Employment

Staff+ Engineer, Digital Services Expert, US Digital Service

@ Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of the CTO

Provide engineering leadership for the VA to modernized healthcare access for Veterans

7/19/2022 - present

Remote

project
MHV on va.gov - Untethered Patient Portal
technologies used
- JavaScript (React)
- Typescript (React Native)
- Ruby
- AWS
- Java
- FHIR
- Docker
- Kubernetes
what i did
- Technical Leadership for a dozen teams (~30 engineers) by creating alignment across teams and other stakeholders on prioritizing modern best practices including maintaining coding quality, managing technical debt, and creating efficient systems
- Acted as an advocate and aligned across teams and departments to use AI tools, modern development practices and industry standards
- Championed a delivery-as-a-strategy culture and led development of scalable healthcare tools used by millions of Veterans to manage appointments, medical records, secure messaging, and travel claims
- Developed UIs for Veterans to timely and easily view their health record data, such as vaccinations, allergies, and labs results
- Provided Architecture and technical direction for the platform migration
- Acted as surge support by removing roadblocks, doing tip of spear feature building and providing an extra engineering resource to meet deadlines
- Implemented metrics around usage, performance and latency to help drive product decisions
- Developed and iterated on shared platform tools to enhance user experience and reduce development time for other teams
- Worked with SMEs and end users to validate assumptions and test systems before doing a phased rollout
project
Travel Pay to va.gov migration
technologies used
- JavaScript (React)
- Typescript (React Native)
- Ruby
- AWS
- Azure
- C#
- Docker
- Kubernetes
what i did
- Technical Leadership for 3 teams (~12 engineers) by creating alignment across teams and other stakeholders on prioritizing modern best practices including maintaining coding quality, managing technical debt, and creating efficient systems
- Designed system of API first components to allow for easy integrations with other systems, including kiosks, websites and mobile apps
- Coordinated and captured requirements from stakeholder across multiple different offices into design documents and tickets for development teams
- Developed performant, user friendly, fault tolerant system that built to handle processing of thousands of claims per day
- Worked with front line staff to roll out a pilot program before a full scale roll out
- Developed monitoring tools for analytics to help inform product decisions

Senior Front End Engineer

@ GovCIO

Gov't contracting focusing on the VA

5/27/2020 - 7/19/2022

Remote

project
Healthcare Experience Team, Modernizing Check-In on VA.gov
technologies used
- Web Development
- Architecture Design
- System Design
- React
- Communication
- Leadership
- User Experience
- Remote working
- Problem Solving
- Redux
- Javascript
- HTML & Accessibility
- SASS
- Ruby on Rails
- Docker
- Cypress
- GitHub Actions
what i did
- Technical lead and architect for 13 teams consisting of approx 25 engineers
- Architected and built a new appointment check-in experience for VA.gov
- Developed solution to scale to over 9 millions active users
- Created well-crafted code with both unit and e2e tests
- Aided in all parts of the agile lifecycle including: requirement gathering, UI/UX, project management, prototyping, development, testing, delivery, and support
- Front End discipline leader for the Modernizing Check-In team
- Provided improvements to the developer experience to increase productivity and reduce duplication of effort
- Ensure website was accessible to all users, following 508 and Lighthouse standards, reducing validations to near 0
- Mentored other engineers on the va.gov team to improve overall team productivity
- Reviewed team's code and provided meaningful actionable feedback to reduce time spent on bugs and technical debt
- Refined on the developer experience of interviewing to reduce cost of hiring and training and decrease hiring time
- Refined the developer on-boarding experience to reduce 'time till productive' metric by 50%
project
ITD, Contract Re-compete team
technologies used
- Web Development
- Architecture Design
- System Design
- React
- Communication
- Leadership
- Agile Methodology
- MVP Design
- User Experience
- Remote working
- Problem Solving
- Redux
- Javascript
- HTML & Accessibility
- SASS
- Ruby on Rails
- Docker
- Cypress
- GitHub Actions
what i did
- Selected to be the only Full Stack developer on the team, working as a lead developer.
- Aided in development of template system for contract competition reducing time spent on boilerplate code
- Created a CI/CD pipeline for a Ruby on Rails API with React application that deploys to AWS
- Participated in dry-runs to help train other team on the process to improve productivity based on metrics and milestones

Core Instructor

@ Suncoast Developers Guild

A community-driven, not-for-profit, in person code school.

