Vianiris "Via" Abreu is a graduate of Rutgers University. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Human Resource Management as well as a Bachelor's in Women and Gender Studies. Via joined Def Method after some time in a large Advertising holding company and some time in the Diversity Recruiting space. She has experience working across all aspects of the HR space with a special focus on Diversity Hiring.
Via is passionate about creating a fairer more just world both in and out of her work. She pursues this passion through her work at Def Method by creating and implementing programs to keep employees learning and engaged. Via enjoys all forms of story-telling and considers herself an "employee ally".
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech? "I sort of fell into working for Tech I should say. After spending some time working for a technical startup, I realized the benefits of working for creative hardworking people!"
Katie is an experienced product leader with a passion for using data, analytics and empathy to connect with customers. When she was young, this blend of analytical and creative thinking was reflected in her love of playing the piano (creating melodies from musical structures on paper), studying the overlap between Art and Physics (think Dali’s melting clocks and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity), and writing poetry about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (isn't it poetic that our bodies are comprised of electrons in uncertain locations?). Now, as an adult, she pursues this passion by merging storytelling and technology to execute products, flexing her creative and analytical muscles as needed to be the hub between different types of talents, working together to ultimately drive customer satisfaction.
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech? "My first "real" job was working at a small educational center in Brooklyn, where kids in Kindergarten through 8th grade came to improve their math, reading and writing skills. While the academic instructors were of course pivotal to students' successes, equally important was the role technology played: assessing student strengths and weaknesses, serving up customized lesson recommendations, and adapting skills to each student individually as they progressed through the curriculum. Technology then became a means by which we could help our kids more effectively and connect more deeply with parents. It became clear to me that understanding technology was a critical component in reaching larger goals and in making a more meaningful impact."
ON THE JOB
Balanced multiple users’ needs to launch a digital campaign management platform
Katie joined a team working on a new digital campaign management platform, which had a wide user base, competing goals and priorities across different stakeholders, and a tight timeline until launch. When Katie joined, the team was trying to make too many people happy at once, and in the process making no one happy (especially themselves!). With the launch date already set, Katie worked expeditiously with cross functional teams to cut through the noise to understand and create alignment around the key problems for which the product was trying to solve. With a more focused set of goals in mind for the near term, and a clear vision for the long term, Katie was able to work with her team of engineers and designers to prioritize needs and features and launch the platform on time. As a result, the productivity of media traders - the prioritized users - increased by 60%. This win propelled the team to proudly move forward on future priorities and features.
Launched a new learning management system to better meet the needs of a rapidly growing student body
Katie led a strategic initiative to onboard a new online learning tool for students looking to launch new careers in technology. The existing online tool would not be able to successfully handle the amount of growth projected in the next year. Katie used the “jobs to be done” framework to deeply understand the needs of a diverse set of students and stakeholders in order to evaluate new systems. Instead of blindly incorporating old features into the new learning management system, this framework provided a fresh perspective on how we were addressing pain points by focusing on the job that the old feature was doing, rather than the feature itself. This created space for the cross functional team to quickly prioritize needs rather than features, in order to imagine a completely new student experience.
Saved on operational costs by 30% while creating a better customer experience
When working with a pre-college test prep company, Katie led an operational initiative to lower the costs of students taking free proctored SAT and ACT practice tests at testing centers, while reducing the amount of time to provide students with their practice test results and feedback. The existing process relied on proctors collecting test grids, sending them to the company’s home office where another team scanned the tests and emailed the results to students and parents. This took too long and was too resource intensive. Further, the longer the student had to wait for results (sometimes up to 10 days with this existing process!), the less likely they were to purchase a test prep program. In order to solve this problem, Katie worked with a team of engineers and subject matter experts to design a webgrid - a mobile responsive web application for students to enter their test answers into in order to get immediate results. The results were impressive: a significant reduction in operational costs while simultaneously creating a better student experience and business results.
