Employment

A detailed summary of my employment history as a software engineer, technical architect, product manager, and chief technologist.

Engineer and Product Strategist

(private incubator) Jul 2021 - present

Exploring and building technology and software product solutions about which I feel passionate.

Technically speaking, our toolset includes (but is not limited to) Kotlin, TypeScript, React, Material-UI, Apollo GraphQL, Storybook, Cypress, Spring, Domain Graph Service (DGS), and Kubernetes.

Product-wise we are exploring a few problem domains that are especially timely.

VP of Engineering

Planview Jan 2021 - Jul 2021

In January 2021, Changepoint was acquired by Planview.

During this period, my leadership role on the Changepoint EAM and Changepoint SPM products continued. Technically speaking, this was a period of deep dives into distributed caching (with Infinispan), and Spring Cloud Data Flow. A key goal during this period was to update our deployment methodologies to leverage Spring Cloud and Kubernetes. This is also a period in which I (like every technical leader in every industry presently) generally explored leveraging statistical (NumPy) and Machine Learning tools for the future benefit of the product.

VP of Engineering

Changepoint Apr 2015 – Jan 2021

In April 2015, Changepoint acquired barometerIT. My efforts were instrumental in getting barometerIT recognized in markets closely aligned with Changepoint’s own PPM space. Changepoint’s portfolio now includes three major products: Changepoint PSA, Daptiv PPM, and barometerIT EAM. During this period the barometerIT product was marketed under two names: Changepoint EAM and Changepoint SPM.

My role with Changepoint has been to continue the development, operation, and support of barometerIT. I’ve continued to guide and manage most aspects of the product. Most importantly, I leveraged customer relationships into designs for product enhancement, and then realized those designs in product engineering (and finally, guided them to production and provided ongoing support). Chief roles have continued to include product manager and chief technologist.

We built our team around an ethic of close customer care blended seamlessly with ambitious software innovation. barometerIT continues to serve a number of “Fortune 100” companies in North America – and now “Global 500” companies in other geographies worldwide.

In the role of product manager: Helped to nurture customer relationships in order to maintain an extremely high retention rate. Transitioned fresh product ideas rapidly into functional prototypes, and then quickly into shippable software. Continuously ensured that technical debt was always addressed in the context of marketable product gains. Kept the software fresh and relevant – always a concern in independent software vendors.

In the role of chief technologist: Led engineers in the Java and JavaScript ecosystems, as well as DevOps on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. Key frameworks and tools included React, Redux, Cytoscape, Node.js, Spring (and nearly all of the Spring sub-frameworks, including Data Flow), Hibernate, Tomcat, Solr, MySQL, and Neo4j. Particularly, I continued to lead the transition from Solr and MySQL to a true graph solution with Neo4j.

Chief Technologist and Product Manager

barometerIT Mar 2011 – Mar 2015

barometerIT was a greenfield startup Independent Software Vendor (ISV) created by a number of the leading salespersons and engineers from the Perficient consultancy (formerly Javelin) in Minneapolis. The product is designed to help medium to large-sized enterprises to bridge the gap between Business and IT concerns.

This startup turned out to be an excellent opportunity to wear “many hats”. I eventually assumed the roles of both Chief Technologist and Product Manager to guide barometerIT into a market space alternately known as “Integrated IT Portfolio Management (IIPA)” and “Enterprise Portfolio Management (EPM)”. Not only did this guidance help barometerIT acquire and keep a number of Fortune 100 companies in North America – it led directly to barometerIT’s acquisition by Changepoint in 2015.

In the role of Product Manager: Applied the Pragmatic Marketing Framework in conjunction with Enterprise Architecture ( EA) expertise to improve and market the barometerIT software platform. Was instrumental to obtaining Gartner “Cool Vendor” and “Magic Quadrant” presence. Performed market analysis, followed news and trends, synthesized and shared findings. Translated those things into inputs for product pipeline. Participated in relevant associations (ISACA and EA forums). Designed processes, patterns, fields, rules, and reports to help realize enterprise management goals. Developed a reproducible product implementation and services model. Delivered market thought leadership (communications, white papers, social media). Acted as a customer and market-facing interface (often acting as “proxy EA”).

