Objective

A hands-on, senior-level position in a progressive environment where technical expertise and creative thinking are valued and encouraged. Specialization in web applications or core server applications preferred. Strong preference for Ruby on Rails.

Skills, Technologies, & Tools

I have broad experience with both server-side and front-end technologies. Equally as important, I have above-average business writing and verbal communication skills which enables me to communicate effectively with colleagues, management and customers.

• Ruby Stack: Ruby since 2005, Ruby on Rails, Capistrano, Mongrel / Mongrel Cluster, Thin, and Passenger
• Java Stack: Java since 1997, J2EE, Servlets, EJB, JSP, and JSTL
• Java Frameworks: Spring Framework, Hibernate, iBATIS, Acegi Security, Struts, Tiles, and Sitemesh
• Java Tools: Intellij, JUnit, Easymock, JCoverage, Checkstyle, and Axis
• Front-end engineering: Standards-based, semantic XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and AJAX
• Web Servers: Apache, Nginx, Jakarta Tomcat, Sun One Web Server
• App Servers: WebLogic 4.5.1, 7.0, 8.1, 9.1 and WebSphere
• Databases: Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, limited PostgreSQL
• Configuration Management / Builds: Ant, CVS, ClearCase, VSS, Subversion and Git
• Scripting: Bash, Ruby, Regular Expressions
• Environments: Solaris, Linux (Ubuntu, Red Hat), Mac OS X, Windows
• Modeling: UML since 1995, Data Modeling (E-R), Visual Vocabulary, Rational Rose, and Visio
• Methodologies: O-O analysis & design since 1989, Agile Development, XP, and TDD

Experience

Sabre Holdings

July 2010 – Present

Lead Software Developer. Duties include:

• Responsible for backend web services in support of the TripCase mobile device application. Backend web services are implemented using the Ruby on Rails framework.

Geoforce, Inc.

April 2009 – July 2010

Lead Software Architect. Duties included:

• Full responsibility for SaaS platform with a Ruby on Rails / MySQL technology stack.
• Inherited a working, but poorly-coded application delivered through an outsource arrangement. As such, much of my time has been spent on runtime performance improvements, code quality, and user interface improvements. Slowly eating away at a sizeable amount of technical debt.
• Google Maps 2 integration to include auto-refresh to enable display of moving assets.
• Developed a reporting framework enabling customizable, scheduleable reports available in Excel and PDF format.
• Evolved codebase to include GeoRSS feeds and RESTful web services.
• Implemented many custom projects for potential and existing clients to promote greater client satisfaction and/or sales.
• Sought and hired experienced independent contractor and a full-time senior developer to expand capacity and capabilities.

NeatoIdea, LLC

June 2007 – Present

President & CEO. Duties include:

• From December 2009 to January 2010 worked for Suzanne Can, a personal and business concierge service website in Dallas. Developed custom Rails application with Wordpress integration for blogging. Also perform ongoing search engine optimization.
• From January 2009 to March 2009 worked for GetARoom, a website commissioned by the founders of Hotels.com. Developed core user features like user registration, forgotten password, etc. Also worked on early versions of the hotel booking path. Developed integrations with Travelociy, Great Plains Accounting, and Paymentech.
• From November 2008 to January 2009 worked for Stylepath, a retail product referral aggregator to implement advanced administration features, product feed imports to expand product offerings, and a shop by color feature.
• From October 2008 to November 2008 worked part-time with startup MailVu to build pilot application to prove the ability to view physical mail over the web.
• For MailVu, built a pilot application with integrations with Amazon S3 for image storage using a deferred processing messaging architecture featuring Amazon SQS.
• For MailVu, enhanced user experience by using Yahoo User Interface (YUI) utilities and widgets (to include carousel and datatable).
• From November 2007 through September 2008 (10+ months) with Google. This was a telecommuting contract with an agile development team heavily emphasizing TDD.
• For Google, built RESTful web services for two different domains to support internal infrastructure provisioning.
• For Google, built ActiveResource client API to communicate with web services.
• For Google, built command-line clients which used the ActiveResource API to interact with the web services.
• For Google, built one new plugin to add arbitrary meta data to ActiveRecord instances without having to extend the schema. The plugin coordinated data maintained in a supplementary table, but enabled seamless attribute access to the instance.
• For Google, heavily modified an existing security plugin to enable resource-based ACLs for ActiveRecord instances. Developed a pluggable, AJAXified UI to enable CRUD actions for ACLs.
• Additional client work done for Click Here to complete projects for the Patron Social Club using Ruby on Rails.
• Internal website development.

