Michael Berg
Verified Expert in Engineering
Architecture Developer
Edmonton, AB, Canada
Toptal member since September 18, 2014
Michael is an architect, entrepreneur, developer, and designer with a broad skill set who focuses on mission-critical private and public industry web applications and sites. He has extensive experience in private SEO-based content businesses where good design and SEO-friendly interfaces are critical. Michael has helped lead the inception of applied AI/ML for Canada's largest pure-play ML company.
Portfolio
Experience
- JavaScript - 19 years
- C# - 15 years
- Python - 14 years
- Architecture - 14 years
- Cloud - 13 years
- Technical Leadership - 8 years
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) - 6 years
Preferred Environment
Visual Studio, Windows, Python, Node.js, Vue, React, Machine Learning, Azure
The most amazing...
...thing I've done is build Canada's largest pure-play ML company from its inception.
Work Experience
CTO
System-3
- Led technology from the company inception and seed round, growing the technology team and setting up all company systems and infrastructure.
- Designed, architected, and developed a talent assessment simulation to assess individuals' ability to perform at an executive level.
- Implemented Agile software methodology and systems and managed the team and interactions between other company departments and tech.
- Helped develop applications for grants and startup funding.
VP of Technology | Venture Studio CTO
AltaML
- Started the company as the 5th employee and the VP of technology and helped the company grow to around 150 employees.
- Grew and managed the teams responsible for applied AI application development, data engineering, and DevOps.
- Helped grow the company to Canada's largest pure-play AI company.
- Was part of the leadership team and helped set and plan the company's direction.
- Helped launch five early-stage startups as their fractional CTO—from idea inception to initial MVP development to first sales and customers.
- Gained experience in applied AI in financial services, animal health, executive recruiting, AI chatbots, and oil and industrial services.
VP of Technology
Janalta
- Led the technology team for a portfolio of 15 online entertainment content sites across several verticals.
- Contributed to technical due diligence to enable the company to sell to a private buyer.
- Developed applications with the technology team on the Microsoft .NET platform.
- Optimized cloud spending and architecture on Amazon AWS. Reduced cloud hosting costs by 60%.
- Took charge of growing the team to meet the business needs.
- Rolled out Agile principles to the company and managed development sprints.
Senior Software Developer
VAE, Inc
- Developed a new network scanning application for contractors working for the US Department of Defense.
- Served as the lead for a number of microservices and architecture written in C# and Node.js (TypeScript).
- Created the initial front-end application in AngularJS.
- Worked with network engineers on techniques for parsing SNMP messages from various network infrastructure components.
Senior Front-end Developer
Artermobilized
- Created a rich, responsive client-side web application complete with CSS3 animations.
- Integrated the front-end Knockout with existing back-end services.
- Developed a custom mapping solution for displaying various stores across a province.
CTO | Lead Developer
SportingCharts.Com
- Created a site that is currently at 1+ million page views per month and growing.
- Hired external contracted developers and managed task breakdown and assignments.
- Created design mockups using Photoshop for all pages on the site. Worked with the content lead and CEO to refine iterations.
- Set up and customized the Umbraco .NET CMS to run at scale.
- Architected and established an AWS server solution.
- Architected a server-side data framework and custom ORM.
Senior Web Developer
Fujistu Canada
- Created design mockups for client design sessions.
- Created a test plan and executed a number of full testing cycles against applications.
- Created rich client-side UIs for a large-scale web application.
- Set up the deployment and build servers with MSBuild and TeamCity.
- Created a mission-critical web application in C#, MVC 3.5, using Entity Framework 6.0.
Senior .NET Web Application Developer
Alberta Department of Education
- Maintained existing JavaScript front-end components.
- Created new JavaScript components for existing web applications.
- Developed a Silverlight web application.
- Created rich front-end web applications.
- Troubleshot production server performance issues.
.NET Web Developer
Saputo
- Created a custom build and deployment strategy.
- Took responsibility for site visual design and user experience.
- Profiled and optimized existing web applications.
- Created a number of small internal web applications written in ASP MVC 3.5.
Lead Developer
Accenture
- Led a team of three other developers on a .NET migration project.
- Created web services to expose legacy COM+ objects in .NET.
- Created application components in an IBM Websphere.
- Gathered technical specifications from clients and managed client relations.
Senior IT Consultant | Web Developer
Fujitsu Consulting
- Managed client relations with the Alberta Department of Municipal Affairs (government client).
- Gathered technical specifications.
- Developed and maintained web applications in ColdFusion, Python 2.3, VBA (Microsoft Access), and Oracle 10g.
Web Developer
Investopedia
- Developed a large-scale stock simulation web application in .NET with a user base of 2M+ per month.
- Created Facebook versions of existing web applications in .NET.
- Developed build and deployment strategies for existing and new web applications.
Experience
Sportingcharts.com Pickem Game
SportingCharts Rivalry Pages
FuturesKnowledge
Alberta Home Warranty Protection System
Learn Alberta
NHL Ice Tracker
Alberta Major Projects
http://majorprojects.alberta.ca/Education
Bachelor of Computer Science Degree in Computer Science
University of Alberta - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Underscore.js, jQuery, Vue 2, Azure API Management, Node.js, Mustache, Entity Framework, Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) Library, MooTools, Sammy.js, Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), Vue, React, Windows Forms (WinForms)
Tools
Visual Studio .NET, Slack, Adobe Photoshop, Terraform, Microsoft Silverlight, TeamCity, Visual Studio, Adobe Dreamweaver
Languages
CSS, Python, C#, JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML5, CSS3, Java, Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), XSLT, VB.NET, HTML, Less, Java 7, COBOL, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), C++, Lua, F#, SQL, C#.NET, R, Bicep
Frameworks
.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Knockout (Knockout.js), Bootstrap, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Windows PowerShell, Twisted, JavaServer Faces, Django, AngularJS, Mono
Paradigms
Functional Programming, Agile Software Development, Reactive Programming, Waterfall Development, Unit Testing, Microservices, COM+, REST, Management
Platforms
Windows, Docker, Azure Functions, Oracle, Kubernetes, IBM WebSphere, Umbraco, AgilePoint, Linux, Adobe ColdFusion, Azure, AWS ALB
Storage
MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Azure Queue Storage, PL/SQL, SQL Server 2008 R2, IBM Db2, MongoDB, NoSQL
Other
Software Development, API Integration, Front-end, Architecture, APIs, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Web Scraping, Technical Leadership, Dashboards, CruiseControl, Domain-driven Design (DDD), SOAP, User Interface (UI), Windows Services, Cloud, Azure Data Factory (ADF)
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