Copyright 2008
Experience
2015 - Current | Full-Stack Engineer // DevOps Engineer // Platform Developer | McGraw-Hill Education (connected.mcgraw-hill.com), Columbus, OH
Serve on a special task force working closely with upper management and all levels of engineering for the world’s largest k-12 digital education ecosystem project
- Monitor and advise on Production and lower environment issues including infrastructure, provisioning, configuration, upgrades, automation, design, and code revision.
- Respond to and analyze alerts from hundreds of nodes in 5 environments supporting development, quality assurance, user acceptance testing, performance testing, and production
- Track, review, prioritize, resolve, and report on issues detected in all environments
- Triage, research, and resolve incoming issues reported by business groups or client services
- Provide application support by interfacing with DevOps and Architecture teams and owning/tracking/remediating issues to conclusion
- Implement and tune monitoring and alerting systems including SumoLogic, New Relic, and PagerDuty
- Script and maintain custom monitoring, reporting, and alerting solutions using: BASH, Python, Ruby, Perl, and Groovy
- Develop proof of concept testing of technologies: Docker, AWS, Couchbase, Redis, OS upgrades, Scripting changes, and Java configuration changes
- Advise and collaborate on revision of build automation processes using Github, Jenkins, Maven, Artifactory, Tomcat, and custom scripting.
- Push changes up through the lower environments into production
- Assist upper management in reporting to the business stakeholders on technical issues; ensuring accuracy of communication
- Perform DevOps and SysAdmin work as needed.
2012 - 2015 | Full-Stack Engineer // DevOps Engineer // Sales Engineer // UI/UX Designer // Reseller Support Manager | Divinsa LLC (dba WholesaleBackup.com), Seattle, WA
Worked closely with partners of an online backup software company specializing in white-label software for resale to plan and implement business growth strategy, product development initiatives, web presence, development, and deployment, and customer support operations and infrastructure
- Engineered full-stack web applications utilizing Django Python, Twitter Bootstrap 3, PHP, Javascript, and MySQL on Apache2 with mod_wsgi running under Ubuntu 12.04 or 14.04 Linux in Amazon AWS
- Built and maintained a scalable customer-facing Django web application in Amazon Elastic Beanstalk
- Monitored, Maintained, and Configured all AWS assets including: EC2 instances, EBS volumes and snapshots, S3 buckets, RDS instances, ElastiCache instances, CloudWatch alarms, Elastic Beanstalk applications, and IAM user access.
- Integrated software solutions with web applications and software build systems
- Extended APIs to facilitate new features and maintain backwards compatibility
- Administered Ubuntu Linux Systems on Amazon EC2 cloud and customer hardware
- Planned infrastructure and analyze functionality feedback
- Monitored and redirected SEO efforts to push organic and paid search conversions
- Drove conversion of trial installations into paid subscriptions
- Met or exceeded all sales quotas and maintained steady growth of our customer base and gross profit while reducing infrastructure costs and minimizing risk
- Advised Pre-Sales customers on Technical concepts and issues
- Defined customer expectations through thorough analysis of customer needs
- Explained how our technology can meet customer needs
- Established and maintained customer relationships from trial to post-sales via phone, email, and remote desktop communication sessions
- Communicated customer feedback and needs to the business and development teams
- Guided development cycles via regular discussions with customers and sales, support, and development teams
- Analyzed, advised, and created UI/UX elements and strategies
- Performed Quality Assurance tasks and new bug triage
- Formulated and tested disaster recovery plans including backups and system redundancy
- Managed Tier 1 and Tier 2 Support: Defined SOP and MOP, assisted with escalated issues, assigned issues for resolution
2005 - 2012 | Technical Services Manager | AdHost Internet (currently Tierpoint Seattle), Seattle, WA
Managed the technical support center of a multi-million dollar web hosting and colocation company, supervising 7+ technical support analysts on over 5000 national and international accounts
- Served on team responsible for enterprise project deployments addressing: Redundancy, Availability, Disaster Resiliency, Security, PCI Compliance, and Risk Assessment
- Defined, implemented, enforced, and revised Policy and Procedures in cooperation with the Chief Technical Officer especially in regard to streamlining efficiency of the Operations Team
- Managed and advised Disaster Recovery implementation for the company and clients including backup/restore to/from tape, hard disc, and offsite cloud-based resources
- Conducted yearly SAS 70 Type 2 audit and guided staff in enforcement of data security policies