Click Here

July 2007 – October 2007

Senior Developer. Accomplishments included:

• Evolved the agency's Ruby on Rails development capabilities by employing REST-based designs where appropriate, introducing test-driven development, and automated deployment with Capistrano in conjunction with Subversion.
• Contributed to client pursuits through prototype development, estimating, and technical site architectures.
• Developed quality requirements for website features lending to shared vision, well-defined scope, and testability.
• Served as Subversion administrator. In doing so, developed best practice recipes for branching, releasing, and tagging.
• Set up and promoted the use of wikis to enable a collaborative development culture. Was the leading contributor of technical knowledge (e.g. strategies, requirements, recipes, etc).

Nokia Corporation

July 2002 – June 2007

Architect / Software Developer. Accomplishments included:

• Co-architected wholesale upgrade of support.nokia.com from legacy JRun JSP architecture to a Spring Framework-based, lightweight, layered architecture. This was a deployment of a federation of 20+ web applications, 10+ web services, and integrations with Siebel / Oracle and Inquira. This deployment was important because it was the first Spring Framework deployment in the history of the company and established a viable lightweight alternative to the heavyweight EJB architectures that are more common within the company. This pioneering effort sets the company up for future cost efficiencies.
• Deployed the company's first Ruby on Rails application: a utility application used to enable groups or individuals to store bookmarks, notes, passwords, and serial numbers and tag each to enhance findability. The application was integrated into the company's back-end authentication data stores providing seamless access to all employees.
• Re-architected the internal Web Guidelines site to use a lightweight Java-based technology stack resulting in a 300% savings in operational costs and license fees while preserving performance and uptime.
• Successfully architected, designed, and supervised the implementation of the next iteration of the consumer database to be used by Nokia.com. This service enabled client applications to efficiently and consistently store consumer registration data. The introduction of this service eliminated the fragmentation of consumer data within the corporation.
• Successfully architected, designed, and implemented a proof-of-concept release of the consumer database web service. This release enabled the company to baseline relevant use cases and served as valuable input into the next iteration and eventual production release.

The Mind Electric

October 2001 – February 2002

Java Developer. Accomplishments included:

• Developed a plugin for the JBuilder IDE for the Java-based GLUE web services platform. This enabled the platform to be comparable to competitor's feature sets.
• Developed a prototype UDDI registry component for the GLUE web service platform. This enabled the platform to be comparable to competitor's feature sets.

Vocada

December 2000 – October 2001

Architect / Software Developer. Accomplishments included:

• Developed middle-tier application server designed to provide business services for web and voice user interfaces. The application was designed to enable data collection through a voice user interface (phones) with ancillary access made available through the web. The application server was built entirely in Java using RMI for object transport and JDBC for data access. JavaMail and SMS technology were used for active notifications. JUnit was used to enable regression testing. SQL Server 2000 was used as the data store.
• Developed technology proof-of-concept prototype voice application. This application utilized JavaBeans as a simplistic business object tier along with JSP pages which dynamically-generated VoiceXML. The VoiceXML was “rendered” by the Nuance Voice Browser.
• Co-designed and participated in a technical interview process designed to test the technical aptitude of software developer interview candidates. The process emphasized object-oriented development concepts and the Java programming language.

ObjectSpace

July 2000 – November 2000

Enterprise Readiness Architect. Accomplishments included:

• Evaluated ObjectSpace’s OpenBusiness product from the perspective of its readiness for the enterprise marketplace. This included all facets of a middleware software package (e.g. performance, scalability, availability, ease of use, documentation, etc.).
• Created performance test plans designed to structure the process by which the OpenBusiness product would be evaluated over a distributed network.
• Assisted in the design and implementation of a Java-based distributed testing framework where test cases were distributed to PCs on the network and made to follow a policy-based distribution event notification scheme. The framework enabled ObjectSpace to determine performance characteristics of the product.
• Executed distributed performance tests and performed bottleneck analysis on the results. These results were presented to the V.P. of Engineering and the Chief Architect for the product.
• Participated in Java code reviews where functionality and style defects were reported and later corrected. Participated in documentation reviews to ensure accuracy of documentation based upon experience with the OpenBusiness product. Provided the enterprise readiness perspective to all aspects of the review process.

marchFIRST, Inc.

