Resume

You may download a PDF of my resume or read it below.

SUMMARY

I have 22+ years of empathetic, collaborative, and user-focused servant leadership experience, with 5+ of those directly managing as many as 10 remote, international engineers. Most recently I have been a leader in the transition to a product-first organization, in part by developing a technical vision and roadmap for our SaaS offering, mixing business and technical concerns to modernize our application into a serverless one built on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Other successes I have had leading projects were achieved by critically assessing trade-offs, paying attention to detail, being proactive, pragmatic, and emotionally intelligent. I also blended big-picture viewpoints with tactical considerations to inspire, and build trust and consensus.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

AdvisoryCloud.com (remote)
Jan 2019 – Present

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

• Lead a 6-person remote, international Agile team in a CI/CD AWS environment leveraging Terraform, Cognito, AppSync, DynamoDB, EventBridge, Step Functions, Lambdas, and others
• Leader in the transition to a product-first organization
• Collaborate closely with the Product Owner to balance delivery timelines between business and feature needs, and acceptable technical trade-offs
• Develop the technical vision and roadmap for SaaS product and the organization
• Provide technical guidance on feature requests and user stories
• Recruited and managed a 10-person remote, international team to migrate a legacy PHP monolith application to an event-driven React.js serverless one built on AWS, with shared JWT Authentication between the new application and portion of the old that was not migrated

Technology and Methodologies: Agile, Kanban, Amazon Web Services (Cognito, Lambda, SQS, SES, Step Functions, DynamoDB, ElasticSearch, AppSync, EventBridge, API Gateway, Fargate, Secrets Manager, Organizations, SSO), Terraform, Cypress, Jest, React, Material-UI, GraphQL, Node.js, FullStory

Director of Engineering

• Introduced Scrum to the organization to salvage a project that was over a year behind schedule, releasing the in-house 2-person engineering team’s first-ever production application six weeks later
• In 3 days increased ROI of ad spend to 130% by improving checkout flows across teams and APIs
• Ensured the continued, synchronized accuracy of data between Salesforce, Recurly, and other data stores for the first time in the company’s history
• Introduced AWS Lambdas (Node.js), Step Functions, and Elasticsearch to quickly adapt to changing business needs and leveraged them to drive the transition of complex manual processes to automated ones
• Authored strategy documents to assist in attracting venture capital funding

Technology and Methodologies: Node.js 12.x, Python 3.8, Amazon Web Services (Lambda, SQS, SES, Step Functions, DynamoDB, Elasticsearch, API Gateway, Fargate, Secrets Manager), Terraform 0.12.24, Cypress, Jest, Scrum, React, Selenium, Material-UI, Segment, GraphQL, GitLab CI

BorrowWorks.com (remote)
Jul 2018 – Jan 2019

UI Architect

• Architected and developed a React.js application and Express.js API for users to create an account to service their loans including the ability to manage their profile, view lending documents, make and defer payments, pay additional towards principle, and pay off their outstanding balances

Technology and Methodologies: React, Jest, Material-UI, Node.js 10.6.0, Express.js, JIRA, BitBucket, Docker, Segment, Sentry, FullStory

Ciena (remote)
Nov 2016 - Jul 2018

UI Platform Lead

• Managed 71 open-source npm packages used by application development teams
• Devised solution for maintaining consistency between dependency versions of these packages
• Provided better developer experiences, including faster test runs and application build times
• Added headless browser testing and parallelization to CI builds, reducing them by 18 minutes
• Led upgrade efforts of Ember.js applications to 2.12.3 and then again to 3.2.0
• Hosted weekly discussions amongst other developers in the organization

Technology and Methodologies: Ember.js 2.12.3, Ember.js 3.2, Node.js 10.6.0, NPM 6.1.0, Git, GitHub, TravisCI, greenkeeper.io, JIRA, BitBucket, TeamCity, Docker, Bash, Kanban

Senior Software Engineer, Frontend Developer

• Delivered new features for the MCP product within planned Sprints
• Improved approaches to testing
• Addressed technical debt through refactoring and adoption of common programming patterns
• Kept team informed of best practices and integrated them into ongoing development

Technology and Methodologies: Ember.js 2.8, Node.js, NPM, ember-computed-decorators, ember- concurrency, ember-cli-mirage, ember-hook, ember-simple-auth, JIRA, BitBucket, TeamCity

ClickFunnels.com (remote)
Feb 2016 – Nov 2016

Frontend Developer

• Developed Ember.js applications, AWS Lambdas, and AWS Simple Workflows (SWF)
• Authored and contributed to github.com/ember-forge/ember-forge-ui

Technology and Methodologies: Ember.js 2.8, Twitter Bootstrap 4, AWS Lambda, Firebase, D3.js

SoftLayer, an IBM Company
Feb 2013 – Jan 2016

Advisory Software Engineer (Team Lead)

• Continuation of responsibilities performed as Software Engineer III
• Proposed and architected an Ember.js-based platform upon which any future UI project could be developed. Those efforts produced 11 libraries (notmessenger.com/original-work).
• Standardized on Twitter Bootstrap with custom LESS themes for consistency and easy reuse
• Provided technical oversight of the conversion of existing application onto this platform
• Created and maintained tests and documentation for these toolsets
• Successfully lobbied to release the toolsets as open source and worked with legal to do so
• Developed and maintained coding style as well as architectural guides
• Kept 6-person team informed of best practices and integrated them into ongoing development
• Worked to grow a developer community around the repositories listed above