10/13/2017 - 5/4/2020

St. Petersburg, FL

project
Full Stack Web Developer Curriculum Developer and Instructor
technologies used
- Web Development
- Problem Solving
- Public Speaking
- Course Design
- User Experience
- .NET Core
- Remote working
- React
- Typescript
- Javascript
- HTML & CSS
- SQL - Postgres
- Object Oriented Programming
- ORMS (EF CORE)
- Documentation
what i did
- Developed 12-week Full Stack curriculum, focusing on modern best practices, and technology
- Taught Full Stack engineering course using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ruby, React, .NET and SQL to hundreds of students
- Achieved a hiring rate of 85%+ of actively looking graduates
- Developed and Created dozens of meet up talks for community outreach; Topics include but are not limited to Typescript, React, Blazor, .NET Core and Domain Driven Design
- Worked with community members, advisor committees, and board of directors to iteration on course improvements
- Course topics included, but not limited to: .NET (C#), React, OOP, Functional Programing, WPF, LINQ, ASP.NET MVC, Razor, Entity Framework, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, Relational Database (SQL), and testing
project
Developing Practice APIs
technologies used
- .NET Core
- EF Core
- Docker
- Heroku
- Postgres
- React
- MongoDb
- JSON
- Documentation
what i did
- Created approximately a dozen .NET Core Web APIs for students to practice interacting with
- Deployed to Heroku using Docker
- Created Admin dashboards to manage data
project
Custom tooling
technologies used
- .NET Core
- Nuget
- Typescript
- shell scripting
- Node.js
- NPM packaging
what i did
- Created a suite of templates so the students could focus on learning and not infrastructure
- Created custom shell scripts to aid in the automatic grading of homework to increase productive by 75%
- Designed and implemented simple dashboards to display student data in a meaningful way for staff and students
project
Remote Student Tracker A.K.A Cat Herder
technologies used
- .NET Core
- React
- Typescript
- Postgres
- Docker
- Heroku
- O-Auth
- Material UI
what i did
- Created online tool to help track students for distances learning to increase communication and monitor student progress
- Developed workflow, interface, data structures, and solution to help foster meaningful student interactions
- Created dashboards to track measure statistics to monitor student progress.

Full Stack Engineering Instructor

@ The Iron Yard

An immersive web development boot camp to train individuals to become software engineers in 12 weeks

8/29/2016 - 10/13/2017

St. Petersburg, FL

project
.NET Instructor
technologies used
- .NET Core
- .NET Framework
- Javascript
- CSS
- SQL - Microsoft SQL
- Azure
what i did
- Developed and instructed a 12-week .NET curriculum, focusing on modern practices, and technology
- Became .NET curriculum leader and mentored other instructors on teaching best practices
- Course topics included, but not limited to: .NET (C#), OOP, Functional Programing, WPF, LINQ, ASP.NET MVC, Razor, Entity Framework, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, Relational Database (SQL) and testing
- Taught free community courses on various topics such as .NET Core, Neo4j, .NET Framework and JavaScript
project
Flipped Classroom Instructor
technologies used
- .NET Core
- .NET Framework
- Javascript
- CSS
- SQL - Microsoft SQL
- Azure
- Java
- React
- Ruby
what i did
- Taught Full Stack engineering course using a flipped classroom that taught HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Node.js, Express, Ruby, React, Java, .NET, and SQL
- Created .NET and Node.js Flipped classroom material
- Iterated on content with the content development team

Senior Lead Developer

@ Exzeo USA

Insurance software incubator formed to disrupt insurance through experimenting with new technology

