the company. 8 of them stayed with the company after 1 year. Read how they perceived their first year as a junior developer.

2017 Lettuce Grow

Remote (Portugal)

Full stack web developer

I was the developer partner of the founder of Lettuce Grow, a startup company that wanted to create a digital marketplace to help connect small-scale farmers to local businesses in Portugal. We didn’t manage to raise funds, and eventually launching the product failed.

Key lesson: Make the implicit explicit: vocalize assumptions, put down agreements. Use disposable prototypes as long as possible to facilitate the product conversation and enable fast iterations.

2011-2016 Prezi

I held various roles at Prezi, a rapidly growing startup company. I had the opportunity to work with business and organization challenges of scaling up a company from 40 to 200 people.

Hungary

QA lead engineer

As a QA lead engineer, I set up and lead a team to create a test automation framework for the product at the time. We established a QA mindset within the product teams which essentally changed how the company shipped product. We disbanded the team afterwards as it had reached its mission.

Hungary, California

Engineering manager

As an engineering manager, I worked with the website engineering teams in Budapest and San Franscisco to enable marketing, sales and customer support initiatives. (Stack: AWS, Python, Django, JavaScript). My main focus areas were creating an engineering culture based on coaching, introducing engineering career levels, and hiring across continents.

Hungary

Product manager

As a product manager, my team introduced privacy controls to Prezi Admin Console to help business teams assure that their content was safe. We also contributed to launching Prezi Business, Prezi’s separate product offering at the time, tailored for marketing and sales teams, by delivering its Remote HD feature.

Notable volunteering experiences

2019 Ananda Cafe

Portugal

Cook

I worked as a cook in a vegan, sattvic restaurant in Portugal. The restaurant was an Ananda Marga project. I performed daily spiritual practices.

2017 O Fojo Permaculture

Portugal

Farm worker

I worked in a permaculture farm in Portugal. We organized ourselves as a community using Sociocracy.

2005-2011 Weblabor

Hungary

Community moderator, content editor

Weblabor was a major web development community in Hungary. I worked as a community moderator and content editor for its weblabor.hu site, and published news and book reviews frequently. I learned a lot about community management.

2002-2005 LinuxPortál

Hungary

Show host, content editor

LinuxPortál was a major online knowledge base and news portal of the Linux community in Hungary. Under the same name, there was a weekly cable TV show produced too to promote open source technologies. I developed the website, worked as a content editor, and was the co-host of the TV show.