Who am I?

I am Michael Nash. I am highly experienced at building software and at building teams that build software.

Currently, it is my privilege to play a large part in building and growing the Professional Services team at Lightbend, Inc.

A few years ago, Lightbend acquired BoldRadius Solutions, Inc, a Canadian services company where I was the VP of Capabilities, and our team became the Professional Services team for Lightbend world-wide.

I have been in the software business since 1982, starting as a software developer, then a consultant, then a manager and company executive, while retaining a deep expertise in the engineering disciplines of software.

I have recruited, interviewed, hired, mentored and developed a world-class team of software and consulting experts. I value the respect of my colleagues that I earn by doing the technical work right alongside them - I am very much a hands-on manager.

What Do I do?

I create, grow, develop and manage teams of software experts.

My background is as a technical expert and consultant: Combined with my experience this makes me an ideal choice to manage a team of experts now.

I know what the team needs, and what they do, and the challenges they face when helping clients. My focus is on helping my team deliver the greatest business value.

This is where I am most effective and a multiplier. I have had teams of up to sixteen people reporting directly to me, and I have mentored many people for many years, usually at the more senior portions of their careers.

I know how to find the right people, how to integrate them into a team, how to enable and teach them, how to organize them, and how to manage them to maximum effectiveness for clients. I hold myself and my team to the highest professional standards, and I am an advocate of Software Craftsmanship.

I am an expert software architect, particularly in areas of reactive systems, distributed systems, high-performance computing. I know (and teach) domain-driven design, test-driven design and behaviour-driven design, and I understand the underlying principles of agile practices and XP, free of the hype. I did "artificial intelligence" back before it was trendy (natural-language recognition). I am an expert on all aspects of scalability (of systems and teams).

Where Do I do it?

Although I am currently based in the U.S., my team is global, and I am very familiar with international teams, distributed teams, and the needs of companies that span many countries.

I was born and raised in Bermuda, and operated my own company there for many years. I then relocated to The Bahamas, where I again ran my own firm and consulted for some of the largest companies in the region.

My current team is fully distributed, and works lives and works with clients in the U.S.A, Canada, the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany.

Accomplishments

The accomplishments of which I'm most proud are the people I've helped, both clients and my own team. Many of the best stories I can't tell directly, though, due to confidentiality.

I've also built and contributed to many software systems, some of which were open source, many not. I've originated and built many professional-level courses, and created original methodologies for consulting engagements. I created Lightbend's Certified Reactive Architect program, and authored the exam. We have a few more like it in the works now.

I have designed, developed, deployed and taken to production:

• A full multi-currency accounting system (General Ledger, Accounts Receivables, Accounts Payable, Inventory, Order Entry, Purchase Order, Fixed Assets)
• An international Investment Management system, tracking billions in assets
• A Web-Based Report Publishing System
• Several OLAP Decision Support Systems (financial, marketing and payroll) (what we call "Big Data" nowadays)
• An advanced real-time Inventory (RF Terminals, layering)
• A natural-language query system for relational databases (patents granted)

And many others.

I have built and enabled my team on a unique method of measuring a team's capacity and skills, with an eye towards creating custom enablement and training plans for every member.

In between all this, I enjoy writing, and have published a few books, and collaborated on a few more, and hundreds of articles. I have also given many talks at conferences - see the bottom of this page for a few examples. A have another couple of books in the works now.

Education

4-year Bachelor of Computer Science program at Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Attained deans list as of second year (top 5%).

I left in my 4^th year to start my own business, having nothing but elective courses left available to me.

K-12 at Mount Saint Agnes Academy, Hamilton, Bermuda - Honours Student

My education is ongoing, and have attended many different courses, seminars, expositions, etc, too numerous to list.

I also make a point of always making time to review the internet resources for IT and development on a daily basis, and subscribe to numerous trade publications.

One of my best resources of ongoing education is my network of colleagues, and the various open source projects we are all involved in. This keeps my exposure to the most current tools and techniques in software very current.

References

Derek Lane

“Mike is a true master technologist. He brings impressive savvy of the technical, business, and common sense to bear on every situation. The unique blend of years of experience while incorporating cutting edge technology is nothing short of stellar. He can work in any size team, or deliver with incredible persistence on his own. I will highly recommend Mike for my future projects. A true superstar.”

Kelly Fox

“Despite being a remote team member, Mike cheerfully made significant code contributions to all of the software projects he was involved with. His resourcefulness, development experience, knowledge of the concepts involved, and desire to do the best job possible all made him an invaluable member of the Semantra development team.”

Paul Holser

"Mike's ability and willingness to tackle any and all aspects of the system we built at Semantra, whether it be natural language processing and understanding, thorny integration issues with other systems, or componentization of the application, made him a valuable asset to our team. This was especially impressive given that he worked remotely yet was still productive and engaged in the team's activity. Mike's experience and insight into previous renditions of our product proved very valuable as well. He is articulate, diligent, and dedicated. You would do very well to have him on your project."”

Many other references available on request

Industries/Verticals

I have worked with hundreds of clients in many different business sectors, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, including:

• Financial Services (Banks, Hedge funds, Reinsurance, Investment management, many others)
• Hotel/Resort Management (throughout the U.S., Caribbean, Bahamas and Bermuda)
• Retail
• Manufacturing (ceramic tile)
• Natural-Language understanding and query
• Casinos
• Custom software Development for several vertical markets
• Government (state and federal)
• Video and Media Handling systems

These were not quick consulting jobs - many of these were multi-year projects, where I was the lead from inception to production delivery.

Chronology: Details of my experience to date, for the detail-oriented.

Technology: Details of technologies I've worked with. Languages, databases, operating systems, frameworks, and all that good stuff.

Presentations

Some of my favorite talks among the many I have given at conferences and meetups.