8/4/2014 - 1/1/2020

Tampa, FL

project
Alexa Insurance Prototype
technologies used
- AWS Lambda
- DynamoDb
- Node.js
- Voice Design
what i did
- Designed, developed and delivered a prototype that allows users to buy flood insurance via Amazon Alexa
- Worked with existed APIs to integrate the product with the existing flood insurance system.
project
TypTap
technologies used
- Node.js
- Jasmine
- MongoDb
- SQL
- Express.js
- Handlebars.js
- JQuery
- Bootstrap
- Angular
- Azure
- AWS
what i did
- Implemented an API first mobile website to create an easy to use method of purchasing & managing flood insurance in Florida
- Led design discussions with subject-matter experts concerning features and project road map
- Designed, developed, tested and maintained API endpoints that were used by other developers
- Acted as a consulted on tech stack choices such as hosting environments, CI servers, source control, and other development process tools
project
AtlasViewer
technologies used
- Node.js
- Express.js
- Mapbox
- JQuery
- Foundation
- Passport.js
- Azure
- MongoDb
- GeoJSON
- Postgres
- Backbone.js
- React.js
- Twilio API
what i did
- Led team in creating a GeoJSON data mapping application for subject-matter experts
- Increase productivity exponentially for business and data analytics.
- Created an administrator tool to view and manage analytically data.
- Created an API for easy integration with other systems
- Created an export functionality to allow subject matter experts to extract important custom data sets
- Added a TOTP authentication system to secure user access
project
VPET (Virtual Property Evaluation Tool)
technologies used
- .NET MVC 5 (C#)
- Node.js
- Express.js
- Google Maps
- JQuery
- Bootstrap
- Owin
- Angular
- Web API
- Azure
- DocumentDB
- and MongoDB
what i did
- Designed, created, tested, and maintained a suite of app and supporting infrastructure to collect, manage, and analyze data for the state of Florida
- Created a Lambda Architecture to handle big data concerns, to speed up analysis, and support administration querying
- Created crowd sourcing information gathering tools to speed up data collection
- Created tools and processes to ensure the data was stored in a secure, highly scalable, and easily exported format

Chief Technical Officer & Lead Developer

@ Stacktive

A startup to create a marketplace to have one pass for multiple gyms

11/25/2014 - 3/14/2016

Remote

project
Stacktive Web App
technologies used
- .NET (Webforms and MVC)
- Entity Framework (Database First)
- MSSQL
- JQuery
- HTML5
- CSS3
- Rackspace
- Phonegap
- and Stripe
what i did
- Rescued a failed time-sensitive project by work with stakeholder to prioritize features and bugs
- Established a development process to more reduce time it would to take to create features and iterate faster
- Supported mobile app development
- Worked with a diverse team with a focus on getting tasks complete

Lead Software Engineer

Problem Solutions is a software contracting company. I was a key member of the "tiger team" to jump-start new ideas or save failing projects. Design, developed, and maintain projects for a variety of customers, encompassing commercial and government.

