Founder & principal strategic engineering leader with expertise in APIs, architectural design, product development, software quality, and building and mentoring high-performing remote teams. Empathy and inclusivity are priorities to me, and I believe work environments should be an extension of our family. We should love where we grind and what we build. The ruby programming language is my paintbrush, and ruby on rails is my canvas.
Remote : Nevada & Colorado
2022 - Time.current
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Collaborated closely with the VP of Engineering to redefine our API framework, leading to the strategic overhaul and organization of our API architecture. We successfully launched Version 4 of our Ruby on Rails Backend API, which was built adhering to the latest OpenAPI specifications. This version incorporated up-to-date API conventions and embraced Semantic Versioning (Semver) to ensure backward compatibility and predictability in future updates. This foundational upgrade facilitated the seamless decoupling of our e-commerce frontend, transitioning to Next.js with TypeScript auto-generated API clients, enhancing our system's modularity and scalability.
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Co-led the pioneering design and development of a unique E-Gifting feature on the Goldbelly food e-commerce platform, utilizing a React frontend and Rails backend. This innovative service allows users to share personalized culinary experiences from renowned chefs and restaurants, with the convenience of pre-payment and recipient-controlled delivery details.
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Initiated and guided the integration of StackOverflow for Enterprises into our engineering and customer support frameworks, enhancing rapid collaboration and ensuring uniform solutions across the board. This strategic move has significantly improved our problem-solving capabilities and internal knowledge sharing.
Skills: Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) · Ruby on Rails · Microservices · Open API · REST APIs · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Pair Programming · Engineering Leadership · Product Innovation · Technical Architecture · Software Engineering · Business Process · Heroku · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · PostgreSQL · React.js · Next.js · TypeScript · Redis
Remote : Illinois, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada & New York
2016 - Time.current
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Arthur Maxwell: Transitioned an offline iPad-driven eLearning management and classroom application to web-based learning for global enterprise clients, utilizing Hotwire, Stimulus, Turbo, and Ruby on Rails libraries to enhance accessibility and functionality.
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SafeAccess: A talent pipeline was developed, culminating in the recruitment of a senior Ruby on Rails engineer to succeed the co-founder and senior technical architect, ensuring continuity in innovation and application development.
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Sidebench: Acted as Technical Architect for the Momints NFT Marketplace, leading the research and selection of scalable components, development of the MVP, and production of marketing materials. High-level documentation was provided, outlining system architecture diagrams, server infrastructure, tech stack, third-party dependencies, data models, database schemas, and API specifications to streamline development processes.
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Advanced Building Technology: Led the rearchitecture of a website to a mobile-first responsive design using Ruby, significantly reducing hosting costs, enabling precise traffic measurement and monitoring, and optimizing user experience across mobile and tablet platforms.
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Eggplant: Enhanced the authorization capabilities of a testing manager application to integrate Microsoft Active Directory (LDAP). Coordinated daily pair programming sessions that fostered junior engineer mentoring, enhanced team collaboration, and boosted overall performance. Rspec was integrated to ensure comprehensive testing coverage within the Digital Automation Intelligence platform.
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Crowd OX: Oversaw the expansion of platform features across three Ruby on Rails engines and transitioned the Partner application testing suite from Minitest to the latest RSpec version, achieving over 60% testing coverage in a legacy code base and ensuring 100% model testing coverage.
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USA Today: Engineered a backend CMS with advanced frontend content creation interfaces, enhancing user flows and customer experience through an innovative responsive design.
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W. W. Norton: Orchestrated the design and implementation of an interactive delivery platform to serve over 300 interactives globally, establishing GitFlow processes, code reviews, quality guidelines, and workflow management. Mentoring initiatives were also spearheaded to elevate junior engineers' productivity and contributions.
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Gathrly: In partnership with the company founders, a strategic technical product roadmap was established, alongside the adoption of agile methodologies. Leadership was provided in the design, engineering, and ongoing enhancement of a lead management system that caters to elite brewers. Additionally, efforts were focused on developing a high-performance environment, mentoring junior engineers to elevate their skills and drive productivity.
Skills: Ruby on Rails · Mentoring · Pair Programming · Engineering Leadership · Legacy Modernization · Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Product Strategy · Community Development · Product Innovation · Microservices · Technical Architecture · Software Engineering · Strategic Leadership · Entrepreneurship · Product Development · Early-stage Startups · Business Process · Heroku · Redis · PostgreSQL · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Hotwire · Turbolinks · Bootstrap (Framework) · SASS
Remote : Colorado & Nevada
2020 - 2022
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Spearheaded the launch of the Chain Billing Project, overseeing the architecture and implementation of the backend API while modernizing legacy code and APIs to integrate with a new data model.
