Software and DevOps consulting.

About

C653 Labs is a small software and DevOps consulting firm based in New York. We love working with our clients to build performant web-scale projects using the right tool for each job. Some of our recent projects have worked with Docker, AWS, Python/Flask, and JavaScript/Node.js/Vue.js.

C653 Labs was started in 2017 and is owned and operated by Brett Langdon.

Résumé parsing with layout analysis

While working for a client who processes a large number of résumés they wanted a way to parse text from PDF documents as well as to auto-fix malformed PDF links.

A common issue with parsing text from PDF documents is that you tend to get the text extracted in a typical left-to-right top-to-bottom order, but as most résumés have non-traditional formatting this process can yield undesireable and unlegible results.

For this project we developed a customer PDF text extraction library which uses layout analysis to properly find and group text. This library helped yield much more legible extracted text that could then be fed into a text analysis process used by the client.

Another issue that the client was seeing was malformed links embedded in the résumé PDFs that would either not work when clicked or would link to an incorrect location. Part of our solution was to also provide a process for adding, removing, or fixing links inside of a PDF document. As a result the number of valid and clickable links across all of their PDFs was drastically improved.

Terraform AWS configuration

Client wanted an audit-friendly & testable way to provision their AWS environment.

We configured Terraform to provision multiple AWS environments utilizing Continuous Integration to ensure consistent configuration standards, and Continuous Delivery to deploy any changes to their AWS environments.

Part of this project involved backfilling the client's existing AWS resources into Terraform as well as configuring new resources they required.

Oauth 2 single sign-on service

Client was building multiple web products that required use authentication.

We developed a central shared OAuth2 single sign-on service for the client that allowed their users to re-use their login credentials between multiple applications.

This solution allowed them to abstract away the authentication from their web products and more easily integrate new applications with their existing user base.

Application migration to Docker

Client wanted to move their application from AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances Elastic Container Service (ECS) to help increase developer velocity and reduce operational footprint.

We helped update their applications to allow running them in Docker containers, which included integrating the 12-factor app environment variable configuration pattern.

We migrated their Jenkins testing environment to utilize Docker for running unit and integration tests.

Finally, we helped with make the final move of migrating their production environment from EC2 instances to ECS.

Technical interviewing

Helped client develop their internal technical interviewing process and aid in the interviewing of technical candidates for various roles.

Projects

At C653 Labs we love to contribute to the open source community, here is a small sample of projects we have created or contributed to.

To see the latest and more please visit our GitHub profile.

dogapi

Most used Datadog HTTP API client for Node.js.

git-vendor

Custom git command for managing vendored Go dependencies via git-subtree.

Packaged and available to install via Homebrew on macOS.

flask-env

12-factor app compatible configuration helper for Flask that lets you easily load configuration values from environment variables.

Mailchemy

Transactional email simplified.

Mailchemy is an easy to integrate API that allows your team to build and manage custom transactional email pipelines utilizing your favorite email provider and integrations.

Mailchemy is currently in private beta. To learn more sign up here.

icanhazdadjoke

The largest selection of dad jokes on the internet.

What started as a fun weekend project quickly turned into one of the best sources of dad jokes available on the internet, with over 10M unique website visits each month.

Our official Slack app is currently installed on over 3500 Slack teams and is a featured Social & Fun Slack app.

The Alexa skill has been enabled on over 600 Alexa devices and "Alexa, dad joke" is spoken over 80 times each day.

With an easy to use API, including support for GrapghQL, icanhazdadjoke receives over 250,000 unique API requests per day.

Official integrations available for: