Software engineer with a passion for music, technology, and
puzzles.
Derek DiLeo
Software Engineer
Coming from careers in entertainment, audio engineering, and
telecommunications, I found
myself constantly pulled toward the technical aspects of those fields—which ultimately led to the
decision to pursue life as a programmer. As a passionate problem-solver, my love of puzzles and
aptitude for design are maximized through web and application development. What I currently lack in
industry experience, I make up for with a strong work ethic and an insatiable hunger for knowledge.
Skills
Some of my most notable skills include:
The Full Stack
It's important to me to be a well-rounded developer. Some of the tools in my
toolbox are: Java Enterprise, Spring Boot MVC, Hibernate/JPA, Flutter/Dart, Google
Firebase & Analytics, React 18, Redux, Node.js, C/C++, HTML, CSS3, Git, Heroku, and Bootstrap.
User Experience
I am constantly seeking new ways to improve the way a user interacts with my
designs. It's easy for me to put myself in the user's position and build applications from their
perspective.
Working With Humans
Collaborating on projects is one of my favorite things to do. I am easy to get
along with and can make the best out of any situation. I have a lot of energy and enthusiasm which
is often contagious!
Projects
Have a look at some of my favorite projects
Youth Homelessness Project
Providing Essential Resources to Those in Need
Expense Tracker
A RESTful Spring Boot API
Cat Tracker
DIY Arduino project to track the response time of my cat at mealtime.
Request Live Music
An iOS / Android app that provides a streamlined way for users to find nearby live entertainers and make song requests.
Dart Todo List
A user-friendly to do list application for web, iOS and Android.
JavaFX Word Frequency Counter
Java GUI app for scraping and analyzing website content.
Contact Me
Please send me a message with any questions or comments
Youth Homelessness Project
This Java Spring Boot MVC app aims to tackle the growing problem of youth homelessness and food insecurity in the greater Orlando area. It uses a survey to gather important (and anonymous) data about students and allows city employees to generate reports based on this data. After completing the survey, a customized list of resources is generated and presented to the student based on their responses. Resources can range from soup kitchens to homeless shelters, are rated based on the severity of need, and are uploaded and maintained by city employees within the same web portal as previously mentioned. This project presented a number of challenges, including anonymous data collection and manipulation as well as website and database security; but, the lessons learned were priceless.
The purpose of this project was to build a RESTful Spring Boot API that would be heavy in CRUD and use JWT for security. I completed the app in 10 days, and it was the first project I built to include Spring Data JPA with Hibernate ORM, and Spring Security. Challenges I overcame included implementing JWT and deploying to Heroku using a PostGreSQL database.
The task assigned for my senior project is to put together a small data collection system and visualize the data in a graphical manner. When brainstorming ideas one evening, my 16-pound cat Juno came in to let me know he was hungry. Now, I cut myself out of that equation *years ago* by getting him an auto-feeder, but he still insists on letting me know when it's dinner time. What happened next was pure serendipity. The instant his feeder began to loudly dispense his food, he bolted out of the room faster than a bat out of hell! It was then that I realized what I had to do....This feat of modern engineering is centered around an Arduino Uno Microcontroller which leverages the power of its ATMega328P to do the unthinkable. The Cat Tracker 5000 uses an AVR PIC sound sensor to detect when your pet's food begins dispensing and stores the foodEvent with a timestamp provided by its fully-programmable DS3231 real-time clock (RTC) module. When your pet arrives on the scene 2.2 seconds later (or faster) to gobble down that hard-earned food, the second sensor-a passive infrared (PIR)-is triggered. The sensor trip triggers an operation which subtracts the foodEvent timestamp from the current timestamp and writes the overall cat response time to an SD card as a CSV. Finally, you can import this data into your favorite spreadsheet program for analysis!
This was the first time I saw a real world problem that could be solved with software, and was able to develop my own solution back when I was DJing clubs every weekend. The concept is simple, free users (Requesters) can sign in and find nearby premium users (Entertainers) who are 'live on stage' in order to make song requests. Prior to starting a set, Entertainers (DJs, Karaoke Jocks, Cover Bands, etc.) will use the app to enter the venue name and address (or use Location Services) to 'go live on stage' and will be taken to their Requests dashboard and are notified when new requests come in. Entertainers can view, mark as played, and delete requests from their view. The app also has 'go live on air' functionality for radio jocks and streamers which, instead of location services, only requires a web address or radio station call sign where requesters can tune in. The app is written in Dart on the Flutter framework and uses Google Firebase for email/password authentication and Cloud Firestore for data persistence. Functionally, the MVP app is ready for deployment; however, I need to learn more about in-app purchases and ads before it can be monetized and subsequently released to web, App Store and Google Play. The first iteration, a Rails app which was co-developed with a friend, can be found way back in my GitHub history. Having a web-only application was never the goal, so I took a mobile development course as an elective and was introduced to Dart. I quickly learned, however, that the requirements of this application far exceeded that of the course curriculum. Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to finish this, but plan to in the very near future. I am currenty in my last semester of college (which is shortened to 12 weeks instead of 16); and, in addition to course load, I am taking an extracurricular full-stack web development course (React, Redux, Node, Express, MongoDB) while actively interviewing for jobs after graduation.
The purpose of this project was to learn the basics of handling Dart application state, user authentication and data persistence using the Dart Provider package, Google Firebase Authentication and Google Cloud Firestore, respectively. I also learned a bit about prioritizing TDL items and had fun in the process!
This JavaFX GUI program was created to allow a user to enter a website, and start and finish points to determine the frequency of each word within the selected region of text at the URL. The top 10 word occurences (and their frequencies) are then displayed to the XML GUI with the option to view all results in another window. This project helped me understand the basics of XML, Regular Expressions and data persistance using HashMaps (initial method) and MySQL database (final method).