In the role of Chief Technologist: Led engineers in the Java and JavaScript ecosystems, as well as DevOps on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. Key frameworks and tools included AngularJS, Wicket, Hibernate, Spring, Infinispan, JBoss, Amazon Web Services platform (AWS), ActiveMQ, Mule, Solr, MySQL, and Neo4j.

Chief Technologist

International Decision Systems Jul 2008 – Mar 2011

Set the technological vision and roadmap for the company’s products. Provided technical guidance and oversight for all IDS software products (on multiple technologies). Provided more specific technical leadership with respect to Java and SOA technologies. Interacted with customers and potential customers as the chief technical representative of the company. Participated in pre-sales, documentation and implementation projects (esp. RFIs, RFPs). Mentored engineers, architects, business analysts and product managers on technical topics. Designed internal as well as customer hardware and software topologies. Proof-of-concepted “next gen” technology solutions. Directly managed architects and SCM engineers.

Senior Technical Architect

Perficient Aug 2006 – Jul 2008

Recommended, designed and developed enterprise system solutions in a number of business domains, including insurance, telecommunications, agricultural products and hospitality. Designed, implemented and documented cutting edge proof-of-concept solutions. Performed leadership roles on Java EE software development projects. Specified architectural and procedural standards for Java EE application development. Designed Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions ( especially ESB solutions). Performed hardware platform and capacity planning assessments. Performed assessments and recommended best practices. Performed trouble diagnosis on IBM and BEA platform systems. Led and mentored development teams. Planned projects and schedule resources.

Technical Architect

MSI Systems Integrators Nov 2005 – Jul 2006

Recommended technical and procedural solutions in a number of business domains, including supply chain, insurance, government, energy, and airline. Recommended SOA, J2EE and Identity and Access Management (IDM) solutions. Participated in technical pre-sales activities and RFP responses. Performed role of senior architect on J2EE application development projects. Specified architectural and procedural standards for SOA and J2EE application development. Performed hardware platform assessments. Performed best practices assessments. Performed trouble diagnosis on WebSphere platform systems. Planned projects and schedule resources.

Chief Architect

Notiva Jan 2002 – Oct 2005

Led teams of up to 17 engineers in design and implementation tasks. Designed and documented company engineering methodology. Designed, prototyped and implemented business object models and application components. Chose standards, technologies, tools and third-party solutions. Designed project structures and multi-platform deployables (and implemented with Ant). Managed version control, issue management and continuous integration strategy for all products. Recommended production hardware. Planned projects and schedule resources. Interviewed and hired engineering staff, both consultants and employees. Led mixed teams in customer enterprise product rollouts.

Technical Architect

SPS Commerce Aug 1998 – Aug 2001

Designed, prototyped and developed application components. Specialized in application sub-systems and frameworks. Researched and recommended standards, technologies and third-party solutions. Led small teams in implementation tasks. Designed relational data schemas. Managed build with ksh and make. Documented use cases and requirements.

Technical Consultant

Renaissance Worldwide Jan 1998 – Aug 1998

Developed Internet-based applications for Unix and Windows NT systems. Performed various tasks for Internet and client-server application development projects.

Technical Lead

Minnesota Public Radio Dec 1995 – Jan 1998

Managed 11 domains of multi-media content and interactive services. Developed interactive applications. Identified and implemented production technologies. Led small teams in content-delivery projects. Pioneered B2C online commerce for Rivertown Trading Company, a major catalog retailer (later acquired by Target Corp.). Pioneered multimedia netcasts (for A Prairie Home Companion and others). Founding producer of minnesota.publicradio.org (mpr.org) and related sites. Nationally acclaimed with awards and articles.

Book Buyer/Seller

Odegard Books of Minneapolis

Worked with major wholesalers to manage stock. Assisted customers with purchases. Some of my favorite books during this time included works by Vladimir Nabokov, Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Mircea Eliade, Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dawn Powell, and P.G. Wodehouse.