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Work Background
Wayside PublishingSoftware Architect - Research and Development
Jan. 2023 - Oct. 2024Freeport, Maine, United StatesFormed the Research and Development team focusing on AI and experimental features. Created proof of concept applications to demonstrate business value of new ideas: Created a Lesson Plan Generator using AI to generate full daily lesson plans for teachers that conform to ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) standards. Test and quiz creation tool allowing the user to create packages that are 1EdTech's Question & Test Interoperability (QTI)® compliant. Implemented a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) application to allow users to perform semantic searches of learning materials. Decreased page load time on our heaviest page from 15-20 seconds to below 2 seconds. Coached team members in common patterns and practices as well as advised on solution structure. Researched and provided technical questions and answers to multiple RFPs from customers.
MessageBirdEngineering Manager, Transmissions
Aug. 2022 - Jan. 2023Built proof of concepts for image stitching functionality to detect overlapping parts of images. Actively participated in code reviews and coached team members how to review beyond syntax. Participated in scaling exercises that allowed for sending several billion emails on our busiest days. Supervised and grew a team of Software Engineers (10 total) focused on email transmissions. Leading daily and weekly agile ceremonies operating under Kanban.
Sales BoomerangDirector of Product Engineering
Apr. 2021 - May. 2022Owings Mills, Maryland, United StatesOwned the Software Delivery process to provide value to our stakeholders from initial request to production delivery. Staffing and leading teams composed of both on-shore and off-shore Managers, Leads, Software Engineers, and Quality Engineers. Scheduled and participated in weekly 1-on-1 meetings with engineering Team Leads and peers across the Quality, Support, and Architecture disciplines. Leading daily standups, planning meetings, sprint reviews, and sprint retrospectives ceremonies. Actively participated in code reviews and used them as an opportunity to drive the team members to develop their skills. Deploying application code daily (or more often if needed) times a day. Reported project impediments, impacts, and remediation plans to the Executive Leadership team. Introduced bi-annual Hackathons and started a quarterly Lightning Talks discussion series. Introduced the teams to Unit Testing and Integration Testing, enabling the teams to start working towards an eventual 80% code coverage, with an initial milestone of 40% coverage. Taught Team Leads about common software design patterns (factory, singleton, command, etc.) and common high-level architectural patterns such as pub/sub, CQRS, and DDD. Built proof-of-concept applications to demonstrate the benefits of caching with Redis, create an integration testing environment, refactor all-in-one controllers to presentation, business, and data access layers, and generate deployment plans from Jira and Bitbucket. Rewrote branching, code review, and deployment processes, paving the way for multiple environments and continuous deployments.
Teaching Strategies, LLCManager of Software Engineering
Aug. 2019 - Mar. 2021Bethesda, MarylandLeading a team of developers through a cloud-native platform rewrite, which was released to production with no major issues. Mentoring junior and senior developers on the team about software development best practices and common development paradigms (SOLID, TDD). Microservice and client-side development using Go, React, and PostgreSQL. Monitored site reliability and logs using NewRelic and AWS CloudWatch, and working with the team to resolve any bugs found. Defined and prioritized technical debt in the rewritten platform. Made client, service, and database performance improvements, reducing page load time to below two seconds. In some cases, this was up to a 500% response time improvement. Trained employees and contractors on best practices for Git branching using GitFlow-derived branching practices. Validation and outlining solutions for upcoming sprint work. Onboarding new domestic and offshore developers joining the team. Assisting ScrumMaster (and occasionally leading) daily stand-ups, planning, and grooming. Reviewing resumes, phone screening, and interviewing potential employees and contractors.
The Canton GroupDirector Of Software Development
Mar. 2019 - Aug. 2019Baltimore, MarylandLed four teams composed of Software Developers and Quality Control Analysts. Transitioned the DevOps team from being an ad-hoc release team to creating build pipelines, cloud infrastructure automation using Ansible and CloudFormation, build automation using Azure DevOps Pipelines, and command line shell scripts. Architected scalable applications using AWS and Azure cloud services including serverless technology, messaging queues, notification services, SQL and NoSQL databases, virtual machines, secrets management, and more. Created automated CI/CD builds with Azure DevOps Pipelines. Transitioned teams into Azure DevOps for agile workflow management. Introduced the GitFlow branching strategy, and required pull requests for all code. Met with clients regularly to discuss project scopes, budgets, and to resolve issues. Managed client projects across the software development teams.
