About Me

Hello!

I am currently looking for a position at the Senior Director or VP of a software development organization.

I am extremely technical. I might not write code everyday, but I understand what it takes to build quality software SaaS platforms.

I am passionate about building strong development teams and creating an environment of open honest communication. I strive to build world class development organizations.

I am an accomplished entrepreneur, senior executive, and advisor. Analytical, self-motivated, and results-oriented software development leader with 31 years combined experience in large scale complex software development and small scale MVP work.

Diverse background with different technology from Java to Dot Net to NodeJS and more. Widely considered an innovator, coach, mentor, motivator, and strong leader.

Work Summary

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Last updated: Jul 11, 2023

  • Work Experience

  • Senior Director of Software Development

    Successware - 2021 -

    Lead the next generation complete rewrite of a large, industry leading, legacy monolithic system to an innovative Cloud Native platform.

    Overseeing onshore and offshore teams of 140+ engineers, QA, BA, SRE and DevOps.

    Coordinating site reliability, React Mobile, platform, and maintenance engineers across multiple consulting companies and dozens of SOWs. With secondary support for two other large contract initiatives.

    Heavy microservices usage, BFFs, Android/iOS mobile, AWS and Infrastructure as Code.

    Tight coordination with Product, Support, Legacy, and SaaS Managed Services teams. 99.95% uptime SLA.

  • Head of Java Software Development

    Ruffalo Noel Levitz - 2019 - 2021

    Overseeing 5 Java platforms in the Higher Education fundraising sector which generates 70% of the SaaS revenue.

    Leading and mentoring a team of 15+ Java developers.

    Worked closely with a large team of offshore QA.

    Managed workload of onsite developers working in parallel with offshore development team.

    Managed a successful migration from SVN to GitHub.

    Collaborated with the product team to groom the backlog by creating a virtual backlog of smaller, manageable stories as well as a virtual backlog of epics.

  • Head of Software Development

    Debt Pay Pro - 2018 - 2019

    Reporting to the CEO, my role was to drive the development team to ultimate success.

    Bootstrapped, successful FinTech startup company. Hired as #38 employee, small 10+ person development team.

    Primary product was a B2B extensive CRM, secondary was integrated B2C eSignature platform.

    Managing 30+ integrations with 3rd party vendors such as merchant accounts, payment gateways, phone dialers, credit/finance companies.

    Reporting to the CEO, leading the software development group in all areas of development.

    Lead the migration from datacenter hosted servers to AWS, partnering with REAN Cloud.

    Reducing technical debt, reduced downtime by focusing team on getting 80% of value for 20% of work.

  • Head of Accelerated Solutions Group

    Follett School Solutions - 2012 - 2017

    Reporting to the VP of Development, my group was created to work closely with customers, develop and release in extremely short timeframes. The goal was to implement a rapid release cycles to respond to customer needs. Allowing us to provide incremental value based on actual customer priorities.

    Innovative group focused on new technologies, new development processes and creative solutions. With organizational independence I lead the group to success on every project, proven track record.

    Applied Lean principles to Build, Measure, Learn. Learn from small samples that were closely observed, using prototypes to test business models, tracking the team's progress and flexibility, moved quickly to market and strived to fail fast.

    Worked collaboratively and effectively with our C level, business partners, product owners and customers to ensure our solution aligned to our strategy and was setup to be successful.

    Responsibilities included taking key business strategies from ideas to reality, including the roles of product/project manager and technical lead in addition to the management role of the group.

  • Senior Software Development Manager

    Follett Software Company - 2006 - 2012

    Part of the Executive leadership team of the development unit. Performed a dual role of managing 18 senior level developers in the organization as well as serving as the technical lead overseeing multiple projects. Quickly rising to the outspoken leader of the group as well as the developer advocate.

    Shared management of $20M budget, overseeing project managers, business analysts, software architects, software developers, and quality assurance testers.

    Lead the onboarding of new engineers, interns, testers, and project leaders. 65+ consultants and 25+ full-time associates. Created job descriptions and annual performance goals.

    Drove and lead the internship program. Recruited on campus at several universities, coordination with HR to onboard students. Mentored and lead multiple successful intern projects, several of which resulted in hires after graduation. Received high honors and regard for establishing an Internship Program.

    Created career development paths, quarterly review policies, annual review feedback mechanisms, helped promote HR research for salary alignment, and bonus justification.

  • Principal Software Engineer

    Follett Software Company - 1993 - 2006

    Lead the Mobile Quest group which created iOS and Android native applications. Lead the technical design of the restful API, versioning, agility, and coordination between outsourced UI/UX firm and delivery of iPhone/iPod and iPad applications. As well as Android phone and tablet applications.

    Technical lead engineer on Destiny Quest and MyQuest. Quest is Follett's next generation library search tool. This platform was later used to create the FollettShelf for another division.

    Technical lead on the Destiny platform, the leading $60M+ web based school management system. Started on Destiny when the first line of code was written in Iteration 1. Destiny grew from a 10 person team to a 65 person team within 4 years. Destiny has received numerous industry awards and gained a 60% market share due to the stability and feature set of the application.

  • Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder

    Thinkersize, LLC - 2008 -

    Cranium CoRE is a SaaS reading comprehension gameshow, for students 3rd-12th. Utilizing mobile devices or SideKey Keypads to answer higher order thinking questions directly to the browser. Members from around the world create and share games, collaborating in this web 2.0 environment. This subscription based system released in June 2009.

    Responsible for the software development, quality assurance, technical delivery and maintenance of Cranium CoRE. I also act as the visionary for the future of Thinkersize, LLC. Instrumental in architecting, designing, and building the Cranium CoRE service, and was critical in helping the service grow and scale.

    Created both iOS and Android applications for remote controls into the game. Used jQuery Mobile and ajax polling on both the server and the client remotes to achieve seamless gameplay on phones, tablets or any device with an internet browser.

  • Chief Executive Officer and Founder

    RJL Software, Inc. - 1996 -

    Founded independent software company initially focused on creating automation products and custom solutions for businesses to go paperless. Started with desktop applications and utilities, moved on to web based solutions and web applications, websites, hosting, and SEO.

    Created several award winning Windows desktop applications that continue to be recognized as the standard in their respective markets. Such as AutoRun Wizard, Message Manager Deluxe and Log Info to name a few.

    I pride myself in developing high quality software that is on time and within budget. I have excellent business analysis skills.


Highlights

Leadership

Proven record of technical leadership and departmental ownership.

Enterprise Agile Coach

Multi-team level coach, deep coaching skills and extensive experience in Agile Developent.

Analytics

Data driven decisions based on analytics tracking and behavior tracking.

Web Developent

Extensive web development experience, technology agnostic.

Innovator

Process innovator, technology innovator and product innovator.

Mentoring

Selflessly committed to the best interests of my colleagues and employees.

Technical Skills

Node85%
Java90%
HTML585%
CSS375%
jQuery90%
MongoDB89%
MySQL85%
AngularJS90%

SQL Server95%

Firebase90%

TypeScript80%

Websockets85%

Android50%

iOS50%

PHP25%

Selenium90%

Git100%

Tomcat80%

Oracle45%

ColdFusion90%

.NET/C#25%

JBoss70%

Delphi/C++80%

Docker60%

Hire Me!

I'm currently looking for full-time employement at the Senior Director or VP level of technical management of a development group.

Contact Me