Resume

Software Engineer Design

Location:

Boulder, CO

Posted:

November 20, 2012

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Resume:

Eric Dobbs

abpkr5@r.postjobfree.com

Boulder, Colorado

Summary of Strengths

Fourteen years of web application development experience

Eleven years of test-driven development experience

Technical and non-technical problem-solving skills

Personal and professional integrity

Exceptional written, verbal, and visual communication skills

Enthusiasm for learning and teaching

Adaptability to change

Amiable personality

History of exceeding expectations

Software Engineer Pivotal Labs

November 2010 to September 2011

Learning Mastered Ruby within a month. Immediately effective maintaining and

updating existing Rails application for Groupon Merchant Center team.

Scale Refactored Groupon's merchant analytics into an independent service-oriented

architecture. Improved largest deal analytics reports from a query time of 7

minutes down to 15 seconds.

Usability Initiated an informal usability analysis for Groupon's editorial tools via direct

observation of editors and deal creators.

Dramatically improved deal creation and editorial workflows. Streamlined

communications between sales and editorial teams by integrating with

Salesforce.

Methodology Full-time pair-programming, behavior-driven design (BDD), continuous

integration, collective ownership, small releases, planning game,

retrospectives, on-site customer.

Aikido Instructor University of Colorado Recreation Center

August 2005 to Present

Impact Three students gave direct feedback that my teaching changed their lives.

Increased typical class enrollment by 50%. Inspired many students to join

Boulder Aikikai.

Consultant bivio Software, Inc.

December 2003 to May 2010

Impact Changed the company culture: Testing became a core value. Extended

internal unit testing framework to simplify testing core business logic. Number

of test files grew from 85 to 585 or 20% to 60% coverage.

Drove successful adoption of XHTML and CSS for web interfaces, and wikis

and blogs for content mangagement, both internally and for bivio's customers.

Learning In order to build a python interface to a C++ scientific visualization toolkit,

learned on demand the toolkit's API, C++, Qt, PyQt, OpenGL, PyOpenGL,

NumPy, python distuitls, SIP, and GNU autotools.

Kept pace with bOP, an extremely complex and abstract web framework

under continual evolution: The framework grew from 390 classes to 900+

through 720 releases with a median days-between-release of 1.

Teaching Trained programmers with wildly diverse levels of experience from high-school

student interns with no previous programming experience to veteran C++ and

Java developers with decades of experience.

Trained customer support staff in investment club accounting software,

managing customer expectations, and in the use of CRM systems. Most of the

training was by teleconference or online via WebEx or GoToMeeting.

Lead a three-day bOP training course for a client's entire development team

whose programming skills ranged from systems administrators to senior

embeded systems programmers. Also created the overall training plan and

most of the supporting documentation. Received strong positive feedback

from all participants.

Client Impact Saved face for the company when the president forgot a meeting with the

biggest client. Took his place offering valuable contributions around complex

design and security issues. Client was seriously impressed with my ability to

step in unprepared and to turn a potential train wreck into a productive

meeting.

Complexity Maintained and extended applications in diverse and complex domains

including a state-wide insurance accounting system, a non-profit grant

application system, a formal balloting system for industry standards, an

alumni association membership system, and an investment club tax

accounting system.

Independent Contractor Microcomputer Training Specialists

March 2003 to December 2003

Impact Coached the developers of the City and County of Denver's Wastewater

Management Division building an internal J2EE web application. Previous

failures to replace or repair the legacy system made the project particularly

high-risk. Delivered a replacement system to production in nine months.

Methodology Demonstrated agile development values (communication, simplicity, feedback,

and courage) and practices (small releases, simple design, test-driven code,

refactoring, collective ownership, coding standards).

Developed automated acceptance tests in close communication with the users.

75% of internal code was written test-first.

Senior Software Engineer PlanetCAD Inc.

July 2000 to September 2002

Impact Delivered three major releases precisely on schedule. Customers were very

impressed by the features added in each release.

Designed extensible workflow engine to manage automated processing of

complex transformations of engineering data.

Leadership Promoted to Lead Developer after only four months. Acting Development

Manager for eight months. Cultivated a very cohesive development team

despite strikingly different personalities and significant turnover among

executives and management.

Worked with company officers to influence PlanetCAD's technical direction.

