Co-founder, CTO
2015 - PRESENT7in7 Co.- Co-founded 7in7, a conference for experienced digital nomads.
- Built the entire tech stack from scratch, including an iOS app, web app, and back-end API. The iOS app provides a rich conference experience for attendees, including an activity feed and the ability to host and join meetups with other attendees. The web app is an alternative to the iOS app for those of us without iPhones. It replicates the same feature set and connects to the same backend API.
- Built the back-end API using Ruby on Rails with serialized and gzipped JSON response data. It relies on token authentication and shared secrets for security.
Technologies: PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOSFounder, Indie App Developer
2013 - PRESENTApps & Iced Lattes- Built my own apps as an indie developer for the better part of a decade under the moniker Apps & Iced Lattes.
- Focused apps on productivity and utility, including time management, text editing, and travel tipping.
- Integrated with third-party APIs for account logins and enhanced functionality, including Facebook and Dropbox.
- Handle all of the coding and graphic design for my app as well. Sketch mockups are essential.
- Current apps in development include a voice recorder, a Pomodoro timer, and something to mitigate anxiety.
Technologies: Dropbox, Bitbucket, Git, Swift, Objective-C, iOSiOS App Developer
2018 - 2018Vouch Tutoring- Built an iOS app to implement the Vouch Tutoring intro questionnaire for parents seeking prospective tutors. Vouch uses recommendations from a user's community, including Facebook friends and school networks, to present a curated list of verified and qualified tutors.
- Ensured the app supports a variety of form inputs and performs data validation when capturing all user input.
- Submitted all questionnaire responses to Vouch's back-end API using JSON.
- Specifically designed the app for iPhone, and the iPhones X, XR, XS, and XS in particular.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOSFull Stack Developer
2018 - 2018Rearden Metals- Built an iOS app and Rails back-end to track and manage cryptocurrency stored in cold storage coins. The app allows users to create accounts and add their cold storage coins. They can then track and chart the value of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies.
- Integrated the app with public APIs from CoinDesk and Blockonomics to track current and historical BTC data.
- Designed the app to be paired with one or more physical cold storage coins.
- Built a coin validating web app that scans QR codes and verifies the data on new cold storage coins.
Technologies: Bitcoin, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOSFull Stack Developer
2017 - 2017Paparazz-me- Built an iOS app and Rails backend to create the equivalent of Uber for travel photography. The app pairs amateur photographers with people who want a photo taken within close proximity of where they're standing.
- Used geofences to pair photographers with user requests without revealing anyone's exact location.
- Integrated with Facebook so end-users don't have to create a new account to get started. Just one tap and users can request (or take) a photo.
- Ensured credits are given to photographers for taking photos, and spent by users when requesting them.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Objective-C, iOSFull Stack Developer
2013 - 2016Mixbook- Worked with Mixbook's dev team to build new features, troubleshoot bugs, and upgrade the back-end of their photo album service. Some days it was as simple as updating a logo, but it would get as complex as upgrading API integrations for services like Facebook and Google Photos.
- Troubleshot bugs and provided consistent browser support. Why couldn't the buttons just stay centered?!
- Witnessed the rise-and-fall of skeuomorphic design, participating in the UI/UX design of faux leather photo album covers.
Technologies: OAuth, GitHub, Facebook, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, ActionScript 3, Flex, Adobe FlashWeb Developer
2015 - 2015ViralGains- Worked with an internal team to create a VPAID ad unit capable of playing YouTube videos with custom annotations and time-based CTAs.
- Designed the ad unit to be responsive and work seamlessly between mobile and desktop views. The ad unit is a white label and fully customizable with different fonts, colors, and social sharing options.
- Implemented custom analytics to track views, clicks, and social shares. The code had to be extremely lightweight and able to load quickly in any web context.
Technologies: YouTube, VPAID, Adobe Flash, JavaScript, CSS, HTMLWeb Developer
2014 - 2014FamilyBridge- Built a prototype web app to connect two users in a shared video chat window. Like a baby version of Zoom without any of the complicated bits. The purpose of FamilyBridge was to provide a persistent video chat for family members to stay connected with older relatives.
- Built the prototype on TokBox, and could automatically start a session when two users visited the same web page. Zero configuration and the ability to record video meant family members could save memories of ailing relatives who might not have otherwise been able to do things like initiate a FaceTime chat.
Technologies: TokBox, JavaScript, CSS, HTMLiOS App Developer, Web Developer
2014 - 2014StockUp Commerce- Worked on StockUp's iOS app and built a corresponding web portal and search engine to access their backend API of brands and products. StockUp is a comparison service to find the best prices for your favorite brands at nearby stores. No more overpaying for peanut butter M&Ms!
- Built the iOS app using Objective-C, with the views defined using Storyboards.
- Spent a lot of my time fixing bugs in the iOS app, from segues to table views to handling API calls. All issues were tracked in JIRA.
- Built a prototype of the web portal in PHP, and then two variants of the final version using Django.
Technologies: Jira, Django, Facebook, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Objective-C, iOSFront End Developer
2013 - 2014Cortina Productions- Worked on a series of interactive museum displays in fields ranging from politics to animation. The digital displays were designed to be informative, accessible, and provide a rich visual experience.