HIGHLIGHTED SKILL ACROSS THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
CreationIteration
Maintenance
KEY STRENGTHS
SKILLS
FIELDS OF EXPERIENCE
Terrance was born and raised in Harlem, NY. He gained his B.A. in Computer Science from Hobart and William Smith in 2018, and graduated from the Flatiron School in February 2019. He loves to play squash, dance, and write code.
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech? "I knew around the end of high school that I wanted to work in tech. It started with me wanting to build video games, which caused me to pursue a BA in Computer Science. While studying my major, I realized the vast influence programming has had and continues to have in our lives. From then, I knew I wanted to make a bigger impact than just creating something fun and entertaining. After getting my BA in Computer Science I attended the Flatiron School for Web/Software Development where I learned the skills needed to build those impactful services."
Languages & Technologies <Ruby> <Ruby on Rails> <PostgreSQL> <JavaScript> <React> <Redux> <HTML5/CSS3> <Swift> <Java>
Jenn worked for 10+ years in the business services division at a large ITS organization where she managed enterprise accounts around the globe. It was here that she found her passion in business operations, account management, and client partnerships, but she decided to take a deeper dive into the tech industry. Jenn was previously at a Chicago-based software firm where she fell in love with software design and development. At Def Method, Jenn is excited to fulfill her truest passion in helping people find solutions that strategically improve their businesses through the use of software engineering, product management, and technology.
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech? "It was right after I had my son that I realized how much I enjoy working with my clients and being able to improve their businesses. However, it was after having my daughter that I realized the impact technology was having not just on children, but adults as well. Clearly, there's a convenience factor that technology brings to us all but it's an important means to improve our everyday workflow in personal and business related tasks."
As a product manager, Alexa brings a strong suite of entrepreneurial skills to holistically understand a business and her clients’ needs. Previous to joining the Def Method team, Alexa led deep structural changes within her first venture, an event and design production business to grow opportunities for technology application in her management system. This process led her to develop her second venture, aflutter, an integrative creative events platform after raising $500k in angel capital. Alexa brings strong business acumen, as well as a deep background in launching technology applications, UX, and product to the team. As such, she looks at how your business will provide an interconnected digital experience from end to end for the primary customer by identifying gaps as well as providing solutions. Across her career, Alexa has worked on 12+ products, with B2C and B2B companies ranging from creative production and consumer technology to the legal industry. She continues to be an entrepreneurial business coach for 6+ small business owners.
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech? I became a partner in a small business that was not setup with digital tools to conduct business. For example, the floral shoppe was still using paper work orders in 2012. The process of finding the right tool then onboarding my team and implementing its use within our daily workflow allowed me to experience the value of technology as well as its hurdles in solving simple problems. I was curious about how to build tech products so I took a UX course with General Assembly. It completely changed my approach to my business and changed the trajectory of my career.
ON THE JOB
An MVP delivered in two weeks to reduce risk and validate product concept
Pager, a social media start-up company, came to Def Method with a detailed plan of a product to build. After discussions with the client, Alexa identified the need to understand a single customer persona with a specific problem to build out an initial MVP before tackling all of the problems the client looked to solve. A strong believer in user testing and validation, Alexa ran continuous experiments in a 2-week timeframe to efficiently test the business problem and release an initial version of the product, needing only a basic amount of code and resources to do so. As a previous small business owner, Alexa recognized the need for validation and reduction of risk to ensure that the client’s investment would be successful and leveraged effectively. By quickly delivering a clean, basic product to gain feedback, Alexa was able to use the data collected to confidently build out a more developed product.
Pivoting product strategy to effectively adapt to a COVID-impacted industry
In 2020, Alexa worked with a client in an industry significantly affected by COVID-19. In a time of rapid transition, Alexa immediately began identifying areas that needed to pivot in order to support the business and its customers, while maintaining financial stability. Having already been tracking the pandemic from a holistic perspective, Alexa prepared for a drastic change in the economic reality and readied herself to address the difficult business questions that would arise. Taking a critical look at the progress already made and future product strategy, Alexa worked with the client to develop a plan that put a pause on new features and focused on a digital launch to best serve and stay connected to customers during the pandemic. Due to the impact on customers’ ability to interact with the product in its original form, Alexa focused on developing new user personas through research to understand how to iterate on the existing product to continue encouraging user engagement. In combination with the digital launch, the enhanced understanding of COVID-impacted users will lead to a product pivot, setting up for success in an new and unfamiliar economy.
