Skills Overview
Experience
Staff Engineer • Kajabi • Jun 2021 - Present
Guiding and aiding architectural and software process decisions and implementation. Working across teams to help coordinate projects and ensure open lines of communication with other teams and departments within the company. Helping to define standards for data access, security, and documentation. Contributing directly to the Ruby on Rails-based systems and production systems' troubleshooting. Working as an amplifier for the capabilites of other engineers, including mentoring, pairing, and other guidance.
Chief Software Architect • Geoforce • Jul 2018 – Jun 2021
Was responsible for long-term technical direction of all software systems for this $20-30MM company. Drove the migration of all key software systems from self-hosted to AWS, utilizing Kubernetes (EKS) to achieve a “move and improve” migration strategy. Initiated development of GraphQL-based back-end services to improve overall architecture and enable customers and partners to more easily integrate. Provided individual contribution to the Ruby on Rails-based systems, including writing front- and back-end code, writing complex queries in SQL for PostgreSQL, including the PostGIS extension. Improved developer experience by creating and continuously improving a Docker Compose environment to simplify setup for local test and debugging. Worked to develop a data lake for advanced business intelligence and data analytics.
VP, Consulting • Improving Enterprises • Sep 2008 – Jun 2018
Played key technical and managerial leadership roles throughout this consulting company’s growth from single- to triple-digit millions in revenue. Shared responsibility for a satellite office including employee mentoring and management of 15 – 20 consultants. Duties also included recruiting, sales support, engagement management, and Agile project management. Additionally, spoke at several conferences, user groups, and internal training events. Key engagements:
Senior Developer and TechLead • 2016 – 2018
Utilized Ruby on Rails and related technologies to improve and introduce new features to an GPS tracking and asset management system.
Senior Developer and Tech Lead • 2013 – 2016
Lead a team of developers in improving the automated testing and features of the ticketing systems for a major airline using Java EE technologies with the Spring Framework.
Senior Developer • 2010 – 2013
Worked with a client team at a Fortune 100 company to add significant features to their facilities and real estate management software. Technologies were Java EE including the JBoss SEAM framework.
Senior Developer and Project Lead • 2008 – 2010
Lead an engagement and development effort for completing a student loan servicing application that was struggling to get off the ground. Brought the project back into line with expectations and completed on budget and within reestablished timeline. Technical work included design of a simplified rules engine for building complex processing workflows for different types and states of accounts.
Proximity Center Director • Valtech • Jan 2004 – Aug 2008
Starting as a Senior Consultant, progressed to Principal, and then Director. Helped to establish a satellite office including recruiting and managing the 30-person staff while creating strong, agile-based practice standards. Turnover rates were lower than 10% and significantly lower than corporate average. The office was consistently profitable and delivered on average more than $5MM in revenue per year. Other duties and project work during my tenure:
- Mentorship and direction of multiple project leaders in the application of Agile and Lean methods such as Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), and Kanban.
- Project engagement management and overall relationship management for key accounts in the financial, travel, and digital rights management domains. Gained a reputation for on-time, on-budget delivery of quality software; frequently able to deliver larger scope than originally agreed in the same budget and schedule.
- Responsible for the architecture and design of a $2MM trading system for a major financial industry client. Directly supervised a combined employee and consultant team of 7 with second-in-command responsibility for the larger program team of 50 including analysts, testers, developers, and applications support.
- Spoke at multiple internal and external conferences, usergroups, and events.
Senior Java Developer/Consultant • Retek• Apr 2002 – Jan 2004
Aided clients in the customization of a Java-based Point of Sale (POS) and Inventory Management system. This involved direct implementation of integration code in Java and mentoring client personnel to enable them to perform their own integration tasks. Prior to moving to a consulting position, worked as an Architect on the company’s next-generation Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) products. Originally joined as a Senior Java Developer responsible for the architecture, design, and implantation of a monitoring capability for their proprietary service-oriented clustering system. Also served as a mentor to the rest of the POS team in Java, domain-driven design, and general architectural principles.
Senior Java Developer • Unbound Tech. • Dec 2001 – Apr 2002
Part of an Extreme Programming (XP) team for a small company in the nascent “wireless web” applications industry. Using J2EE technologies, created the working system from scratch in under 4 months. The base architecture for the system was used as the Sprint PCS Mail application server, which successfully scaled to handle greater than 1MM users per day and over 300,000 concurrent users.
Applications Architect • Red Sky • May 1997 – Dec 2001
Worked in multiple roles starting as a Java Developer, moving to Object Model Architect, and finally Applications Architect. Over the course of numerous projects, collaborated with other team members to create consistent patterns and principles for creation and validation of object- oriented domain models. This led to the publication of Streamlined Object Modeling (2001).
Supervisor • TeleCheck • Aug 1995 – May 1997
Promoted after one year in industry to manage a team of 5 software developers using C++ to develop and support systems for the leading check verification company. As a programmer/analyst created new report functionality, resolved system-crashing issues that eluded more senior staff, and built a Postscript library enabling the transition from dot matrix printouts to far more readable laser-printed reports. Responsible for 24x7 support of mission-critical applications.
Education
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science • Texas A&M University • 1995
Selected Volunteer and Other Experience
- Volunteer Developer • Rocket Soccar Confederation • 2017 – Present
- Volunteer Events Photographer • The Gardens at TAMU • 2018 – 2019
- Co-founder and leader • AgileBCS • 2008 – 2014
- Youth Soccer Coach • College Station Soccer Club • 2012
- Co-Author • Streamlined Object Modeling • 2001