Homesteading on a small farm on the west coast of Canada, living in an area known locally as "Paradise Valley" on the Sunshine Coast while telecommuting on a fibre internet connection. Troubleshooting code and tractors in equal parts some days.
But mostly, I love technology.
About
Software development, system administration, database design, deployment processes, change management, project management using agile and scrum, QA and test automation, requirements gathering and business analysis, interface design and UX testing, and development process management.
Not-for-profit administration involving the organization of volunteer resources with differing skillsets and mindsets to move forward in a (mostly) common direction. Non-deterministic research and development on small-scale local manual and automated manufacturing.
Work
DevOps
KeyNexus Inc.
Architecting and building a continuous integration and deployment framework on AWS and Google Cloud for a pre-existing virtual machine based software product. Working closely with developers, QA, and management to change the test and build process from “works on my machine” to “just works”.
Deploying a secure enterprise grade encryption key management service to the cloud.
Community Development Manager
Perforce Technologies Inc
Lead an international remote team to expand Perforce’s open source software offerings to include all major client software products to help customers more closely integrate our products to their internal workflow, increasing customer retention. Coordinated development, testing, and deployment of features for the Perforce Workshop as part of an effort to match other free service offerings in the market (ie: GitHub).
Coordinated technical and development support for Perforce Community Support channels.
Provided expert-level technical support to both internal technical consultants and external enterprise customers on open source integration.
Open Source Community Developer
Perforce Technologies Inc
Expanded Perforce’s community offerings by extending Perforce Swarm to serve as an open source community resource. Created automated test infrastructure, deployed and managed multiple development, test, and production environments. Planned, documented, architected, developed, tested, and deployed features for the Perforce Workshop.
Web Application Developer
Perforce Technologies Inc
Worked with a development team in a scrum-based process to build a CMS system on top of the Perforce versioning platform using the Zend PHP MVC framework and the Dojo javascript library.
Implemented several improvements to better support the structural organization of information within the system including content typing and content aggregation. Implemented several CMS modules to extend core functionality into optional areas, including content generation, social media integration, analytics, and data import modules.
Additionally, developed internal web tools to integrate and display information from different systems, including Salesforce.
Senior Developer
Revenuewire Inc.
Introduced a new agile-based development process incorporating new QA and Product Manager roles as well as separate but inter-related processes for both emergency changes and for regular releases. Assisted in the architecture and design of a high-availability, horizontally scalable service oriented architecture for e-commerce applications. Drove initiatives to make the development teamwork and communication more efficient, so that enterprise goals could more easily be accomplished on time.
Web Development Team Lead
IBBS
Designed an accessible high-availability user interface to the BBX platform. Written in PHP 5 using Smarty and jQuery, the UI was designed to be modular, dynamically configurable per user role, and unit-testable.
Frontend Team Lead
Parasun Technologies
Responsible for leading a team of 4 developers in ongoing OSS4 maintenance and feature enhancement. Coordinated feature development and time lines with Product Management team. Coordinated implementation details with DB and backend Java teams. Worked with Quality Assurance team to develop and enhance test cases for web applications including automated test cases.
Software Developer
Parasun Technologies
As a contractor, developed the Subscriber Ticket System, the ticket tracking software for the help desk. Included account search, ticket management and statistic management functionality. Implemented ajax functionality where appropriate, leading to a decrease in call handle time over previous software, reducing both budget and customer frustration.
Developed the UI framework for the OSS4 product, a next generation broadband service provisioning and management software. OSS4 supported service and device provisioning, a metered access service, voip provisioning, bandwidth shaping, alarms & monitoring, a dynamic management dashboard, and mapping with google maps integration. The UI was written in php5 with Smarty templates and used the dojo javascript framework for ajax and other advanced scripting functionality. The modular framework supported the ability to dynamically add self-contained, unit-testable widgets based on a configuration file, making it easier to divide work among a team of programmers.
Uses a temperature sensor and a relay to turn on/off a lightbulb to control the temperature in a homemade duck egg incubator. Intitially it had connections for an exhaust fan and an air circulation fan, but they proved to be unneeded.
Makerspace Front Door
Built a RFID-based door system for the local Makerspace. A python script reads the member number off of the RFID card and compares it to a local database of active members. A successful match opens the front door by turning a servo attached to the deadbolt. The database is updated nightly from our membership site via a cron job and the site’s API.
Oil Switch
Simple arduino sketch to turn a physical oil line valve off when the current to the system fan is turned off by the thermostat. Current is detected via an analog non-invasive current sensor and, when the current is on, the system turns a servo that will be attached to an oil furnace feed valve. Because the final installation was done by another (non-technical) party, the system had to be flexible as to mounting points and flexibility, so standard 1⁄8” stereo jacks were used for all connections (so off the shelf extensions could be used, if needed). Additionally, because this controls the heat for a greenhouse, and heat loss would cause catastrophic damage during the Canadian winter, fully redundant parts were delivered in case of failure.
Puppet
Designed and led a team to build a control system to allow the audience to control the largest humanoid marionette in North America from their mobile devices, shown at the BC Technology Summit in March 2017. The project used a captive portal built on a router using DDWRT to serve a control system running on a Raspberry Pi. Requests were routed to a backend Pi which interfaced with the motor controllers that moved the puppets limbs.
Non-profit
Projects done for community benefit.
Powell River Technology Coop
The purpose of the Coop is to promote technological product development in Powell River by providing opportunities and assistance and to build a strong community and a diverse local tech economy based on mutual support, fair prices, living wages, and respect for the natural and technological systems which sustain life.
To do this, the Coop operates and maintains a publicly shared workshop (the Powell River Makerspace) with a focus on technologically driven small scale manufacturing and prototype design.
Additionally, the Coop is working with the civic government, educational leadership, and community partners to develop a local innovation center, expanding on the Makerspace concept to include art, textile work, and other types of small-scale manufacturing and development. The innovation center will also include a marketplace and training areas in an effort to reduce the time from concept to local market.
Powell River Makerspace
Directly operated by the Powell River Technology Coop as a subsidiary organization, the Makerspace is a community driven shared workshop where like-minded technologists and telecommuters can meet and play in Powell River, BC.
The Makerspace is part of the Coop’s plans to grow the technology industry in Powell River by serving as the hub of tech education and entrepreneurship.
Victoria Makerspace
The Victoria Makerspace is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to sharing knowledge, skills, ideas and networks to promote commercialization of new technologies.
Assisted in the founding of the organization, developed bylaws and policies to govern the BC non-profit society. Researched, purchased, and built equipment and facilities; supervised and advised on expansion and relocation.
Developed training resources, arranged the purchase of class materials, instructed classes on different technologies and equipment, developed class-related processes, and provided training and coaching to new instructors.
Served as a primary contact for the organization, developed web technology infrastructure, managed website development and deployment.
Negotiated services and rates regarding large group attendance and instruction, including several local home school groups. Established ongoing policies for same.
Provided multiple presentations to local professional groups on the value and nature of the Makerspace as well as the technologies we used.