- Built a panoramic walkthrough of several rooms in the White House, providing historical context and allowing users to "discover" objects and artifacts.
- Built a visual explainer for how the artist Chuck Jones drew character animations and established comedic timing to bring characters to life.
- Incorporated a mix of custom UX design, embedded photos and videos, and hand-crafted animations into the designs.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Adobe FlashFront End Developer
2012 - 2013Science Inc.- Built a series of interactive video players to enable users to shop for daily deals. Think QVC plus YouTube. The first player was for Gumhouse, an online social stream video shopping network. It displayed a single product with units sold, a la Groupon, and supported both YouTube videos and live streams. The second player was for TopFloor, an online retailer of lifestyle products and gift items. It enabled limited-time sales of a series of products.
- Ensured the players were highly configurable and could be embedded on websites or Facebook. When posted on Facebook, users could interact directly with the players.
- Created and used several open source libraries, all hosted publicly on GitHub, to provide UI toolkits and define MVC architectures for the players.
Technologies: YouTube, Facebook, ActionScript 3, Adobe Flash, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTMLFront End Developer
2011 - 2012PRIMA Cinema- Built a high-performance front end UI for the PRIMA Cinema home media experience. PRIMA Cinema is a set-top box and service that aims to provide a movie theater experience at home.
- Used my experience with Disney to build a 3D menu of movie posters as a means of highly visual navigation. The transitions and animations I designed were of a high quality, yet avoided being too CPU intensive.
Technologies: JavaScript, ActionScript 3, Adobe FlashSr. Software Engineer
2011 - 2011Opera Solutions- Contributed as part of a medium-sized team that built a comprehensive analysis tool for a major American financial institution. The internal app allowed financial advisors to track the performance of their accounts and investments.
- Displayed every sort of dynamic graphing, from bar charts to scatter plots, across a variety of metrics.
- The team worked concurrently on individual UI modules, which came together to create the full app interface.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Flex, Adobe FlashFront End Developer
2010 - 2010Disney- Built a 3D animated character navigation control for the Disney.com homepage. Scrolling, momentum, perspective shifts - the works.
- Contributed as part of a small team of remote freelancers working within a larger internal Disney team as part of a major redesign of Disney.com.
- Attended daily scrum meetings with a healthy dose of weekly accountability.
- Executed a fully finalized design with no room for improvisation.
- The project was split into a series of library modules, models, skins, and views. Despite its massive size and complexity, it was easy to work in parallel on different aspects with shared dependencies.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Adobe FlashFront End Developer
2009 - 2009Adobe- Contributed to a rich internet application (RIA) with an Adobe team for The World Economic Forum in Davos.
- Worked with a client in a vastly different time zone, so I worked on Swiss time for many weeks from San Francisco.
- Developed a large number of UI template designs for profiles and panel sessions for the app, a blend of a Facebook-style social network and event organizer for conference attendees.
Technologies: Flex, Adobe FlashFull Stack Developer
2009 - 2009Compassionate Communications- Built and integrated a custom back-end solution with third-party services, such as Enthusem. As a print-on-demand greeting card service for hospital patients, the Flex client UI had to render realistic card previews from a user form. Since there could be several points-of-failure in the process of creating and sending a greeting card, the client and back-end had to robustly handle errors from local, remote, and third-party sources.
- Delivered a high-quality product within a limited time frame in collaboration with another remote developer.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, ActionScript 3, Flex, Adobe FlashCo-founder
2009 - 2009Topicfox- Created a white-label IM solution with other former Userplane employees.
- Applied my skills and knowledge from prior engagements towards solving the same problems in new and creative ways.
- Learned that it's okay to let something fail if it's not working out like you expected. My failures have taught me more than my successes ever could.
Technologies: XMPP, Cisco Jabber, Openfire, Red5, ActionScript 3, Flex, Adobe FlashSr. Software Engineer
2007 - 2009Userplane, an Aol co.- Designed and eventually managed Userplane's suite of cutting-edge Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) using Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR.
- Became intimately familiar with chat and audio/video (A/V) technologies, in particular, how fickle they can be on different hardware and behind firewalls.
- Introduced to Agile software development, and therefore, also my introduction to the daily joy of explaining software to marketers.
- Learned how to code and design for community-based software designed for hundreds and thousands of concurrent users.
- Learned several ways on how to fail as a manager, including (but not limited to): hiring, firing, mentoring freshman developers, and guiding a team towards their goals without doing all the work myself.
Technologies: ActionScript 3, Adobe AIR, Flex, Adobe FlashSoftware Engineer
2003 - 2006Neurostar Solutions- Contributed as part of a small team that developed Java-based medical imaging (DICOM) software used by hospitals and radiologists nationwide.
- Learned how to work collaboratively on an expansive code base with a waterfall of dependencies.
- Received my first introduction to HIPAA compliance and opened my eyes to the importance of respecting user privacy in apps and online services.
- Focused foremost on building tools users can understand and operate, as opposed to elegance and beautiful design.
- Transformed position from on-site to full-time remote.
Technologies: Subversion (SVN), Java