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Cultivated a dynamic development environment by leading initiatives such as the formation of an industry panel, the 155-member Ruby Guild, and a Rubyist Book Club, which focuses on advancing testing techniques in Rspec.
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Promoted a collaborative and effective coding culture by reviewing PRs, facilitating pair programming to tackle blockers, supporting during outages, and pioneering new coding patterns.
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Enhanced a remote work culture grounded in inclusivity, diversity, empathy, and empowerment, ensuring consistent engagement through 1-on-1 chats with engineers during periods of rapid organizational growth.
Skills: Ruby on Rails · Mentoring · Pair Programming · Engineering Leadership · Legacy Modernization · Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Microservices · Technical Architecture · Software Engineering · Business Process · Technical Project Leadership · Redis · PostgreSQL · MongoDB · Bootstrap (Framework) · Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Remote : Colorado
2019 - 2020
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Oversaw the design and development of key features to enhance the functionality of an enterprise lending platform, which processes over $110 million in financial assets annually.
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Recruited, trained, and mentored a remote team of four software engineers, elevating productivity and enhancing code quality through rigorous code reviews, implementation of Rspec automated testing best practices, and adherence to Sandy Metz’s coding principles in Ruby.
Skills: Ruby on Rails · Pair Programming · Engineering Leadership · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Microservices · Technical Architecture · Software Engineering · Business Process · PostgreSQL
Remote : Oregon
2019
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Led the development of an on-demand staffing platform for dental professionals, enhancing service availability and patient experience by optimizing flexible work opportunities and office staffing solutions. Collaborated closely with the founding team, head of product, and creative director to design and implement a product roadmap focused on feature development for monetization and user feedback, incorporating SCRUM methodologies to boost team productivity.
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Engineered critical platform integrations and automation enhancements to simplify operations and enhance performance for both external customers and the internal support team. Spearheaded the migration of the codebase from Bitbucket to GitHub, introducing advanced tooling, continuous integration, security scans, and style guide compliance to streamline processes and bolster security.
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Established a comprehensive documentation system for platform architecture and security protocols to ensure robust knowledge sharing and reduce onboarding time for new engineers.
Skills: Mentoring · Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Product Strategy · Technical Architecture · Product Development · Business Process · Engineering Leadership · Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) · Ruby · Product Innovation · Microservices · Software Engineering · Strategic Leadership · Heroku · PostgreSQL · Redis · Bootstrap (Framework)
Remote : Oregon
2018 - 2019
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Spearheaded the launch of LearningLAB, a platform designed to strengthen enterprise workforce defenses against cyber threats and privacy breaches, overseeing backend testing and establishing best practices to enhance software quality.
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Developed a comprehensive full-stack dependency management process tailored for two monolithic Ruby on Rails applications, significantly enhancing system integrity and operational efficiency.
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Elevated code quality and team productivity by introducing and implementing linting practices across the engineering team, improving code cleanliness and readability.
Skills: Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Technical Architecture · Business Process · Engineering Leadership · Legacy Modernization · Microservices · Software Engineering · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · PostgreSQL · Redis · Heroku · Ruby on Rails
Remote : Oregon
2017 - 2018
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Directed the recruitment, onboarding, and training of new engineering talent, including the integration of the first SCRUM project manager, to strengthen backend team capabilities. Led the complex, multi-stage architecture and rollout of Licensing 2.0, enhancing every aspect of design content within the backend API through comprehensive updates across hundreds of files.
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Achieved a significant reduction in test processing times by transitioning from legacy Minitest specs to RSpec and integrating parallel test execution on continuous integration platforms, cutting down durations from 25 minutes to just 8 minutes.
Skills: Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Technical Architecture · Business Process · Microservices · Software Engineering · Ruby on Rails · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · PostgreSQL · Redis
Remote : Oregon
2016 - 2017
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Developed a complex patient logic report using recursion for enhanced metric analysis and interpretation within the medical industry, facilitating better data-driven decisions.
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Engineered a strategic migration from MongoDB to more cost-effective and efficient database solutions, optimizing performance and reducing operational costs for a client.
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Led a comprehensive refactor of Coding Zeal’s referral program website, enhancing UI/UX to boost customer satisfaction and improve lead conversion rates.