November 1998 – July 2000

Application Architecture / Web Developer. Accomplishments included:

• Responsible for high-level systems architecture for web applications. Was responsible for the application design of systems, communication to development teams, and oversight of development teams on an ongoing basis. This responsibility involved researching, recommending, and sometimes negotiating the acquisition of products to be included within solutions. Examples of projects included www.laurushealth.com, www.jcpenneyinsurance.com, and www.weservhomes.com. Early website technologies included Microsoft ASP/COM while later sites used J2EE deployed on WebLogic 4.5.1.
• Responsible for business development initiatives where prospective clients would provide high-level objectives and the marchFIRST team would respond with baseline time estimates and technology recommendations.
• Responsible for working with strategists and analysts to provide technical background to suggestions and requirements.
• Elected as office representative to corporate initiative to improve methodology for various disciplines including Business Development, Client Management, Project Management, Systems Architecture, and Quality Assurance.

FirstPlus Financial

July 1998 – November 1998

Application Architect / Web Developer. Accomplishments included:

• Deployed intranet-based loan origination web application which was used in the company's call centers and served as the core revenue-generating application. The project utilized Java, servlets, object communication using CORBA, and simplistic file-based communication protocols for legacy systems.
• Responsible for corporate systems architecture. This responsibility involved conducting architecture assessments of third-party products to ensure alignment with the FirstPlus component-based, open systems IT strategy.
• Primary contributor on a software process improvement project commissioned to design common processes across different platforms. Developed process documentation and implementation plans for the introduction of the processes. Processes initially included requirements analysis, defect management, and technical reviews.

Ernst & Young

January 1994 – July 1998

Client / Server Developer. Accomplishments included:

• Served as an Application Architect on a large project using a logical 3-tier, object-oriented architecture using VB and C++. The project produced five products to support major portions of the business process for Management Consulting. This role involved leading OO design sessions, detailed coding in Visual Basic, mentoring junior development staff, and approving design and code deliverables for the entire team.
• Served as Applications Architect of a product which served as a repository for best practices in SAP. This product enabled engagement teams to leverage SAP implementation approaches from similar engagements. This was a client/server system built with VB and OLE technology. At the time, the Gartner Group had labeled it as a distinguishing feature for the Ernst & Young SAP Practice.
• Served as a technical liaison between a large development team building internal software tools and an international community who wished to deploy them. Duties included gathering and communicating requirements, communicating architectural approaches, and building plans for deployment on a case-by-case basis. Also served in a QA capacity to ensure that all applications were properly internationalized.
• Served as technical reviewer for a prototype project whose purpose was to offer Ernst & Young methodology over the web. The interface was very much like the early Yahoo search engine and enabled a user to quickly find best practices for a particular activity. The technology used for the prototype was Website 1.0, VB-based CGI, and an Access database which contained a subset of the methodology.
• Served as one of the strategists and technical reviewers of the Ernie project. This project enabled Ernst & Young to offer consulting over the web through a question/answer mechanism. The project was built using Website 1.0 for the web server and VB-based CGI scripts to manage interactions. It also utilized SQL Server. For years, the application was running under the original architecture and won a Smithsonian Award.

Electronic Data Systems

February 1986 – January 1994

Mainframe and PC Developer. Accomplishments included:

• Designed and developed a client/server system used to track red light violators for New York City. This system was implemented in PowerBuilder 2.0 along with third-party tools for imaging. Served as lead designer and programmer for the imaging subsystem. This system was profiled on PrimeTime Live in 1995.
• Designed and developed an image retrieval system for health claims. This system was developed in C++ using third-party imaging tools.
• Designed desktop applications for claim submissions from nursing homes and doctor’s offices. These systems were developed in C and utilized a proprietary data storage mechanism.
• Involved in many large-scale development efforts, from giant health claims processing systems in ALC and COBOL batch and CICS, to microcomputer systems for electronic claim submission, data entry and auditing in COBOL, C, and C++. Successfully provided technical and project leadership for several systems, on both mainframes and microcomputers.

Education

• B.S. in Computer Science, Texas A & M University , 1986.