About Me

Proven SaaS Technical Leader

A visionary leader with a collaborative approach to strategic roadmap development, thriving in fast-paced environments. I excel at building strong stakeholder relationships, fostering a culture of innovation, and driving a mindset focused on quality, SLA, and performance. Successful at remotely leading onshore, nearshore and offshore team members.

Deep Technical Expertise

While my daily responsibilities may not include writing code, I possess a deep understanding of what it takes to build high-quality SaaS platforms. I am passionate about building strong development teams and fostering an environment of open, honest communication, with the ultimate goal of creating world-class development organizations.

Accomplished Entrepreneur and Executive

With over 32 years of experience in software development, I am an accomplished entrepreneur, senior executive, and advisor. I have a track record of success in both large-scale, complex software development and small-scale MVP work. My diverse background spans various technologies, from Java and .NET to Node.js, React to Angular, AWS to Azure, CI and CD pipelines with strict quality gates. I am widely recognized as an innovator, coach, mentor, motivator, and strong leader.

Open to Work

I am currently looking for a position as the Senior Director or Head of a Software Development organization.

Company Experience

5 years of Private Equity

7 years of Startup

20 years of Enterprise Software Development

Work Summary

Download full detailed resume PDF DOCX
Last updated: Sep 26, 2024

  • Work Experience

  • Senior Director of Software Engineering

    Successware - 2021 - 2024 (remote)

    Drove next generation rewrite of a legacy monolithic system to an innovative Cloud Native platform (AWS), using Lambda, EKS, RDS, Elasticache, SNS and many other cloud solutions.

    Overseeing 20+ direct reports of onshore and offshore managers/leaders of Engineers, QA, UI/UX, SRE, Architects, DevOps and Performance/Automated Testing.

    Coordinating React Mobile, Platform, PostgreSQL and maintenance engineers across multiple consulting companies and dozens of different SOWs. Implementing Datadog, OpenSearch and Elasticsearch.

    Created a custom versioning process for microservice hotfixes, which included Flyway database scripts.

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

  • Head of Java Software Engineering

    Ruffalo Noel Levitz - 2019 - 2021 (remote)

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

    Pipeline improvements created a 40% reduction of production failures.

    Created technical debt roadmap plan for upgrading to Java 11, Wildfly 20, jQuery 3.15, and Query UI 1.12.

    Achieved complete UI rewrite going from IE 11 only support, to all modern browsers. With a 90% adoption rate.

    Switched from an analog dialing solution to a true browser based WebRTC calling implementation.

    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 Engineering

    Debt Pay Pro - 2018 - 2019 (hybrid)

    Reporting to the CEO, my role was to drive the engineering 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 engineering 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 (hybrid)

    Reporting to the VP of Engineering, 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 Engineering Manager

    Follett Software Company - 2006 - 2012 (hybrid)

    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 $30M 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 (onsite)

    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 $65M+ ARR 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.

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.

Innovator

Process innovator, SaaS technology innovator and product innovator.

Education

Continuous learning, providing teams with growth opportunities.

Mentoring

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

Specialized Knowledge & Skills

  • Seek out, validate, and bring to the technology organization innovative best practices and ideas from the outside, with a particular emphasis on software development methodologies
  • Able to attract, develop and retain talent and build high performing software development teams
  • Collaborate with other senior leaders to ensure alignment between technology initiatives and organizational goals
  • Able to foster a culture of transparency and a sense of purpose among the teams and create clear accountabilities and metrics
  • Lead teams managing all aspects of application development and delivery across multiple functions, business units and business lines
  • Drive the cultural changes necessary to enable a continuous delivery model (CD), and foster a strong focus on automation of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
  • Able to communicate technical or complex subject matter in business terms
  • Demonstrated acumen and passion for both business and technology, including the latest digital innovations as they apply to the creation of business value
  • Skilled at removing barriers and acting with a sense of urgency and encouraging others to do so
  • Exceptional ability to lead change using positive and collaborative methods
  • Skilled at conflict resolution and problem-solving to achieve win-win outcomes
  • Implement and champion a robust professional development program, and continuously upskill team members to keep them current
  • Partner with internal customers to develop training and deployment plans aimed at maximizing both user adoption and realization of business benefits
  • Identify opportunities for optimization and scalability improvements
  • Implement monitoring and analytics tools to track application performance and user experience
  • Develop and manage the budget for the application development and delivery operations, ensuring efficient resource allocation
  • Partner with business leaders to create robust solution roadmaps that are integrated with architecture and operations
  • Implement measures to proactively identify and address potential issues
  • Identify and mitigate risks related to application development, delivery, and operations
  • Implement strategies to ensure data security and compliance with relevant regulations
  • Ensure the development team follows best practices, coding standards, and agile methodologies
  • Develop and communicate a strategic vision for application development and delivery operations aligned with the overall business objectives
  • Ensure that all application development initiatives are well managed and delivered to meet expectations on functionality, timeliness, and cost
  • Industry Experience

    23 years of K-12 EduTech

    3 years of Higher Education EduTech

    3 years Home Services B2B

    2 years of FinTech

    Hire Me!

    I am a highly accomplished software engineering leader with 32 years of software development experience. I have a proven track record of successfully managing large-scale projects, building high-performing teams, and fostering a culture of innovation while building strong relationships with internal stakeholders throughout the product development cycles. I am seeking an opportunity to be a visionary leader to drive and optimize software development processes within a dynamic organization.

    Contact Me