- Facilitated the development of several internal software tools including: Call Tracking System, Asset Inventory and Invoicing Tool, and Package Tracking System
- Helped define user centered interfaces for new support tools
- Monitored ticketing queue and resolution times to ensure SLAs were met or exceeded
- Developed metrics: Mean Time To Resolution, Mean Steps To Resolution, and Confusion Index
- Hired and trained new technical support staff
- Participated with vendor in beta testing, QA, and bug reporting of new online backup software
- Windows server administration: Windows Server 2003, 2008, and 2008 R2
- Linux server administration: CentOS/Redhat, FreeBSD, and Debian
- Coordinated with the sales and billing departments to facilitate customer activations and de-activations
- Provided Sales Engineering to establish customer expectations and delivery baselines
2009 - 2011 | Artist Assistant | Hugo Solis, Seattle, WA
Assisted internationally exhibited artist, Solis, in the production and installation of his PhD thesis work
- Designed and machined custom parts using Autodesk Inventor and RhinoCAM and a 2.5-axis CNC Mill
- Used Eagle and LPKF ProtoMat H100 circuit board milling machine to create custom circuit boards
- Built custom wiring and sensor assemblies
- Assisted with electronic and mechanical fabrication, assembly, and design in lab and on location
- Modified shipping container to accommodate 80+ solenoid actuators
- General carpentry and deconstruction of several pianos
Education
2009 | Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Art and Experimental Media | The University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Focused in Emergent Systems, Mechatronics (robotics/engineering/programming), Video, Ambisonic Audio composition, Machine Learning, and UI/UX Design
- Used Rapid Prototyping techniques to meet very strict and short project deadlines utilizing Robotics, A.I. Systems, Network Traffic Sniffing, Data Mining and Analysis, Laser Transmission of Data, etc..
- Proficient in the use of Final Cut Pro and After Effects for editing, compositing, and post-production
- Proficient in Adobe Creative Suite for design, compositing, scripting, interface/interaction design, and photo/video manipulation
- Studied user interface and user interaction design concepts, problems, and standards
- Experienced with advanced scripting techniques for manipulation of individual video frames
- Special training in media management and media formatting for streaming online production
- Studied musical performance, recording, synthesis, and production
- Advanced training in ambisonics, psychoacoustics, and DSP programming
- Used MAX/MSP/JITTER, SuperCollider, Arduino, Python, and Java programming for creation of audio, video, and mechatronic projects.
- Trained in ARC, MIG, and TIG welding
Exhibitions and Performances
2009Enlighten Encourage Empower, curated by Alex Ohge, OHGE Ltd, Seattle, WA
2008 DXArts BFA Exhibition, The Lawrimore Project, Seattle, WA
2007Wizard Fingers Plays Nice with Zeus’ Beard , Chapel in The Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, WA
Selected Works
2013Surfer, play synthesizer and sampler, Columbus, OH
http://surfer.bandcamp.com/
2009 I Have 3 Pairs of Pants with My Brother I Share
8’ x 17’x 6’ Installation, 4 channel audio, 3 channel video, reconstructed camper van interior
2008 Cleaning Out The Dead
22’ x 15’x 11’ Installation, 5 channel audio, custom fluorescent lighting, reel-to-reel tape machine
Thunderheist – Jerk It
Custom electronics for music video
The Sleeper a film by Matthew Salton
Performed role of main character
2007 Wizard Fingers Plays Nice with Zeus’ Beard
Custom robotic drums and bells, custom A.I. training software for control of robotics, 3 dancers
Space Colony One
Series of videos eliciting viewer made content and hair samples made for mtvU
2006 Autoch
Narrative video made for mtvU. Acted as antagonist, co-writer, co-producer and art director; wrote custom video processing software, built custom camera rigs, and managed media
2005The Rogue Party, played bass and composed backing tracks and score for robotic drummer, Seattle, WA
2002Dub Noir, played bass, and baritone guitars, Columbus, OH
2001Kiss Kiss, played guitars, bass, and composed backing tracks, Columbus, OH
1999novac, played guitars and synthesizers, Columbus, OH
1997Foxfire, played guitars, drums, and singing, Columbus, OH
Awards, Grants, and Distinctions
2006mtvU Digital Incubator Grant (for Autoch and Space Colony One), mtvU, Viacom International Inc.
1996Best in Show, Amateur Division, Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition, Columbus, OH
Honorable Mention, Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition, Columbus, OH
1995Gold Key Award, The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Columbus, OH
Selected Bibliography
2009Regina Hackett, “The Immense Void and High Aspirations of American culture,” 7/16/2009, artsjournal.com, Seattle, WA
2008Jen Graves, “Questions and Answers,” 7/1/2008, slog.thestranger.com, Seattle, WA