I am a fast and efficient computer programmer in the San Francisco Bay Area. I love making software that works perfectly, especially involving the internet and databases. My favorite software tools are Linux, Python, PHP, MySQL, Postgres, Email, Emacs, Git, OSX and iOS.
Whether I'm starting a new project or fixing bugs, I believe it's worth the effort to make the code work right. Impeccable code created quickly, that runs perfectly and scales up easily, ends up costing a lot less time, money, and aggravation. I work hard on maintaining the simplicity of my systems, and always seek out ways to improve and add new features.
I am currently working full time as the lead software architect at Zuno. We just launched Poply and revamped Birthday Alarm, so it's pretty exciting!
Skills
Computer Science. Networks and Internet, Data Structures, Concurrency & Scaling, Fault Tolerance, User Interfaces, Threading, Caching, Batching, etc.
Programming. Emacs, Python, PHP, Javascript, iOS/iPhone, Mobile Web, Unicode, CSS, Git, Shell Tools, Bash, Java, Ruby, Markup Languages, Function Libraries, Objects, Design Patterns.
Platforms. Linux, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Memcached, Tornado, Nginx, DNS, Apache, Postfix, Power MTA, Amazon AWS, Redis, BSD Family, Filesystems, Credit Card Processing, Online Payment Systems, NTP, Syslog-ng, BIND, Cluster and Distributed Systems, Firewalls, Load Balancers.
Development Process. Requirements, Architecture, Implementation, Automated Testing, Release and Production Engineering, Reporting, Source Repositories. Influenced by Peopleware concepts.
Human. I am a human being skilled at technical, business and internet communication. I am a humanist with an entrepreneurial spirit. For fun, I'm a gardener, martial artist, adventurer, husband and father, improving a little each day.
Education
Hobbying at Home. I've loved computers since my parents brought home our first computer - thanks Mom and Dad. I began hacking MS-DOS 5.0 in 1991 with batches and a hex editor, then programming C and Pascal in 1993. I got my first shell account on the net in 1994, and the rest is history.
Bachelors Computer Science. Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, 1996-2000.
Unix System Admin Internship. Integrated Device Technology, Inc, Summer 1998.
Networking software internship. Novtek Test Systems, Summer 1999.
GUI software internship. Raytheon Company via Cal Poly, school year 1999-2000.
Co-Founder, System Admin. Earthtribe Server Co-op, 2000-2012.
Startup Experience
Lead Software Architect at Zuno, Inc — San Francisco, January 2015-Present
Some days I feel like a Quarterback, making sure everyone's in place to do their thing. Other days I'm focused just on programming. At one point the boss asked me to "just do shit" so it ends up that my days are hard to predict and usually a lot of fun.
We've just launched our latest product, Poply which is a super classy event invite site. And we're going back to growth mode with our flagship Birthday Alarm so things are pretty exciting!
Software Architect at The Monkey Inferno — San Francisco, July 2009-January 2015
I was a software architect for this incubator company, where I made the platform and core libraries for our web sites. Re-architected Birthday Alarm, our 50M+ member website, and also helping push on a version of Bebo that is long since gone.
I also launched or helped launch a number of web and mobile apps, including Zuno, Jolitics, Beer Hunt and others.
My duties were comprehensive: I design and build schemas and data models, apis, user interfaces, forms, systems programs, general utilities and prototype applications. I also contribute to product development, platform building, system and network configuration, and mentor less experienced developers.
Senior Internet Engineer / Scaling Manager at StumbleUpon, Inc. & eBay, Inc. — San Francisco, April 2007-July 2009
I made software and systems to scale up the platform and manage three senior engineers. I also helped guide development process and mentor less experienced engineers.
Some of my responsibilities and legacies include a distributed data model, system profilers, social network rewrite, and email infrastructure. Some of the platform elements are Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Memcached, NFS, Python, Postfix, Subversion, Trac. I joined at 2.5M users and left at 10M, and the website was overall 4x faster. Today SU has over 20M users and I hear that much of my code is still in use.
StumbleUpon was acquired by eBay May 31 2007, and became private again on April 13 2009, my two year anniversary with the company.
Lead Software Engineer at Kefta, Inc. — San Francisco, May 2005-April 2007
Led development for Self-Service Ad Targeting engine using Python, Solaris, Oracle and Javascript. Designed HTTP Server, web interfaces, and statistics code. Sole developer for analytics reporting server using Oracle, Python, XML and Actuate. Provided guidance for less experienced team members, interviewed engineering candidates and provided sales support.
Kefta was acquired by Acxiom Corporation in March 2007.
Software Engineer at Mark Monitor, Inc. — San Francisco, May 2004-May 2005
Joined the Alldomains team as it was merging with Mark Monitor. Wrote software for the Domain Name Registrar, Enterprise DNS and Brand Management portals on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. Backend processing on distributed database, front-end presentation using HTML/CSS/Smarty. Developed cross-platform authentication layer and BIND libraries in Java and PHP.
Consulting Experience
Founder/Architect at Code Bug LLC — San Francisco, April 2011-Present
Code Bug is a general software contractor and architecture shop. We can help you with anything related to software, especially websites and mobile stuff. Start from scratch, scale up, fix bugs, make features, at any stage of the lifecycle. Launching our first product, it's more of a tool actually, to sort your Gmail Inbox, at Mailsort.
Founder/Architect at Digital Pagoda LLC — San Francisco, January 2005-April 2011
Digital Pagoda was my first business foray, and in hindsight it served as an experiment in business, consulting, and research. We served clients well and created a few websites, but none of the websites realized commercial success. Our main development platform was Python, Tornado, MySQL and JQuery. I learned that starting companies is really hard, especially if you do it by yourself, so eventually shut down the company in order to start Code Bug.
Operations Developer Consultant at Phenix Research Associates — SF Bay Area, August 2002-May 2004
Wrote and operated system administration automation tools with Ruby and Bash. Assembled suite of internet services, providing gatewaying, firewall, domain, email, time, samba and other services. Client site network/telco wiring and hardware installation.
Software Engineer Consultant at Tolosa Technologies, Inc. — San Luis Obispo, February 2001-May 2004
Developed database and GUI applications for ISO8583 credit card processing in Java and Python. Made a handful of webapps, data mining and text processing systems with Python, PHP, Java, PostgreSQL and MySQL. Installed Linux and OpenBSD systems for a variety of internet and development services.