Open Source ProjectsCode that Might be Useful to You

Talks I've GivenOn Technologies and Ideas

ThoughtsWhere I Sometimes Write Things

Resume If You Still Believe In ThoseFollow Me On

GitHubIf coding is your thing

If you tweet

TumblrIf you're ADD

Josh Nichols - Software abqgiy@r.postjobfree.com://technicalpickles.com

Goals

To build products users enjoy using

To work on a team that its members enjoy working with

To write code developers enjoy coding

To engineer systems system administrators enjoy administrating

Agile practices

Skill StoriesEndlessly researches and evaluating new tools, techniques, processes, etcFrequently reads and patches source code of tools and libraries used for day-to-day development.Comfortable with going from a freshly installed system, and preparing it to act as a production serverCreate prototypes to experiment or better understand problems, tools, techniques, etc

Career History, Distributed

Awesomeness Engineer of Supreme Versatility, January 2010 through July 2012

Chief Technology Officer, July 2012 through Present, Distributed

Fan Vs Fan is a site for sports fans where they can face off with other members using their webcams, as well as write articles and record fancast shows.

Lead Engineer (Contract), March 2009 through January 2010Was soley responsible for planning, developing, deploying, and maintaining siteWorked with client to plan site direction, identify business requirments, and schedule feature implementationWorked with EngineYard to monitor fanvsfan.com, and respond to downtime and other production problemsMonitored site performance (both client and backend), evaluated improvements, implemented them, Boston, MA

SNIF Labs designed and built an intelligent dog tag which lets you monitor your dog's activity while you're away and keep in touch with his friends and yours.

Software Engineer (Full-time), August 2008 through December 2008Evaluated and introduced Ruby and Rails 'best practices' to improve code clarity and maintainabilityEvaluated and introduced agile practices which reduced management overhead and improved developer productivityAutomated build system by implementing a continuous integration serverImproved test coverage from 40% to 80%Migrated 2 years of subversion data into git on, Boston, MA

The Boston Ruby Group is composed of some 400 members in the Greater Boston area with the shared interest in the Ruby programming language.

Member, Presenter, and Organizer (Volunteer), November 2007 through PresentPresented,,, and Rake: The Familiar StrangerSchedules local and out-of-town speakers to present at monthly meetingsCollaborates with publishers and other sponsors to provide giveaways at meetingsDeveloped and maintains the group's website for managing events, jobs, and projects, Cambridge, MA

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard is a research institute dedicated to the study of genomics for the biomedical sciences.

Software Engineer (Full-time), Chemical Biology Department, June 2007 through August 2008Designed and implemented a web application for managing chemical biology research on a team of 8 developersCollaborated with chemists and chemical screeners to determine requirements and to improve user experienceExtended Acegi Security to support internal authentication infrastructureImplemented AJAX to provide a better user experience for long user tasks, reducing user errorsEvaluated, implemented, and embraced new technologies to improve product quality, developer productivity, and developer sanityPresented technical talks to the Broad developer community: Java on Gentoo Linux and You, Me, and Acegi

Gentoo Linux is a special flavor of Linux that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Extreme performance, configurability and a top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience.

(Volunteer), January 2008 through July 2008Researched and implemented changes to the project, resulting in improved community relations, openness, and transparencyDrafted announcements for Gentoo's front pageDocumented best practices for the project, such as for

(Volunteer), December 2006 through July 2008Provided online support for users on the #gentoo-ruby IRC channelTriaged and resolved Ruby bugs filed with Gentoo's BugzillaMaintained widely used Ruby packages including: Rails, Capistrano, and RSpec

(Volunteer), January 2006 through June 2007Oversaw recruitment and training of potential developers, doubling the team sizeCollaborated with other open source leaders to promote and facility Linux as a Java platform

(Volunteer), Spring 2005 through June 2007Drastically improved Gentoo Linux as a Java platformWorked online support for users on the #gentoo-java IRC channel and Triaged and resolved Java bugs filed with Gentoo's BugzillaContributed up bug fixes and enhancements to upstream projectsWrote documentation including and Maintained many widely used Java packages, including: Eclipse, Groovy, JRuby, Maven, Ant, Spring, Hibernate

(formerly Banta Internet Solutions), Cambridge, MA

RR Donnelley is the world's premier full-service provider of print and related solutions.

Software Engineer (Full-time), August 2005 through June 2007Developed and maintained web-based s and marketing toolsCollaborated with the architect and senior engineers for project planning and high level designEvaluated, implemented, and embraced new technologies to improve product quality, developer productivity, and developer sanity, RPI, Troy, NY

The Scientific Computation Research Center is an organization focused on the development of reliable simulation technologies for engineers, scientists, medical professionals, and other practitioners.

Assistant System Administrator (Intern), Fall 2001 through Spring 2005Supported approximately 30 workstations, 20 servers, and 4 clusters.Compiled, configured, and installed various open source products for Linux, Solaris and IRIX.Worked towards improving the network's infrastructure to facilitate the administration of the network.Configured and maintained several network services including:,, mailing list, web hosting, network monitoring, centralized logging, and automated installations.

Education, Dual B.S. Computer Science and Psychology May 2005

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