Conducted formal and informal presentations and meetings. Gave detailed

benefit and risk analyses of three Java web application frameworks.

Led design meetings. Negotiated product requirements and development

schedule. Summarized key differences of opinion. Resolved disagreements.

Built consensus. Balanced maintenance of existing features with new

development under tight deadlines.

Learning Learned PHP, Java and Python on demand. Ported an online CAD translation

service from PHP to Java.

Proactively extended Java and OOD skills. Independently studied design

patterns, refactoring, unit testing, development processes, open source

projects, UML, Java security, JMS, and object-relational modeling.

Methodology Championed the adoption of Agile development practices including XP's

Planning Game for scope-centered scheduling, automated unit testing,

acceptance testing, refactoring, short release cycles, and collective ownership.

Applied design patterns including Composite, Facade, Factory, Flyweight,

Model-View-Controller, Singleton, and State.

Coaching Introduced colleagues to the use of version control in web development, UML,

use-case based analysis, JSP tag libraries, and design patterns.

PathFinder Architect VisionLink, Inc.

July 1997 to March 2000

Impact Developed and managed VisionLink's flagship product and all client support.

Carried PathFinder into the de facto standard in school-to-career data

systems.

Development Released five versions of PathFinder; each version involved a six month cycle

and included all phases of development from feature request to release and

ongoing support.

Engineered and implemented the transition from remotely managed

installations to a software as a service (SaaS) model which thrived through

the .COM crash and beyond.

Communication Mediated interactions between clients and their ISPs. Facilitated discussions to

solicit new features from clients. Led seminars on network security. Delivered

presentations to audiences of up to 90 people. Provided technical support by

phone.

InterAct Manager Clark County Public Education Foundation

August 1994 to July 1997

Impact Transformed InterAct from a pilot project BBS with seven desktop modems

into a production ISP for the school district with seven T1 lines.

Leadership Supervised an office of two full-time technicians and three student interns.

Mentored staff in their professional development. Delegated responsibility with

authority, conducted interviews, addressed disciplinary issues as necessary,

and accepted direction from and reported progress to supervisors.

Competed with the District Information Systems Division in the deployment of

wide area network sites; with only two field technicians we matched the

number of remote sites and surpassed the support for those schools we

connected.

Network Collaborated in the design of a wide-area network encompassing the entire

design Las Vegas valley and beyond. As of July 2000, that design was still in use

connecting 250 sites across 7,910 square miles, including 234 schools,

supporting 217,000 students, and more than 15,000 educators.

Customer Supported a complex mix of customers including teachers, students,

support principals, parents, administrators, school board members, existing and

potential donors to the foundation, and the superintendent.

Research Assistant University of Toronto, University of Siena

August 1990 to May 1991 and January 1992 to June 1992

Illustration Created unique visual aids for education and research. Illustrated fundamental

and concepts and created original animated analyses of pivotal diagrams of

animation Renaissance perspective by Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Piero della Francesca

and others.

Second Degree Black Belt

Aikido Schools of Ueshiba

November 2005

Bachelor's of Environmental Design, emphasizing computer methods in design

College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado at Boulder

May 1994

Technical Skills

(aka. buzzword compliance ;-)

Languages Ruby JavaScript Perl Python SQL Java AutoLISP

AppleScript PHP bash DOS batch files a little C++

a little Common Lisp

Markup HTML5 XHTML HTML DHTML XML CSS

Web Rails bOP Struts Turbine a little Django

frameworks CGI (the simplest framework that can possibly work ;-)

Databases PostgreSQL Oracle MySQL Access FileMaker Pro

Practices Test-driven development (TDD) Behavior-driven development (BDD)

Pair programming Don't repeat yourself Emergent design

Design patterns Stories Planning game Continuous integration

Small releases Refactoring Collective ownership

Coding standards

Operating MacOS X Linux Windows XP, 2000, NT, 98, 95, 3.x MacOS 6-9

Systems

Networking TCP/IP routing, addressing, subnetting NAT DNS firewalls

proxy servers routers ethernet hubs and switches

modem banks file and print servers network printers cabling

Graphic image scanning digital photography image processing

design illustration page layout 3D modeling rendering animation

ustration page layout 3D modeling rendering animation

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