Skills: Mentoring · Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Technical Architecture · Business Process · Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) · Microservices · Software Engineering · Ruby on Rails · Redis · PostgreSQL
Remote : Oregon
2016
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Developed an Inbound and Outbound ETL Microservice with an integrated API to facilitate real-time communications between third-party providers and our monorail system, enhancing operational flexibility to accommodate diverse provider complexities.
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Implemented Slack and GitFlow to elevate code quality and test coverage while fostering cross-collaborative environments between on-site and remote engineering, sales, and customer service teams through strategic room configurations.
Skills: Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Technical Architecture · Business Process · Microservices · Software Engineering · Ruby on Rails · PostgreSQL · Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) · Web Services API
Remote : Oregon
2016
- Re-engineered an MVP to streamline the placement of bilingual candidates in jobs across the U.S., enhancing the user sign-up workflow by simplifying content creation from launch to sale, overhauling user interfaces, and expanding the data model to support multiple new languages.
Skills: Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Technical Architecture · Business Process · Product Innovation · Software Engineering · Ruby on Rails · Bootstrap (Framework) · PostgreSQL · Heroku
Remote : Oregon & New York
2014 - 2015
- Spearheaded the development of a Ruby on Rails-based Service Oriented Architecture that powers content delivery across over 600 statically generated websites, enhancing Black Friday traffic management, content updates, and reducing DevOps costs.
Skills: Mentoring · Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Product Strategy · Technical Architecture · Product Development · Business Process · Engineering Leadership · Legacy Modernization · Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) · Ruby · Product Innovation · Software Engineering · Strategic Leadership · Ruby on Rails · Technical Project Leadership · Adobe ColdFusion
Remote : Oregon & New York
2009 - 2014
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Championed a culture of continuous learning within the team by launching online courses, promoting real-time pairing, and providing career mentoring, which significantly reduced knowledge silos, accelerated junior developer growth, and decreased project timelines.
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Overhauled the code deployment process by transitioning from SVN to GitFlow via GitHub, improving the stability of the continuous integration environment and expediting deployment speeds.
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Revitalized the RetailHub Enterprise Content Management Software by replacing a decade of legacy code and consolidating customer tools into a unified workspace, boosting application performance and client satisfaction. Enhanced team communication and operational efficiency by integrating Slack enterprise-wide.
Skills: Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Business Process · Product Innovation · Software Engineering · Ruby on Rails · Adobe ColdFusion · Microsoft SQL Server · PostgreSQL
On-site : Illinois
2008 - 2009
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Enhanced internal project management software by refactoring it to support international languages and character sets, fostering global usability and communication.
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Developed a comprehensive project and task tracker for the Burj Khalifa construction project, increasing management collaboration and reducing task duplication, which streamlined project operations and enhanced team efficiency.
Skills: Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Business Process · Software Engineering · Microsoft SQL Server · Adobe ColdFusion · Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
On-site : Illinois
2001 - 2007
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Led a regional team of five engineers, standardizing development practices across the Midwest by introducing comprehensive software style guidelines, scalability standards, and pair programming sessions to enhance consistency and team performance.
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Engineered a multi-tiered, metrics-driven dashboard application that significantly reduced expenses, increased productivity, and prevented fraud by providing actionable data enterprise-wide.
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Boosted customer satisfaction and minimized outages by standardizing online process delivery and developing mission-critical applications with 24/7 uptime and real-time administrative updates.
Skills: Mentoring · Pair Programming · Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) · Product Development · Business Process · Engineering Leadership · Legacy Modernization · Product Innovation · Software Engineering · Strategic Leadership · Adobe ColdFusion · Microsoft SQL Server · Oracle Database
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Rails World Conference
2024 -
Rock Mountain Ruby Conference
2024 -
Ruby Conference
2018, 2019 -
Rails Conference
2013, 2014, 2017, 2019 -
Ruby on Ales
2014, 2015 -
Cascadia Ruby
2013
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Boulder Ruby Meetup Group
2019 - Present -
Turing School of Software & Design, Mentor & Volunteer Teacher
2020 - 2022 -
Boulder Open Coffee Club Meetup Group
2019 - 2022 -
Full Stack PDX Meetup Group, Founder
2017 - 2019 -
Mentorship Saturdays PDX Meetup Group, Mentor
2016 - 2019
- Master of Business Administration, Keller Graduate School of Management
- Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems, Illinois College