- Building and architecting teams, software, processes, and systems
- Leadership, community engagement, team building
- Continuous learning, mentorship, building learning cultures
2013-2014
Lead engineer at a wellness startup. Implemented code quality analysis and continuous integration tools to improve engineering output and processes. Built features and APIs in Ruby on Rails to support rich user experiences built in Angular.js using CoffeeScript. Developed a service oriented architecture to facilitate scalability. Participated in agile processes, including scoping, estimation, and scheduling of features and projects to accomodate customer delivery schedules in support of revenue targets.
2012 - Present
Support functionality and scaling goals for an independent charter school serving underprivileged students in one of Detroit's most impoverished neighborhoods. Advise on and implement growth and scaling strategies to accomodate increased demand during press and other special events. Respond to support and feature requests. Added functionality to enable receipt of over $100,000 in donations.
2010-2013
Co-founded the Denver office for Chicago based consulting firm Obtiva to expand business into a new market. Pivoted to growing the Groupon Denver office when Obtiva was acquired. Recruited and mentored developers to improve their skill level and code quality. Engaged with local and national software communities to raise brand awareness and establish relationships to support future growth goals. Designed, implemented, and maintained a variety of software products and solutions in Ruby, JavaScript, and CoffeeScript. Worked on customer facing features as well as internal tools, systems, and infrastructure.
2010-Present
Began a consulting firm to work with numerous small businesses and startups such as Serve, Remind101, Barley & Birch, Rehau, Form && F(x), and others to build products and technology solutions and strategies to support revenue goals and business processes. Built internal and customer facing tools and features, systems, and processes primarily in Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, and WordPress. Deployed and supported servers and other critical infrastructure to provide reliable uptime and satisfy SLAs.
2007 - 2010
Worked with a team of IT generalists to support various business functions for groups across two discrete business groups housed under one roof. Pioneered a change from waterfall to agile models of development, including requirements gathering, scoping, estimation, project leadership, implementation, and coordinating a hybrid colocated/distributed team. Deployed and maintained critical infrastructure as well as development and deployment processes to improve quality and lower cost of service. Wrote, reviewed, and refactored tests, implementation code, and documentation to build more maintainable software products. Created and successfully executed initiatives to consolidate hardware on virtualized environments and replace proprietary software with open source solutions representing significant savings in hardware and software licensing costs. Trained in-house developers and operations staff to enhance and support applications and future business needs.
2011-Present
Organize, promote, and facilitate an event to grow a community of developers dedicated to improving their coding and collaboration skills. Host events throughout the Boulder & Denver metro areas. Grew a core team of organizers to share in the coordination duties. Grew a core group of community members to attend and promote our events.
2009-Present
Contribute fixes, features, and documentation to a variety of open source projects. Translated coding exercises and worked on functionality for Exercism.io, added an npm installer and documentation for Sinon.js, added a compatibility fix for usage with a presentation remote to Showoff
Sought out and engaged local developers to form a Ruby user group in the Toledo, OH area. Planned and coordinated meetups, and engaged guest speakers to create learning opportunities for members. The group remained active after my relocation from Toldeo to Denver.
Worked with a small team to set up SCM, project management infrastructure, and replace inadequate tests for a small nonprofit spey and neuter organization. Improved the state of the application, provided the main business stakeholder with tools to manage the process, and delivered new features in a span of 72 hours at a GiveCamp in Lansing, Michigan.
Experience with many modern programming languages and tools, including but not limited to the following:
Ruby, Elixir, Clojure, CoffeeScript, JavaScript, SQL, HTML, HAML, ERb, Markdown, JSON, XML, CSS/SCSS/LESS/SASS
Angular.js, Ember.js, Meteor.js, jQuery, Rails, Sinatra, Padrino, Express, Rspec, Jasmine, Cucumber, Test::Unit
Linux (Arch, Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu,) Unix, Solaris, Mac OSX, Windows (XP, 7, 8)
Service Oriented Architecture, Agile/XP, Pair Programming, TDD/BDD, RESTful Architecture, Web Services, Design Patterns, Git/GitHub, Emacs, Vim, Pivotal Tracker, Redmine, BaseCamp, WordPress, Mentoring & Apprenticeship, Open Source Software & Communities
Presented talks on such topics as creating change, individual and organizational growth, and improving code and testing practices. By drawing from personal experience and success, I am able to relate on a personal level with many in attendance in order to encourage and inspire developers at all experience levels.
2012 Cross Domain Hacking: Life Lessons Applied to Software
2011 Communicating Effectively
2011 Jasmine for Rubyists, Testing Panel
2010 From Zero to One: The Story of an Accidental Developer