With a rich journey spanning over two decades in the tech world, I've honed my skills in designing, developing, and testing top-notch software solutions. I've worked with a wide variety of languages like Rust, Typescript, Java, Python, and more, making me a versatile player in the field of software development. I'm also skilled with SQL, DevOps, and HTML/CSS. Most of my experience has been back-end focused, but I have also done front end work as well, with good knowledge of HTML, CSS, and various Javascript ui toolkits.
I've successfully steered teams towards achieving their best, guiding and mentoring along the way. My approach has always been centered around delivering solutions that are not just effective, but also add real value to the business.
Now, I'm on the lookout for a new adventure as a Staff, Tech Lead, or Principal Software Developer. I'm all about contributing to innovative projects, driving success, and delivering value in the tech landscape.
Not everything fits on the one-page resumes that are popular these days. So this page is intended to give you a broader overview of my work experience and knowledge. I've pulled some pertinent examples from some of the positions I've held over the past 20 years.
You can see my current resume by clicking on the link in the header of this website.
I was brought on to help with testing rocket engines (🔥🚀) at Blue Origins.
Mostly I'm working with software that is involved in capturing engine telemetry and validating their operation. So far I've fixed threading issues, improving program stability and performance, and extending documentation and unit/system tests.
I'm also involved in provisioning the tester system which will interface with the ECU ( engine control unit ) and put it through its paces during testing.
I was hired to design and implement the core public-facing REST API services. . The MVP was developed within a tight two-month go-live deadline to support our new UI. This entailed crafting approximately 7000 lines of robust Rust code, which operated without any crashes in production.
As Phylum scaled up, I led a team of four engineers focusing on expanding the API service features. My responsibilities spanned across scheduling, planning, design, and mentoring. I coordinated the development of the GitHub application between various groups while also fulfilling my own development duties.
I also worked on UI, CLI and infrastructure projects as well, wearing many hats as needed.
Additionally, I acted as mentor to some of the developers with less Rust experience, enhancing our collective expertise in this cutting-edge technology. I also researched, curated, and recommended Rust crates to the wider company to fulfill business needs.
At Optimum Energy, as a Senior Software Developer, I developed a near real-time calculation engine using Postgres/JSONB and NodeJS. This led to a significant 80% cost reduction compared to our legacy Java system. A variety of factors entered into the choice of rolling our own system. Most were centered cost, support, development, or licensing related. Given our needs was mostly centered around reporting, 'small' data volumes, the need for custom complex formulae/rollups, and 'soft' realtime ( ~ 1 hour ) data access, it was decided an in house effort was the best idea. The final system worked quite well, fulfilling OE's business needs and goals while saving money.
I was instrumental in refining OE's continuous integration processes, enhancing developer productivity and easing integration with third-party Java based IoT hardware and software platforms (building automation systems). I managed to take a system that required integration engineers to test and build code on their desktops, and integrated into a Jenkins based CI pipeline. This reduced inconsistencies in builds and deployment.
I led the adoption of Google Cloud which streamlined developer operations and yielded substantial savings in both time and resources relative to AWS.
I was involved in evaluation and selection of various VPN technologies to ensure protection of customer networks while allowing interfacing with our centralized data processing and reporting systems. The selected technology provided drastic ( 85% ) reduction in configuration, deployment, and administration time. It also allowed us to grant ( with customer approvals ) limited, scoped, third party access to systems for the purposes of integration testing due to its powerful security segmentation features.
My tenure as a Senior Software Developer involved leading a team of three talented junior developers. My focus was on mentoring, providing technical guidance, and overseeing project planning and design.
As a tech lead, I managed the development of our primary application suite which consisted of android tablet and PC applications. I also developed additional tools to optimize workflows across the company which included integrating RFID and bardcode readers into specialized applications. All of these factors played a role in heavily automating the asset inventory process and reducing the time needed by 75%.
I was the principal designer of the ideas behind the US8719066 patent, which details a novel approach for managing complex data structures across various industries.
Additionally, I devised an innovative graph-based solution on top of traditional RDBMS systems (SQLite, PostgreSQL) to streamline the handling of unstructured customer data, significantly reducing inventory processing times.
I personally re-implemented the existing customer contact email system. I made it a breeze to maintain, configure, and extend. At one point I added a critical new feature in less than a day, as the code was now well factored. The actual implementation time was two hours, the rest of the day consumed by build, testing, and deployment.
I wrote a custom Java Swing application that reduced the time needed to clean and prepare assets for production from days to minutes. What had been a manual operation requiring skilled knowledge of the internals of the asset pipeline and developer input could now be done by the product designers.
I worked hand-in-hand with customer support to sort out issues with corrupted orders and projects, digging into the system bugs causing these hiccups and squashing them. I had a direct hand in fixing several long term issues, reducing printing defect related returns by 90%.
During the busy holiday season, I took on mentoring the interns and had them help with using the cleanup tool I designed to prepare new holiday related products for the website under very tight deadlines.
One of my proudest achievements was writing the Metadata Migration Service for the AOL Pictures migration to Photoworks.com. This project was a huge success, boasting nearly six nines reliability. We transferred over ten million database rows worth of information in just the first week, with less than two dozen accounts needing manual intervention.
I helped develop and maintain a suite of Java/C/C++ programs used to integrate real hardware with simulated elements in support of a DoD defense contract bid.
I also dived into integrating low-level embedded systems with Java, using everything from direct serial communications to ethernet and raw Java socket programming. This was crucial in ensuring seamless integration with DoD simulation software and robust performance.
On the user interface side, I created both Swing and J2EE interfaces for various parts of the simulation framework which simplified management of the system components during live exercises of real and simulated hardware.
The code I wrote played a direct part in several real world exercises where simulated and real hardware interacted to simulate a much larger system. Physical assets in the real world responded to simulated inputs and vice-versa.
As a Software Developer at Water Gremlin, I embarked on a mission to enhance operational efficiency through technology.
I designed and coded a machine health and production metrics system from the ground up. I selected the hardware, provisioned the software, and wrote a web-based reporting system using a mix of HTML, PHP, Oracle, and PL/SQL. This system became a vital tool for engineers and managers to reduce machine downtime and reach production goals.
I used statistical principles in graphs to highlight trends and potential issues. This not only provided valuable insights but also helped with proactive problem solving.
I also performed primary cause analysis on the failure of a multi million TCE scrubber. I compiled a report of my results which was presented to the COO at the time. This confirmed the nature and cause of the failure, but sadly the manufacturer of the unit had gone bankrupt, and so Water Gremlin had to write off the entire loss.
US8719066 (uncredited primary contributor):Systems and methods for capturing, managing, sharing, and visualising asset information of an organization
I was the primary contributor on US8719066. I worked with business development at Vizualiiz on the terms and content of this patent. I was also the person interviewed by the patent lawyers during the review and submission stage.
US9824327B2: Systems and methods for capturing and managing information pertaining to asset spares inventories
Slowly learning Japanese
Japanese cooking, mostly everything not sushi-related.
Tea culture and styles
Drawing / sculpture ( poorly )
Woodworking
Volunteering at the Nishiyama Japanese Garden in Everett, WA