EZShieldSolutions Architect
Apr. 2018 - Feb. 2019Middle River, MarylandOverseeing all development of our enterprise iOS and Android mobile application using native
and cross-platform technologies. Architecting and developing mobile and web applications. Developing and enforcing coding standards for C# and JavaScript. Working with Marketing, Sales, and Product teams to prioritize upcoming projects. Creating and maintaining release projections for major projects. Conducting daily standups, project backlog item grooming sessions, and sprint retrospectives. Working with and mentoring offshore team members, and building positive working
relationships despite time zone differences. Key Accomplishments Introduced Redgate ANTS to the other Solution Architects, and helping to remove redundant
database queries that reduced customer dashboard load time by 80%. Coached the Quality Control Analysts in exploratory and negative testing. Transitioning native mobile applications to be cross-platform with React Native. Ran meetings to create high-level development standards with other Solution Architects. Helped the teams transition from Subversion to Git for source control.
Vision Technology Services, contracted to Baltimore County GovernmentSoftware Development Consultant
Nov. 2016 - Apr. 2018Towson, MarylandMentoring Junior and Senior Software Engineers in patterns, practices, and design for modern web applications. Developed a branching strategy for Baltimore County's software, and introduced the concept of branching in both Git and TFS source control systems to the Software Engineers. Conducting code reviews for Junior and Senior Software Engineers. Front-end and back-end development supporting Baltimore County’s diverse portfolio of websites, and focusing on features for BaltimoreCountyMD.gov. Building applications and components with React and AngularJS front-ends, supported with
ASP.NET Web API and Node.JS web services. Created web services for use with BaltimoreCountyMD.gov web features to integrate with third party services and to create data driven web components. Integrating third party services with ESRI ArcGIS APIs to create web features for BaltimoreCountyMD.gov Developing website features that are accessible and compliant with the WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standard. Consulted on website design and usability for site rebuilds.
Connections EducationAssistant Director of Software Engineering
Apr. 2015 - Nov. 2016Columbia, Maryland• Management of five software engineering teams developing features, internal support applications, and public-facing websites. • Mentorship and guidance of Engineering Leads (the individual teams’ managers), conducting annual reviews, monitoring SMART goals throughout the year, and guiding career growth. • Interviewing and hiring of Engineering Leads, Software Engineers, Automation Engineers, and Quality Control Analysts. • Training new Engineering Leads: helping them acclimate from being a peer to being a manager, learning how to work with different personalities, manage conflicts, delegate work, and become a leader. • Recommendations for promotions, and positive and negative salary adjustments. • Recommending and researching technical and leadership training opportunities for Engineering Leads and engineers. • Helping teams adapt and excel with Agile Software Development methodologies, specifically Scrum and Kanban. Working with business stakeholders to teach them how Agile benefits them. • Architecting solutions with the software engineering teams, and providing technical guidance to Engineering Leads, Software Engineers, and Automation Engineers. • Leading the quality effort through test planning, positive and negative test execution, edge case detection, and on the code side, unit testing and automation of acceptance criteria. • Writing n-tier well-documented code for scalable, maintainable web applications, web interfaces, RESTful APIs, and console applications consistent with best practices and using established design patterns in C# using ASP.NET Web Forms, MVC, and Web API. • Designing Microsoft SQL Server database schemas and indexing strategies, writing stored procedures, user defined functions, views, and triggers. Managing data access using either Entity Framework or ADO depending on the use case. • Creating web interfaces and single page applications using JavaScript frameworks and libraries including jQuery, jQuery-UI, and AngularJS.
Connections EducationSenior Manager of Software Engineering
Jul. 2013 - Apr. 2015Baltimore, Maryland AreaFull description listed under my position as an Assistant Director.
Connections EducationSenior Manager of Public Website Development
Jul. 2012 - Jun. 2013Baltimore, Maryland AreaFull description listed under my position as an Assistant Director.
Connections EducationManager of Public Website Development
Jul. 2010 - Jun. 2012Baltimore, Maryland AreaFull description listed under my position as an Assistant Director.
Connections EducationWeb Developer
Feb. 2007 - Jun. 2010Baltimore, Maryland AreaFull description listed under my position as an Assistant Director.
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