Experienced software engineer and contributor to open source projects including Linux, PHP, and MySQL. Founder of blo.gs, a website tracking service that was acquired by Yahoo. Founder and general manager of Raw Materials Supplies, which was one of the top art supply stores in the country.
Seeking challenges!
I am looking for the right role to bring my software engineering skills and business experience to bear on new opportunities, and continue my lifelong goal of improving the world through software.
Capabilities
- Code in many languages (PHP, C++, Python, and more) and eager to learn more
- Graphic design and writing for the web and print, with a penchant for simplicity and accessibility
- Administer servers and databases, focusing on cost-effectiveness and reliability
- Communicate complex technical concepts to the less technical
- Prioritize tasks, making sure they're aligned with business needs and goals
- Lead a team of developers to build something great!
Aspirations
- Create software and systems that improve people's lives
- Master new technologies and skills
- Collaborate with a team of committed colleagues
Experience
I created a reporting and billing system for a telecom business that collected records from remote phone systems and integrated them into an SQL database.
While at Harvey Mudd College I jumped into the open source community, running early versions of Linux. I took over, from Linus, creation and distribution of the "root" disk used to install Linux in the days before distributions.
I was the "2nd lead programmer (games)" at Knowledge Adventure on an interactive CD-ROM game, "Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair" and the lead programmer on "Dr. Brain Thinking Games: IQ Adventure" using the same game engine as Warcraft III and Diablo.
As one of the founding members of the PHP Group, I was heavily involved in porting extensions from PHP/FI to PHP 3 and setting up and maintaining parts of the project infrastructure (bugs systems, documentation notes, and mailing lists). (I'm still active in the project today!)
At HomePage.com, I was the architect of the modular HTML component system that allowed end-users to add dynamic widgets to their free hosted web pages, and developed processes to manage ongoing development of a customizable white-labeled service.
I led the team at MySQL responsible for two redesigns of the corporate and community websites, and transitioned to the server development team to fix over 400 bugs in my first year, prototype a new storage engine based on acquired technology, and resurrect the neglected ODBC driver and bring the much-requested Unicode support.
As an active blogger and advocate of the open web, I created blo.gs, a website tracking service that was acquired by Yahoo. It tracked twelve million blogs, had over ten thousand users, and passed data along to more than ten other blog-related web services and search engines.
For the last 15 years, I was the general manager and co-founder of Raw Materials Art Supplies, which became one of the top 20 art supply stores in the country. Sales reached over $750k annually, we were trusted by leading manufacturers to introduce their new products into the marketplace, and harnessed technology to enable creatives to execute on their version. We founded the Los Angeles Plein Air Festival, which became the largest urban plein air festival in the US, and sparked many first-time art buyers into starting their collections.
I created Scat POS, an open source point-of-sale and ecommerce system. It includes integrations with credit card terminals, online payment services such as Stripe and Amazon Pay, shipping integration with EasyPost, and custom integrations into vendor systems.
Let's connect!
I am actively seeking new opportunities, so if you have something that aligns with my capabilities and aspirations, I'd love to talk! Email me.