Vlad Balea

Languages

JavaScript, TypeScript, SQL

Frontend

React.js, Next.js, TanStack Start, Vite, Tailwind CSS

Backend & APIs

Node.js, Express.js, REST APIs, OpenAPI / Swagger

Databases

PostgreSQL, PostGIS, MySQL

Data Engineering

Crawlee, Cheerio, Selenium, Regex, NLP, Web Scraping

DevOps & Infrastructure

Linux, Nginx, AWS, Docker, Git

Locatia Exacta - Real Estate NLP & Aggregation Platform

TanStack Start, Express.js, PostGIS, Crawlee, Nginx

• Data Pipeline: Architected a high-throughput scraping microservice using Crawlee and Cheerio to continuously aggregate and standardize real estate listings from fragmented portals.
• NLP Extraction Engine: Developed a custom zero-cost Regex/NLP pipeline to parse unstructured, 500+ word listing descriptions, extracting precise street numbers and mapping them to PostGIS coordinates.
• Full-Stack & Infrastructure: Built a server-side rendered frontend (TanStack Start) and REST API (Express.js), deploying the entire architecture independently on a bare-metal Linux VPS managed with Nginx.

Open Godfather

TypeScript, Node.js, Rollup

• Library Development: Authored a fully typed Node.js library enabling developers to build server-side scripts and gamemodes for open.mp (a GTA San Andreas multiplayer modification).
• Developer Tooling: Engineered create-og-app, a CLI project starter that automatically provisions server files, plugins, and Rollup bundler configurations, reducing developer onboarding time.

Sizzlo

Next.js, Express.js, FastAPI, AWS EC2, Stable Diffusion

• Microservice Architecture: Developed a full-stack AI image generation platform utilizing a Next.js frontend, an Express.js backend, and a Python (FastAPI) microservice.
• Cloud AI Deployment: Provisioned and configured an AWS EC2 instance to host a custom Stable Diffusion XL model, managing Checkpoints/LoRAs and handling high-compute image generation requests.

LS Response Unit

TypeScript, Cleo Redux

• Game Modification: Developed a gameplay modification for GTA San Andreas using Cleo Redux (a JavaScript runtime for Sanny Builder), introducing custom state machines for NPC behavior, pursuits, and dynamic event triggers within the game engine.

Node.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Docker, Linux

• Server Architecture: Engineering custom backend infrastructure and gamemodes for GTA San Andreas multiplayer environments (SA-MP) using Node.js.
• Real-Time Systems: Developing event-driven data pipelines and complex state machines to handle concurrent player synchronization and custom game mechanics.
• Data Persistence: Designed and integrated relational databases to manage in-game economies, persistent user progression, and real-time state recovery.

Psychology