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Ryan Foster, Software Developer in Chapel Hill, NC, United States
Ryan Foster

Software Developer in Chapel Hill, NC, United States

Member since February 6, 2018
Ryan is not just another developer. He is a craftsman who keeps up with cutting-edge technologies but avoids the waves of fads. He thoughtfully selects the right tools for each job to create high-quality web applications that are a joy to use. Ryan specializes in designing and building robust, low-maintenance applications; creating responsive, mobile-friendly layouts; and identifying and resolving complex security issues.
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Portfolio

Experience

Location

Chapel Hill, NC, United States

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Git, VS Code, Visual Studio, Linux, Windows

The most amazing...

...system I've developed is a web-based OpenID Connect identity and access management solution used by 40,000 employees.

Employment

  • Senior Web Application Developer

    2012 - 2017
    Oregon Department of Administrative Services
    • Designed and built a single sign-on identity and access management system for 40,000 employees in more than 80 separate organizations based on IdentityServer4, OpenID Connect, and a custom group management application. This system resolved numerous security issues, reduced development time for new applications, improved the experience of users, and saved up to three million dollars in costs per year compared to alternative solutions.
    • Worked with product owners to gather requirements for rewriting a sizable back-office WebForms application. Used a lightweight approach that resulted in a collection of system context diagrams and user stories. Used an agile process to refine requirements while building a minimum viable product and then added features to this base product based on the customer's priorities. Led a small development team to implement the design using microservices, ASP.NET Core MVC, Web API, and continuous integration.
    • Developed a mobile-first, responsive web interface for an online time entry and approval application used by more than 20,000 employees and helped integrate it with the legacy mainframe payroll system via web services.
    • Performed life cycle and security analysis for a portfolio of over 30 applications built with more than half a dozen technology stacks. Identified moderate to critical security and sustainability risks and helped create documents and visuals used by the CIO to communicate the nature and scope of the identified risks to upper management.
    • Managed several Windows and Linux web and database servers.
    • Used Azure services for the rapid deployment of a proof-of-concept business intelligence portal.
    • Provided technical leadership for all other developers and training and oversight for the junior developers.
    • Initiated and succeeded in an effort to reunify the web development team and reconcile them with management after a rift between management and staff destroyed morale.
    Technologies: Apache, IIS, Linux, Windows Server, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, Git, OpenID, Azure, CSS, HTML5, JavaScript, .NET Core, ASP.NET MVC, C#

  • Web Designer | Developer | Technology Consultant

    2008 - 2013
    Freelance Work
    • Converted Photoshop designs into pixel-perfect responsive layouts for content management systems.
    • Designed and created websites and web applications for clients.
    • Gave advice to companies, nonprofit organizations, and individuals on the selection, design, and implementation of web-based application solutions.
    • Developed tools to parse Wiktionary and compute the probability of equivalent meanings in order to create wordnets for 83 languages. Coauthored a Natural Language Processing research paper describing the methodology and results of the project and released the wordnets under an open source license. This project helped kickstart the further development of wordnets in several new languages and encouraged the release of new and existing wordnets under open source licenses.
    Technologies: Drupal, MODx, MySQL, PHP, CSS, HTML

  • Application Specialist

    2008 - 2012
    Oregon State Data Center
    • Provided advice to management, supervisors, and coworkers in the planning of new features to be implemented in the data center's customer portal, ticket tracking, and asset management systems.
    • Designed and built modules, forms, and workflows for web-based applications used by staff and customers.
    • Designed, built, and released open-source plugins required for the data center’s asset management system.
    Technologies: Linux, Apache, Joomla, Drupal, CSS, HTML, MySQL, Perl, PHP

  • Consultant

    2010 - 2010
    American Eagle Outfitters
    • Integrated an IT asset discovery system with a configuration management system used to track tens of thousands of devices.
    Technologies: Linux, MySQL, PHP

  • Teacher

    2003 - 2008
    Volunteer Teacher | Substitute Teacher
    • Taught English, leadership, public speaking, and many other subjects.
    • Supervised volunteer teachers.
    • Developed curriculum.

Experience

  • Access and Identity Management Solution (Development)

    Designed and built a single sign-on identity and access management system with .NET Core, IdentityServer4, and OpenID Connect.

  • ePayroll (Development)

    Developed a mobile-first, responsive web interface for an online time entry and approval application in .NET MVC and helped integrate it with the legacy mainframe payroll system via web services. Later upgraded the system to .NET Core.

  • Back-office Web Application (Development)

    Rewrote a sizable back-office WebForms application using microservices, ASP.NET Core MVC, Web API, and continuous integration.

  • Hash Iteration Calculator (Development)
    https://github.com/openidauthority/HashIterationCalculator

    Created a simple open-source tool to help people tune the ASP.NET identity settings for their hardware.

  • Getapassphrase.com (Development)
    https://getapassphrase.com/

    Created a passphrase generator in JavaScript that creates grammatically correct nonsense phrases that are millions of times stronger than normal passwords.

  • Protect Your Online Identity with Great Passwords (Development)

    Created a training course on password security to replace common myths with solid advice.

  • Language-learning Website (Development)

    Designed and created a beta version of a language-learning website with PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and MySQL. Includes language auto-detect feature and various tools for learning vocabulary.

  • CSS 3D Web Book (Development)
    https://openidauthority.com/portfolio/projects/webbook/index.html

    Created a responsive and interactive book entirely with CSS animations (no JavaScript). The original version was also a progressive web app.

  • Clean Form Elements (Development)
    https://openidauthority.com/portfolio/projects/cleanformelements/demo/demo.html

    Created a CSS stylesheet for styling form elements as an alternative to Bootstrap-style markup and Material Design flatness.

  • Pixel-perfect Layouts (Development)

    Converted Photoshop designs to pixel-perfect HTML and CSS layout for Vertical Thought Magazine, Britten Motorcycle Company, Surreal Hair and Beauty, and many others.

  • CMS-backed Websites (Development)

    Created CMS-backed websites with MODX, HTML, and CSS for Mahonia Vineyard, Sound Bytes Reading, AER Fitness, and many others.

  • WordNet Research Paper (Other amazing things)
    http://aclweb.org/anthology/P13-1133

    Co-authored a paper on natural language processing.

Skills

  • Languages

    C#, Go, JavaScript, SQL, HTML5, CSS, HTML, PHP, Perl, ECMAScript (ES6)

  • Frameworks

    ASP.NET MVC, .NET Core, ASP.NET Web API, OAuth 2

  • Paradigms

    Database Design, Progressive Enhancement, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Web UI Design, Agile Software Development, Continuous Integration (CI), Azure DevOps

  • Libraries/APIs

    jQuery, LINQ, OpenID, Vue.js, React

  • Tools

    Git, Azure DevOps Services, Visual Studio, VS Code, Apache, xUnit

  • Platforms

    Linux, Windows, MODx, Drupal, Joomla, Windows Server, Azure, Azure PaaS

  • Industry Expertise

    IT Security

  • Storage

    MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server

  • Other

    OpenID Connect (OIDC), APIs, Data Modeling, IIS, RESTful Microservices, Automated Tests

Education

  • Master of Arts degree in Teaching
    2002 - 2003
    Willamette University - Salem, OR, USA
  • Bachelor of Science degree in History
    1997 - 2002
    Oregon State University - Corvallis, OR, USA

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