Technology and Methodologies: Ember.js 1.13.11, Ember CLI 1.13.8, Ember Data, JSON API 1.0, Broccoli, MVC, AJAX, XML-RPC, HTML5, CSS3, Twitter Bootstrap 3, LESS, jQuery, ReactiveX, Git, GitHub, Reviewable.io, Waffle.io, Slack, CodeClimate, TravisCI, PHP 5.2.5, Agile, Kanban

Software Engineer III

• Led 3-person team in development of new purchasing experience written in Ember.js
• Architected stable and scalable software solutions that exceeded expectations
• Enforced development practices through mentoring and code reviews
• Collaborated with numerous teams and individuals to gather information and devise solutions
• Identified potential improvements to business processes and communicated them to stakeholders
• Conducted technical interviews of new-hire candidates

Technology and Methodologies: Ember.js, Brunch, MVC, AJAX, XML-RPC, HTML5, CSS3, Twitter Bootstrap 3, jQuery, Git, PHP 5.2.5, Agile

Media Distribution Systems
Mar 2012 – Feb 2013

Senior Frontend Developer

• Built consensus and converted application written using Dojo Toolkit to Ember.js
• Architected and developed a white-labeled video compilation ordering tool that supported bulk file uploading with pause and resume capability

Technology and Methodologies: Dojo 1.8, jQuery 1.9.0, Ember.js, MVC, AJAX, HTML5, File API, CSS3, Twitter Bootstrap 2, Git, Git Flow, Node.js, PHP 5.4.x

AgencyMatrix.com
Mar 2010 – Dec 2011

Senior Application Developer

• Conceived of and curated new features for SaaS product offering
• Re-architected the application to leverage Dojo Toolkit for real-time UI and data integration
• Developed open-source extension of a library component because it was not robust enough
• Introduced unit testing and test-driven development
• Consumed ACORD data retrieved from IVANS mailboxes

Technology and Methodologies: PHP 5.3.x, HTML, CSS, AJAX, REST, SOAP, Dojo 1.7, SVN, MVC, Zend Framework 1.x, Doctrine 2, ORM, Symfony 2, Unit Testing, Test-Driven Development, MySQL 5.5 (and replication), Apache 2.x, FreeBSD, co-located servers, Agile

Brightspot Incentives & Events
Nov 2007 – Mar 2010

Software Architect / Team Lead

• Architect, project manager, and developer of automated solution for McAfee’s management of a multi-million dollar per-quarter rebate program, implemented over the span of 21 months
• Assisted sales team with requirements gathering and analysis in order to develop quotes
• Managed development timelines and resources, including coordination with external vendors
• Improved the development process by: introducing version control; establishing coding standards; using isolated environments; creating procedures to manage release and maintenance schedules; developing modular, re-usable code

Technology and Methodologies: PHP 5.x, HTML, CSS, AJAX, SOAP, APIs, SVN, Zend Framework 1.x, MySQL 5.x, Apache 2.x, PostgreSQL, Memcached, virtual servers, Amazon Web Services, Agile

Heritage Auction Galleries
Jun 2005 – Nov 2007

Senior Web Developer

• Identified need for a system to manage the creation, review, testing, and sending of all customer-facing email correspondence that was previously piecemeal and ad-hoc. Built consensus, gathered requirements, and developed application that integrated into in-house mail application.
• Led requirements gathering, creation of project plan, development, and deployment of Omniture
• Managed development projects from conception to implementation
• Resource for developers regarding coding practices, business practices, and coding knowledge

Technology and Methodologies: PHP 4.3, HTML, CSS, SOAP, APIs, CVS, Microsoft SQL Server, stored procedures, Memcached, PayPal, Google Cart, on-site datacenter, load balancing, Agile

Teradata (remote)
Oct 2003 – Jun 2005

Developer and Content Manager

• Maintained teradata.com website via custom CMS
• Published companion website for printed Teradata Magazine at teradatamagazine.com
  • Managed timelines for content coming from publishers
  • Managed delivery of required collateral from contracted-agency’s art department
  • Managed delivery of web applications from third-party vendors for inclusion in online issues

The Eastpoint Group
Feb 2001 – May 2002

New Media Developer/Programmer

• Developed Flash-based application that bridged the then-existent gap between static Flash content on a CD and dynamic content available via a web application, allowing customers to update the content on sales associate’s CDs

Atlantis Group of Ohio, Inc.
Apr 1999 – Jun 2003

Owner

• Formed revenue streams by targeting specific businesses to provide web-based services to
• Provided strategic and technical direction for the company
• Managed 5 employees in the creation of complex, data-driven e-commerce websites
• Mentored employees and clients regarding technology and capabilities

New Horizons Computer Learning Center
Oct 1998 – Jul 1999

Technical Computer Instructor

• In short periods of time assimilated technical material and created original teaching exercises
• Taught courses in software applications, programming, and networking in single and 5-day formats

COMMUNITY

• Author of 16 open-source npm packages https://www.npmjs.com/~notmessenger
• Co-founder of Ember Dallas User Group (since shuttered)
• User group and conference presentations available at /presentations

SERVICE

U.S. Air Force veteran with training in electrical engineering

CODE, PUBLICATIONS, AND PRESENTATIONS

Available at github.com/notmessenger, notmessenger.com, and linkedin.com/in/leaddeveloper

CERTIFICATIONS

Certified Technical Trainer (CTT), A+, Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE)
Previously held: Microsoft Technical Trainer (MCT), Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)