5/10/2011 - 7/14/2014

Johnstown, PA

project
Interoperable Performance Assessment [IPA]
technologies used
- MVC4 (C#)
- Google Graph API
- JQuery
- MSSQL
- HTML
- CSS
what i did
- Worked with end users & designers to figure out what key data points needed to be displayed in a mobile friendly way
- Worked with subject-matter experts to develop best practices for storing and transfer group simulator data
- Worked with U.S. Army Research Lab to create functional and useful prototypes
- Develop code libraries and packages to work with APIs to plug into other system (simulators, websites, LMS, and AI tutors)
project
Rapid Analysis and Planning Toolkit for Operations and Research (RAPTOR)
technologies used
- MVC4 (C#)
- Google Graph API
- JQuery
- MSSQL
- HTML5
- CSS3
what i did
- Display logistical data for various Navy labs and sub-labs using interactive graphs
- Display any value against any value on an x-y graph
- Display projections based on current trends
- Designed a database schema allowing data input of any type to be able to be graphed
- Managed a team of developers to ensure a quality product on schedule
project
Exam Builder [EB]
technologies used
- Python
- Django
- Jinja2
- HTML5
- ReportsLabs
- Oracle
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JQuery
what i did
- converted an existing, high traffic site from ColdFusion to Python
- Organized and led a small team to quickly save a failing project
- Used TTD to prohibit regressions
project
Learning Experience Manager [LEM]
technologies used
- ASP.NET MVC 4 (C#)
- Entity Framework
- MSSQL
- JQuery
- Azure
- Knockout.js
- Azure
what i did
- Led a team of developers to create a NextGen learning management system that tracked all types of learning
- Developed database schema to store data
- Developed mobile friendly web app
- Utilized Open-source learning schemas (Experience API, and Open Badges) to create an open ecosystem
- Demonstrated and presented the project with clients, potential clients, and industry leaders
project
Delan Associates
technologies used
- ASP.NET MVC 4 (VB)
- Entity Framework
- MSSQL
- JQuery
- Azure
- Knockout.js
- Azure
what i did
- Gather Requirements from end users
- Design database to support end users needs
- Migrate database from existing system to new custom built system
- Develop custom components to fit end user’s needs
- Write tests to ensure new features and changes did not harm the integrity of the system
- Deploy system to production environment
- Interface with clients on any bugs or support needed
project
United Way of Pennsylvania - State Employee Combined Appeal System
technologies used
- .NET Framework
- Web Forms
- SQL - Microsoft SQL
what i did
- Upgraded a custom database driven donation management system with a new database schema and functionality
- Debugged and fixed SQL Stored procedures
- Extended existing features to better suit client needs
- Developed new reports to give end user better insights
- Paired Programmed with other developers to share knowledge and deliver features faster
project
Circumspex
technologies used
- .NET Framework
- Web Forms
- SQL - Microsoft SQL
what i did
- Extended existing site that helped users plan for emergencies
- Added features such photo uploads, mass import of data and UI modernization
- Worked with clients and stakeholders to ensure client happiness
- Worked on creating test cases and running test suites
- Developed new reports to give end user better insights
- Paired Programmed with other developers to share knowledge and deliver features faster
project
Paramount Pictures
technologies used
- Android SDK
- Java
what i did
- Created a dynamically loading scrolling menu for users to view their purchased movies
- Developed the menu to be re-useable in other parts of the application
- Worked in a timely matter coordinating with other teams
- Ensure the metadata was from activity to activity in the most efficient way
project
LIFT Johnstown
technologies used
- .NET Framework
- Visual Basic
- Web Forms
what i did
- Extended and maintained a custom CMS for a local charity
- Lead outreach, training and delivering of application
- Supported client questions, feedback and feature requests
project
Gold Star
technologies used
- Python
- JQuery
- xAPI
- Twitter API
what i did
- Lead team to design and create a proof of concept app centered around employee recognition
- Integrated system with (Learner Record Stores) to help record learning and competencies
- Demoed app at national conference ,mLearnCon 2012
- Design a sticky experience for the users
- Take an abstract idea and create use cases, requirements and UIs
- Implement original idea
- Design and develop new features
- Provide support and bug fixes
project
GIFT Integration
technologies used
- Java
- xAPI
what i did
- Consulted and worked with developers to created a plugin for the AI powered Learning Platform GIFT
- Developed custom Java Package to aid in integration
project
Experience API Research - Custom Learner Record Store (LRS)
technologies used
- Flask
- Python
- JQuery
- MySQL
what i did
- Built a custom in house Learner Record Store to comply with the early specifications of the Experience to accept and store xAPI statements
- Created a fully searchable UI using a JQuery Driven Front-end
- Supported Basic Authentication and Keyed API Access
project
LRCurate
technologies used
- Flask (python)
- JQuery
- ElasticSearch
- Facebook API
- Twitter API
- LinkIn API
- Google+ API
- Celery
- CouchDB
what i did
- Create a social search engine for the Learning Registry (LR)
- Create a font-end that let the user search the LR for content and then share it across various social sites to their colleagues
- Use Celery to harvest the LR and then user Elastic Search to index the content at scheduled intervals
- Create demo-able prototype
- Intergrated with the Learning Registry
- Generate and send Paradata back to the LR about content that was shared
- Give users th capabilities to send content over various social site
- Set up Elastic Search to index the LR
- Create search engine
- Demo prototype at Plugfest 2
project
Five Minute Relationship
technologies used
- PHP
- MySQL
- JQuery UI
- CSS3
- HTML5
- Facebook API
what i did
- Create a multiplayer game based on a card game prototype
- The game was a game where people would try to form a relationship with another person in the quickest time
- Create design and requirements from a real card game
- Work with the game designer to create digital version
- Design, develop, deploy and maintain the game
- Built the game to have a scalable and timeless architect
- Use the Facebook API to get a user’s information and run analytics on it
project
UCLA Web App
technologies used
- ASP.NET
- HTML5 CSS3
- Visual Studio 2010
- Objective-C
what i did
- Converted an iPhone App into a cross-platform web app that would render properly across all devices and browsers, including Android, iPhones, Desktops, NetBooks and tablets
- Develop the web-app with only be shown a iPhone App
- Work with remote IT professionals to deploy web app
project
Mobile R&D
technologies used
- PHP
- Android SDK
what i did
- Goal of the research project was to learn how to use various mobile technology to enhance our products
- Researched mobile web design principles and techniques
- Notable project was A geolocation based guide through the city of Johnstown
- Displayed information to a user when the user was close enough to a notable local landmark
- Used a web service (built in PHP) to commicate to a mobile web-app and a native android app
project
Mobile Resources Guides
technologies used
- ASP.NET
- HTML5 CSS3
- Visual Studio 2010
- Objective-C
- Java
- Android SDK
what i did
- Created a scaffolding to create a mobile friendly resource guide as quickly as possible
- Create a cross platform mobile reference guide to aid in learning and re-learning after taking a course ( in person or online)
- Have course available anytime anywhere
- Have course track which pages are being looked at using the Experience API
- Take content provide and organize the content in a way that resembles the courses and displays properly on a mobile device

