Alexander North

At Pocket, a startup funded by ASU and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, I played a pivotal role as the lead software and security architect. My primary responsibility was architecting a self-sovereign identity platform utilizing Hyperledger Indy and Aries, integrating advanced blockchain technology with decentralized PKI and end-to-end encryption. This innovative solution aimed to empower users with secure and private identity management.

One of my key achievements was designing unique encryption strategies that provided end-to-end data protection without intermediary access, impressing stakeholders such as the U.S. Air Force. Additionally, I led the creation of a low-footprint on-premise agent for on-the-fly data anonymization and encryption. I also spearheaded the implementation of a security-by-design approach, ensuring that privacy and security were paramount in every aspect of product development.

Building strong relationships with stakeholders was crucial to the project's success. I worked closely with the CEO, investors, and other key stakeholders to build enthusiasm and alignment, helping to secure key clients in higher education, enterprise, and military sectors.

This proprietary ERP platform performed automated threat recognition, dynamic PDF generation, and fully integrated workflow automation from initial sales outreach to final deliverables.

As the technical team lead, I assembled and managed a remote team of engineers and other technical talent using agile project management methodologies (including extreme programming principles).

This application was a cornerstone of the business from day one. Working closely with leadership for seven years, I served as product owner, working constantly to define and execute the product vision as the company grew and expanded into new markets. I worked closely with key stakeholders, leadership, and subject matter experts to refine, evolve, and expand the product's capabilities.

Over several years, we tackled some incredible technical challenges, such as:
+ Direct integration with Zapier and other third-party APIs.
+ Developed our own Zapier integration.
+ Built our own in-browser image editor.
+ Fully dynamic generation of complex, data-rich PDF documents.
+ OAuth authentication and authorization with 2FA.

CloudGoat is a penetration testing tool that allows red-team cybersecurity professionals to hone their cloud cybersecurity skills by creating and completing several "capture-the-flag" style scenarios. Each scenario is composed of multiple AWS resources arranged together to create a structured learning experience.

I managed a diverse team of engineers and cybersecurity researchers to design and develop this open-source software product. I was personally responsible for developing the product vision and architecting the solution from both the technical and product perspectives.

+ Cloudgoat offered a focused, curated, and high-quality learning experience. Each of CloudGoat’s scenarios provided the opportunity for experimentation, exploration, and building hands-on cloud security skills.

CloudGoat’s scenarios were well-documented and easy to understand in terms of difficulty, content, structure, and skills required. CloudGoat’s core components were easy to use and to work with, driving adoption and enhancement both within Rhino Security Labs and the community. Cloudgoat received rave reviews and was quite popular in the community, with industry experts and influencers posting their scenario walkthroughs.

Initially, I served as a technical consultant, working with a business process analyst and an internal team of executives and key stakeholders to architect an integrated, web-based application to act as a secure and effective ERP solution to evolve the existing business process and infrastructure. As the deliverable for this phase, my team and I created detailed specifications and a technical project plan to be used as the basis for an RFP process.

Following this design phase, my consulting company won the bid to build the product. From that point, acting as product owner and technical project manager, I led a team of engineers and other technical talent using Scrum to deliver the project on time and budget. We worked with the client's MSP to deploy the project on Microsoft Azure.

This was a unique and challenging project, but some of the stand-out achievements are below:

• Worked closely with business analysts and management consultants to develop a technical project plan and scope based on extensive business process documentation.
• Created a sophisticated and fully dynamic equation builder, enabling users to carry out complex modeling and cost-benefit simulations within the application.

This was a mature business with a large number of long-term customers and well-established processes, all of which were highly manual and largely based on traditional infrastructures such as paper forms and direct emails.

From the start, my goal was to transform the business into a fully digital, online-first organization by building an ERP to handle all internal processes and a client-facing portal to handle customer needs.

I helped the company's leadership develop their vision and long-term strategy, then created a technical project plan and detailed solution architecture. From there, I took on the role of product owner and technical team lead, assembling a development team and working closely with the company leadership as we built and launched the product.

The initial release of the ERP was a tremendous success, but it also provided a platform for further iterations. In concert with key stakeholders, we gathered feedback, refined the user experience, and even modified the business process. Over the next few years, we dramatically improved efficiency, allowing the business to triple its volume without increasing staff.

Pacu is an open-source AWS exploitation framework, designed for offensive security testing against cloud environments. Pacu allows penetration testers to exploit configuration flaws within an AWS account, using modules to easily expand its functionality.

As a product owner and technical team lead, I worked closely with leadership, marketing, a technical team of software engineers, and cybersecurity experts to develop a product vision, scope, and solution architecture.

I coordinated a closed beta with industry experts, insiders, and influencers in cybersecurity and cloud-based IT, keeping beta users involved in the ongoing development of the product. We leveraged their feedback to refine the product into a cutting-edge cybersecurity tool that exceeded user expectations and garnered substantial praise.

The success of the project was ultimately measurable on multiple fronts: Internal use of the tool for cloud infrastructure assessments, the uptake and use of the project across the cybersecurity community, and even in the increased traffic to the website following key terms related to the project.

For this project, my consulting agency was retained to architect, implement, and launch a new product for a popular online product review publication. After working with leadership to establish the project's vision, I designed the technical architecture and defined the project scope.

Serving as product owner and technical team lead and using agile development and project management principles, my team built and deployed the product. Some interesting highlights from the project:

Due to the tool's popularity, we had to perform pre-launch load testing and performance optimization using New Relic and LoadImpact. With data-rich, intelligent product recommendations as a priority for the core function of the app performance, we had to use Redis and Memcached to maintain performance under load—MySQL just couldn't keep up!

We used Amazon's native store API to keep the client's database of price, availability, and product info in sync with Amazon's. At launch, this product served more than 600,000 views per month, and we kept average page load times under three seconds even with dynamic data!