HIGHLIGHTED SKILL ACROSS THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
CreationIteration
Maintenance
KEY STRENGTHS
SKILLS
FIELDS OF EXPERIENCE
Isabelle has been a Product Manager for 12 years working in startups and consultancies such as TagPay, Pattern and Betterment, and Pivotal Labs. She has experience working on all aspects of the product lifecycle and on a wide variety of products including consumer facing products as well as enterprise and B2B products. She is passionate about working with cross-functional teams to bring bold ideas to fruition and de-risk products through research and experimentation. You can learn more about Isabelle on her website:
www.izzyberner.com
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech? "My Journey as a Product Person began as a product manager in 2008 when I discovered the opportunity to build a payments platform for the under-banked using a sound-based contactless transaction technology for a company called TagPay (think Apple pay for 1990s flip phones). From the moment I understood how software could be leveraged to solve meaningful problems, I was hooked."
Ask Me About:Test Driven Development, Clean & Readable Code, Refactoring, Agile Software Development, Full stack Engineering
Ben is a Senior Software Engineer with 10 years of experience both building and supporting software. After starting his career on the intranet support team at a large hospital managing data migrations and training users to use new systems, Ben acquired significant experience in healthcare technology, e-commerce, real estate, media, and fine art. At Def Method, Ben leads engineering teams, designs and implements software solutions, and coaches agile methodologies. Ben is also an avid snowboarder, surfer, mountain biker, and cook.
Languages & Technologies Ruby, Rails, Sinatra, Swift, SwiftUI, Python, Django, Flask, React, Redux, Javascript, PostgreSQL, Heroku, AWS, HTML, CSS, ElasticSearch
Projects
Healthcare:
Diversity Recruiting Platform:
Enterprise Media Company:
Server Co-Location Finder:
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "I spent a year working with a team of developers as an intermediary between the engineering team and the users. After a time, I didn't want to have to ask the engineers for everything so I started making small edits to the code base myself. An engineer saw what I was doing and helped me write my first hello world in Cold Fusion. I quickly moved to Ruby after that and have been hooked ever since."
Ask Me About:Test-Driven Development, Design Patterns, the Value of Agile practices
Jeff is a Principal Engineer with 15 years of software development experience. He is a full-stack software developer in a multitude of domains and technologies. He has experience in software architecture, design, coaching, mentoring and development. He has a strong Test-Driven Development and Object Oriented Design background and approaches projects with an emphasis on long-term maintainability. When he's not working, he enjoys playing video games and reading comics. He recently picked up the hobby of assembling and painting plastic miniatures.
Languages & Technologies Java, Ruby, C#, JavaScript, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Python, jQuery, React.js, Angular.js, .NET
Projects
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "I think it was when I played the first Civilization game. It could have been earlier, video games were definitely the entry point, but Civ was one of the first that I can remember wanting to know how things worked under the hood. I also have a distinct memory of doing some "modding" to it, which was probably in truth changing some .ini files and uploading a crude picture from paint to make it so that you could build Start Destroyers in the game."
Born in Northeast of Brazil in 1975. I am the third of my four siblings to have become a Software Engineer. I’ve been working as a Software Engineer since 2000 in the insurance, financial back office, cellular, drilling, and digital security industries. A couple of years ago, I moved to NYC to continue my journey as a Software Engineer and joined the Def Method team in 2017. I have three passions: programming, music, and skateboarding. These days I use my skateboard to commute to work, let music be my daily inspiration, and let programming be what feeds my intellect. That way I can have each of my passions present in my everyday life.
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "My oldest brother is to blame. When I was a child he was a Software Engineer at Banco da Amazonia SA in Brazil and he took me to his office to spend the night running batches and programming. I thought to myself, "I want to do this."
