Summary
Results-driven and product-focused software engineering leader and architect with over a decade of experience in team management and software architecture.
Current Role
Director of Engineering at Acclinate | Birmingham, AL | Jan 2023 – Present
Previous Professional Experience
- Engineering Lead
- Landing | Birmingham, AL | Jun 2021 – Dec 2022
- Built a Ruby on Rails application to automate the triage of emails between properties, Landing, and its members, reducing the mail review burden from 5,000 emails daily to under 400.
- Led a successful 6 month integration project connecting a Rails application to NetSuite that increased the capabilities, visibility, and traceability of assets for the furniture operation teams.
- Worked directly with the COO to identify bottlenecks within 12 operational teams, discovering $3.5M of opportunity with 6 months of engineering effort needed to reduce labor through automation.
- Managed multiple teams with 10+ engineers covering 3 different business domains; Developed to 2 engineers for promotions.
- Led the engineering team’s architecture committee, which worked to identify and address technical debt, set architectural standards, and propose new architectural solutions for upcoming features.
- Led the engineering team’s book club, which helped foster growth and development for the employees.
- Senior Engineer, Backend
- Landing | Birmingham, AL | Feb 2021 – Jun 2021
- Built a Sinatra application to more effectively and efficiently update pricing and availability for apartment units listed on Landing’s website, reducing manual labor by 200% and increasing the frequency of updates by 4x.
- Designed and built a webhook system for the core Ruby on Rails monolith to message other services upon defined event triggers being executed.
- Built a feature to group price homes based on the property’s floorplan, increasing the margin on apartments rented within Landing’s core Rails application.
- Built a days-to-ready calculation algorithm configurable by market to reduce the earliest available date available to move in by an average of 5 days within Landing’s core Rails application.
- Product Solutions Architect
- ProctorU | Birmingham, AL | Nov 2018 – Jan 2021
- Was the technical lead on the Google GSuite Certification partnership, traveling and working directly with the Google Cloud team to design their proctoring solution for adults and K12.
- Presented and represented the technology leadership of ProctorU at multiple client pitches and meetings (McGraw Hill, Pearson VUE, WGU, UNC)
- Worked with product management and development at ProctorU and Pearson VUE to build the first fully integrated automated proctoring solution within a test delivery system.
- Worked with product managers and business stakeholders to identify root problems and pragmatic solutions that balanced impact and effort.
- Video Processing and Machine Learning Team Lead
- ProctorU | Birmingham, AL | Oct 2019 – Sep 2020
- Redesigned the ML pipeline, leading to a more robust, scalable solution using Rails, Kurento Media Server, GStreamer, AWS Kinesis Video Streams, and RabbitMQ.
- Built a system to reduce the processing of pre recorded proctored videos from 2 hours to under 5 minutes utilizing Ruby, Sidekiq, and FFMPEG.
- Partnered with the head of DevOps to rearchitect the WebRTC solution for proctoring test takers, saving the company over a million dollars a year.
- Helped transition the WebRTC and machine learning IP from an offshore consultancy to an in- house team of two senior engineers and a ML engineer.
- Senior Software Engineer
- ProctorU | Birmingham, AL | Aug 2017 – Feb 2018
- Created a new product offering for verifying user identity through keystroke biometrics and public record challenge questions using Ruby on Rails.
- Designed a robust API for handling the consumption of multiple verification providers, normalizing the responses for a clean interface using Ruby/Rails.
- Peer-reviewed features, bugs, and technical debt from other engineers.
- Software Engineer
- ProctorU | Birmingham, AL | Nov 2014 – Aug 2017
- Built new features to support the proctoring organization utilizing Ruby, Rails, and React.
- Identified and fixed bugs and assisted in maintaining the application during peak operating times.
- Worked with stakeholders to identify root problems and create plans to solve them.
Technologies
- Skills
- Leadership, management, software architecture, software development, product management
- Languages
- Ruby, Python, Javascript
- Frameworks
- Ruby on Rails, Sinatra, React
- Databases / Stores
- PostgreSQL, Redis
- Tools
- Sidekiq, RabbitMQ, OpenVidu, FFMPEG, Git
- Cloud
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Productivity Tools
- Zed, Figma, Obsidian, Drafts
Certifications
- PMC Level VI - See Credential
- Pragmatic Institute
Education
- Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Finance)
- Auburn University | Auburn, AL | Aug 2010 - Aug 2014
Volunteer Experience
- Founder / Organizer
- Birmingham on Rails Conference | Birmingham, AL | Jul 2019 - Jan 2020
- Co-Organizer
- BASE | Birmingham, AL | Jul 2017 - Jan 2020
- Volunteer / Teacher
- Microsoft TEALS | Birmingham, AL | Aug 2016 - Jul 2019