Bachelors of Science; Computer Science

University Pittsburgh at Johnstown

Aug. 2007 - May 2011

GPA: 3.7

Presidential Scholar

notable classes:

Data Structures
Algorithms
Artificial Intelligence
Web Programming
.NET
Java
Object Oriented Programming

Skills

Languages

C#
Javascript
Node.js
CSS
HTML
Python
Java
Ruby
Go
VB
SQL
Cypher & Neo4j
PHP
ColdFusion
C, C++
Ada

Frameworks & Libraries

React
TypeScript
.NET Core MVC & Web API
ASP.NET MVC & Web API
Entity Framework Core
Docker
Sass & Scss
Handlebars.js
Express.js
Pug
Vue.js
Angular 1.X
Gatsby
Backbone.js
Knockout.js
Mongoose
Bootstrap
Foundation
Social Media APIs (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
Google Apps (Maps, Plus, Mirror API)
NUnit & XUnit
Jasmine
Chrome Extensions

Concepts

Systems Architecture
CI/CD
Test Driven Development
Functional Programming
Object Oriented Programming
RESTful API
Microservice Architecture
GraphQL
Mobile First Design
API First Design
Requirement Driven Development
Agile & Scrum
Design Thinking
Relational Databases
NoSQL Databases
Single Page Apps
Dependency Injection
Big Data
Cloud Computing
Source Control
Continuous Integration
Design Patterns
Disciplined Entrepreneurship

Soft Skills

Technical Leadership
Public Speaking
Interviewing
Instruction & Training
Curriculum Design
Communication
Project Management
Mentorship
Team Oriented
Independent Worker

Software Tools

Visual Studio (Code, 2017, 2015)
Light weight editors (Atom, Sublime)
Powershell & Terminal
Markdown
SQL Management Studio
Webpack
Gulp
Browser Sync
Npm & Yarn
Slack
Teams
Agile Boards (Jira, Trello, Asana, etc)
Git
Github
GitHub Actions
Eclipse
Vim
Travis CI

Databases

MS SQL
PostgreSQL
MySQL
Redis
MongoDb
CouchDb
Oracle
Neo4j
DocumentDb
SQLite

Deployment Environments

Docker
Azure
AWS
Netlify
Rackspace
Heroku
Go Daddy
Zeit
Surge

Employment

Staff+ Engineer, Digital Services Expert, US Digital Service

@ Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of the CTO

7/19/2022 - present

Remote

Senior Front End Engineer

@ GovCIO

5/27/2020 - 7/19/2022

Remote

Core Instructor

@ Suncoast Developers Guild

10/13/2017 - 5/4/2020

St. Petersburg, FL

Full Stack Engineering Instructor

@ The Iron Yard

8/29/2016 - 10/13/2017

St. Petersburg, FL

Senior Lead Developer

@ Exzeo USA

8/4/2014 - 1/1/2020

Tampa, FL

Chief Technical Officer & Lead Developer

@ Stacktive

11/25/2014 - 3/14/2016

Remote

Lead Software Engineer

@ Problem Solutions

5/10/2011 - 7/14/2014

Johnstown, PA

Education

Bachelors of Science; Computer Science

University Pittsburgh at Johnstown

Aug. 2007 - May 2011

GPA: 3.7

Presidential Scholar

Skills

Languages

Frameworks & Libraries

Concepts

Soft Skills

Software Tools

Databases

Deployment Environments

Extras