President/Independent Contractor
2013 - PRESENTBlackwater Pragmatic- Answered to the CTO as a solution architect. Tasked with defining distributed application architecture in AWS with an eye toward scalability, security, reliability, and resiliency. Supported multiple enterprises' SaaS and headless CMS deployments.
- Oversaw the delivery of Java and Node.js solutions as a technical team lead. Initiated daily communication and technical architecture review with the off-shore development team to review technical goals and explore implementation options.
- Mentored and guided the development team, performing code reviews and ensuring the overall quality of deliverables. Continuously reviewed software development processes to improve release frequency, stability, and repeatability.
- Led task management and estimation discussions between technical teams and business stakeholders as a sprint manager. Set project schedules and managed expectations while motivating developers to deliver on time and on budget.
- Provided full-stack development specializing in legacy application enhancement and new product development. Architected several microservice and REST web service implementations leveraging Amazon Web Service (AWS) scalable infrastructure components.
- Spearheaded initiative to add chaos engineering concepts to critical enterprise applications. Spring Boot, Resilience4J, and Chaos Monkey provided the framework for this solution. Performance and Resiliency verified through Gatling load tests.
- Developed health care initiatives designed to allow users greater visibility into their overall health. Angular and React Native front-end implementations with GraphQL and REST services provide the data.
- Liaised technically with vendors, providing solutions to clients; contributing to the vetting process, technical reviews, deployment plans, and production support.
- Provided DevOps, release, and production support, finding ways to deliver more automation, better analytics, and real-time monitoring capabilities.
Technologies: D3.js, GraphQL, JUnit, SCSS, Hibernate, Mockito, MyBatis, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), Amazon Route 53, Amazon CloudSearch, Ajax, Thymeleaf, RESTEasy, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Angular, Swagger, Git, SQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), AWS Lambda, Amazon EC2, Agile, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, Amazon Web Services (AWS), HTML, CSS, JavaScript, REST, Spring, Node.js, Java, Headless CMS, Gatsby, Application Architecture, Architecture, Software Architecture, PostgreSQL, Leadership, Technical Leadership, Scrum, Ruby, IT Security, PHP, HIPAA Compliance, TypeScriptSenior Software Engineer
2013 - 2014Negawatt Business Solutions- Led enhancement and maintenance of third party custom software application critical to the success of the business. Implemented several performance improvements and refactored code to meet software best practices.
- Researched and developed a prototype architecture for new applications. Dove deep into many new technologies for next-generation application stack including Cassandra, MongoDB, Dart, Google Go, ZeroMQ, and RabbitMQ.
Technologies: JUnit, Ajax, Spring, JavaScript, SQL, Agile, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, RabbitMQ, ZeroMQ, Dart, MongoDB, Cassandra, Java, Leadership, Technical LeadershipSenior Software Engineer
2007 - 2014CTG- Acted as a project manager and technical leader for a team developing software as a service (SaaS) solutions, following Agile software development practices, as a dedicated driver.
- Mentored a team of engineers focused on "bridge the gap" between educational and professional development. Topics included software patterns, debugging, profiling, version control, unit testing, and code quality.
- Developed rich-internet-application (RIA) interfaces in FLEX and GWT/AJAX. Database design combines JPA with elements of Ruby on Rails to create a flexible ORM layer.
- Leveraged Spring Security, OpenSSO/OpenAM, and LDAP to provide authentication and authorization with single sign-on (SSO) capabilities.
- Implemented ontology-based solutions for semantic applications written using SPARQL and Jena.
- Served as an integral member of the team contracted to deliver SOA solutions to a leading healthcare provider. Automated business processes to integrate legacy systems through JMS, MQ, web services, and traditional database components.
- Piloted process to unit test and profile SOA components to identify performance bottlenecks and implement targeted enhancements.
- Led data integration efforts with Dun and Bradstreet and Experian, defining API and troubleshooting data quality issues.
- Developed generic X12 EDI parser framework to process and customize the various message structures common in health care implementations.
Technologies: JUnit, Ajax, WSDL, Adobe Flex, JSF, Spring, SQL, Agile, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, HIPAA Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), X12, Java Composite Application Platform Suite (JCAPS), OpenAM, Apache Jena, SPARQL, JavaScript, GWT, Java, Application Architecture, Architecture, Software Architecture, Leadership, Technical Leadership, Scrum, HIPAA ComplianceOwner
2009 - 2010Ask About The Mouse- Founded AskAboutTheMouse.com, a Stack Exchange-based site designed to help users get answers to their Disney related questions. Gained experience in community building, customer service, and managing Google ad campaigns.
- Leveraged social media tools to help promote the site and encourage user adoption.
Technologies: Ajax, Google AdWords, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Leadership, Technical LeadershipSenior Software Engineer
2005 - 2007Janya Inc.- Responsible for leading the development of a web application targeted to showcase the abilities of Janya’s Information Extraction technology. JavaServer Faces (JSF) and CSS combined to provide a flexible layout and presentation.
- Architected client-side application to configure and monitor Janya’s Information Extraction engine. Eclipse RCP chosen to provide a cross-platform user experience. SOAP/XML web services communicated with distributed engine components.
- Leveraged Spring and Hibernate to access application's MySQL database. Completed integration effort with third party client-side applications. Responsible for identifying MySQL database performance bottlenecks and implementing database improvements. Used Ruby and Rails to quickly prototype and test solutions.
- Initiated the usage of a project wiki to help capture feature ideas, document design decisions, and track milestones. Simplicity and accessibility made this concept a winner.
- Created a XMPP (Jabber) chat room monitor in Ruby, reporting to a Java REST web service.
Technologies: Hibernate, Ajax, WSDL, JavaScript, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, Wikis, XMPP, Eclipse RCP, XML, REST, SOAP, Spring, Ruby on Rails (RoR), SQL, CSS, HTML, JSP, JSF, MySQL, Oracle, Java, Leadership, Technical Leadership, RubyAnalyst Business Systems
2004 - 2005HSBC USA- Maintained several business automation systems serving large retail clients. Applied Rational Unified Process (RUP) principles to maintain and enhance Websphere hosted applications. Frequent collaboration with teams in remote locations to define project requirements, provide estimates, and track status.
Technologies: SQL, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, JavaSoftware Engineer
2000 - 2003Cymfony Inc- Teamed with senior management to identify business requirements and create system specifications. Leveraged Struts to create components for deployment on Silverstream’s portal server. Created scalable database access libraries in Java. Helped to tune and optimize Oracle database tables and queries. Initiated development of Ant scripts to automate build process.
- Developed CORBA C++ modules for distributed Information Extraction engine.
Technologies: WSDL, Jakarta EE, Jakarta EE Design Patterns, Ant, Business Portals, SQL, Oracle, CORBA, C++, JSP, JavaSenior Engineer
1997 - 2000Amherst Systems Inc.- Part of a team responsible for developing an integrated EW simulation system. Created a flexible library of reusable C++ utility classes (pre-STL) and converted several Ada libraries to C++. Refined make scripts to improve automated build process. Organized weekly team meetings to discuss issues, development progress, and concerns.
Technologies: Make, Ada, C++Application Programmer
1996 - 1997M&T Bank- Completed custom reports and made several enhancements to bank's deposit applications.
Technologies: COBOL