SourceForge.net serves 5 million downloads to 1.5M visitors daily, and I am the engineering lead responsible for the consumer facing areas of the site. The application is underpinned by Python, Pylons, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and memcached. I implement new features, fix bugs, engineer performance improvements, coordinate deployments, and conduct code reviews; I also act as liaison to product owners, prioritizing requests and planning sprints using Agile methodologies.
Since winding down Icavia in early 2012, I've kept busy consulting for some exciting startups and a few old friends.
I co-founded Icavia - a digital creative agency - by building upon the experience gained at iMart (below). At its height, Icavia employed ten very talented creative and technical individuals. Our portfolio is diverse, including custom branded websites, social media apps & campaigns, enterprise iOS applications, mobile POS systems, and multi-million dollar e-commerce websites. My main role was the direction of all technical aspects of the company, including systems design, architecture, development, deployment, & maintenance. I also shared the duties of HR, sales, proposals, process refinement, project management, and client retention.
Among our many clients were Amway, Steelcase, Zondervan, and Merrell (Wolverine World Wide).
iMart was an e-commerce boutique whose flagship product was an enterprise e-commerce platform (“iDA”) for large multi-channel e-retailers. I started as an intern, and eventually filled the role of Technical Director.
I directed and guided the architecture, feature enhancement, and product evolution of the iDA Platform using Microsoft technologies and patterns & practices for over 8 years, leveraging .NET, SQL Server, AJAX, XML/XSLT, SOAP, IOC/DI, and test-driven development. I also personally designed & developed many of its core, extensible components. The platform underpinned multi-channel e-commerce sites for companies like Vera Bradley, Amway, and 1800Pharmacy, reliably processing over 4,000 orders every day.
When I was in high school, my parents bought me an incredible gift - a TI-85. I taught myself BASIC, and shortly afterwards had written my first program - Blackjack. I had found my calling, and, nearly 20 years later, my love of programming has allowed me to build multi-million dollar e-commerce websites, create rich interactive apps for the iPad, and meet some amazing people.
I have a vast array of programming experience in multiple languages on multiple platforms. My strongest area of focus is in modern, scalable ASP.NET Web Applications. I am also particularly passionate about emerging technologies - most recently Node.js. I believe in writing clean, modular, reusable, and maintainable code. Don't code now what you can't debug later!
During my tenure as Technical Director at imart, I was responsible for many critical aspects of the business. I recruited, interviewed, hired, and managed a team of 15 developers of varying skillsets and levels. I was responsible for project management and task prioritization related to maintenance and enhancement of the imart iDA Platform - our proprietary enterprise e-commerce platform that companies like Amway, Vera Bradley and 1-800-Pharmacy relied upon. I lead requirements gathering & documentation efforts, assisted the sales team with client on-boarding and retention, and was generally responsible for all aspects of the technology side of the company.
This experience would prove invaluable when I founded Icavia in 2008. At Icavia, I've filled very similar roles, with the addition of participating in the sales process and the bevy of duties that come along with running a consulting firm.
I have a strong experience base in enterprise system architecture, stemming primarily from my role as technical lead for the imart iDA Platform, as well as work on Herroom.com; and of course I've had the good fortune to have worked with some extremely talented people who've taught me a lot.
I try to focus on balancing a blend of concerns, including:
- Performance - Maintainability - Extensibility - IOC/DI - Cross Cutting Concerns - Localization - Caching
The systems that I've helped architect have been capable of reliably & quickly serving complex, interactive, and nationally recognized web applications to over 90,000 unique daily visitors, and taking thousands of transactional orders daily.
