Eric Z. Beard
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Kissimmee, FL, United States
Toptal member since September 18, 2017
Eric is an experienced software architect and engineering manager. He has designed and built large, complex software systems from the ground up and has hired and managed as many as 100 engineers. He was the CTO at Loop, LLC (www.autoloop.com) for over a decade, where he created one of the leading customer engagement platforms for auto dealerships. Other companies that he has worked for in senior roles include AOL and British Telecom.
Portfolio
Experience
- SQL - 17 years
- JavaScript - 15 years
- C# - 15 years
- .NET - 15 years
- Microsoft SQL Server - 11 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 5 years
- MySQL - 5 years
- Python 3 - 1 year
Availability
Preferred Environment
MySQL, Flask, Python, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
The most amazing...
...product I’ve created is AutoLoop—a customer engagement platform for auto dealerships. 100 million customer records, thousands of tables, and 8 million+ LOC.
Work Experience
Founder | CEO
Foundation Mercury
- Worked for Foundation Mercury—a geo-demographic database for marketers and researchers with a robust REST API written in Python (Flask), and a MySQL back-end hosted on Amazon Aurora.
- Built this site over the summer with a small team of interns.
- Developed the front-end in jQuery/Bootstrap.
CTO
Finexio
- Worked for Finexio—an early stage startup in the B2B payments space; was fully responsible for all aspects of the technology solution.
- Provisioned and administered Linux virtual machines on AWS.
- Developed web apps in JavaScript on Node.js.
- Implemented file processing with Python.
- Worked on MySQL data modeling, SQL programming, and database administration.
CTO
Loop, LLC
- Was hired as the first employee.
- Filled many roles such as lead developer, product manager, database administrator, and recruiter.
- Designed a custom data access layer to partition data in over 1,000 database tables across dozens of physical database machines.
- Wrote a SIP server in C# from scratch to handle IVR calls.
- Hired and managed a team of over 100 engineers on 18 scrum teams.
- Personally wrote a significant portion of an 8 million line codebase.
Development Team Leader
Susquehanna Technologies
- Led the software development projects for government nonprofits.
- Conducted company training on advanced Microsoft server products such as Biztalk Server 2004.
- Developed OLAP cubes and DTS packages for use by the marketing department at the Graduate Management Admission Council.
- Led the architecture and implementation of the Fraud Emergency Warning System for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators using ASP.NET, C# and SQL Server 2000.
- Led the development team tasked with productizing a customer relationship management system.
Senior Software Engineer
AOL
- Led a research and development team responsible for researching Windows Vista alpha builds to prepare for the next version of the AOL client.
- Prepared for the next version of the AOL client for a successful migration.
- Became the resident .NET expert consultant at the company.
Lead Developer
British Telecom
- Led a successful project of migrating a legacy billing application to J2EE/Oracle.
- Gathered the requirements, designed the system, ordered and installed the necessary hardware, and wrote a significant portion of the code.
Chief of Software Development
Brainbench
- Led a team of 12 developers, organized the analysis, and designed new projects—including data modeling and object-oriented design, supervised programming, conducted code reviews, deployed new software on the production site and managed the maintenance of existing web applications.
- Developed web applications using Java, Servlets, JSP, JavaBeans, EJB, XML, DHTML, SQL Server and Flash to develop computer adaptive tests (CAT) for skills certifications.
- Performed systems administration—managing servers running Solaris 8 with Apache, Resin, and Borland App Server.
- Gained extensive experience writing Sh, Bash, and Perl scripts.
Russian Interpreter | Arms Control Inspector
USMC
- Traveled extensively in the former Soviet Union on a diplomatic passport in support of arms control treaties.
- Led as many as 60 marines as a platoon sergeant.
- Awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal and the Joint Service Achievement Medal.
- Was honorably discharged at the rank of staff sergeant.
- Managed an intranet site that hosted training materials at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Node.js, jQuery
Tools
BigQuery
Languages
Python 3, SQL, C#, Go, JavaScript, Python, HTML, Sh, Java
Frameworks
.NET, Flask, Bootstrap, AngularJS, Hadoop, Spark, ASP.NET, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP)
Storage
MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Amazon Aurora, Google Cloud
Platforms
Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle, Solaris, Jakarta EE, iOS, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Windows Vista
Other
Team Building, Product Management, Relational Database Services (RDS)
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