Languages & Technologies Java, Spring, Gosu, React, Javascript, Ruby, Rails, C#, .Net, Sql, Guidewire Studios
Joe brings his mix of engineering muscle, business acumen, enthusiasm for challenges, and technical leadership to the helm of Def Method. Before founding DM, Joe spent over a decade as a developer delivering high-quality software solutions spanning government, education, finance and e-commerce.
As the CEO and Founder of Def Method he emulates the brand values of transparency in business operations, trust among the team and partners, and excellence in code.
Joe is co-author of The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Third Edition. Outside of the office, he has helped to build the NYC developer community as lead organizer of GORUCO, a member of the Technical Advisory Board of the New York Founding, and an instructor at General Assembly.
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "I knew I wanted to be a software engineer at about the same time I wrapped up my graduate degree - in cinema studies.
At that point I was 'technical,' building some very basic software for NYU School of Medicine. I loved film, which I studied at night, but my day job was getting more and more interesting.
Finally, I decided that I could always fall back on my degree and pursue film in some form. So why not give this software thing a real shot?
The rest is history."
Languages & Technologies <Ruby> <Angular.js> <MySQL> <Python> <Clojure> <PostgreSQL> <RSpec> <Ruby on Rails> <Redis> <C#> <F#> <CSS3> <HAML> <Scala> <JavaScript> <jQuery> <Backbone.js> <Heroku>
Web Development Immersive, General Assembly
Ask Me About: Rails APIs, React, System Architecture, Design and Discovery Sprints, Rapid Prototyping, Test-Driven Development, Agile XP principles, practices and process, iOS development
Joshua is a Senior Software Engineer with 7 years of experience. He is a generalist with a diverse background, considering himself a “Swiss-army knife” of engineering, who prides himself on being able to jump into situations requiring learning many skills. Joshua most enjoys leading his teams to success by naturally fostering creative-collaboration through leadership, facilitation, and coaching. Joshua is originally from New York but has lived in various places throughout the country and traveled around the globe. In his free time, Joshua loves to write, read, bake bread, snowboard, play nerdy board games, and be out in nature.
Languages & Technologies Ruby, Python, React, Redux, Node, PostgreSQL, RSpec, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, CSS3, SQL, HAML, jQuery, Angular.js, Backbone.js, Heroku, Objective-C, MongoDB, Redis, HTML5/CSS, Swift, Docker, Kubernetes, Typescript, SwiftUI, Combine, Twilio, Stripe, Kafka
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "I transitioned into the tech world from being a filmmaker. Video game development served as a bridge between the two fairly disparate worlds of movies and tech. But the overlap was there of creative group problem solving and this has always been something I’ve thrived doing. I really knew I wanted to do something in tech when I realized I wanted to make innovative “tools" for people that would empower them. My focus has shifted somewhat over the years but the core values of innovation and empowerment still guide me powerfully."
Master of Health Policy and Administration, Washington State University
Ask Me About: Design Systems, Storyboarding, Accessibility Guidelines, Rapid Prototyping, Information Architecture, Developer Handoff, Working with Style Guides, Design Workflows, Figma
Kent Robinson is a designer and researcher passionate about building scalable applications. He has 7 years of experience in design, strategic planning, and team building experience, specializing in user research, rapid prototyping, and visual design. After founding two startups as an operator and lead designer, he gained extensive experience consulting and building dozens of products in the startup and enterprise world. He enjoys helping clients turn ideas into actionable concepts and find true Product-Market fit. Kent is originally from Utah and has lived in almost every western US state along the Pacific coast, spending many summers travelling around in a camper van he built himself. He enjoys biking, skiing, slacklining, and playing with his husky.
Design Skills: Empathy Maps, User Interviews, Journey Maps, User Personas, Storyboarding, Affinity Diagrams, Site Maps, Design Systems, Hi-fi Mockups, Prototyping, Usability, Testings, Developer Handoff, Style guides, Branding Materials
Software Skills: Adobe CC, XD, Sketch, Invision, Figma, Zeplin, Marvel, Github, Hotjar, Jira, Trello
Other Skills: Business Strategy, Product Management, Kanban/Scrum, Video Editing
When did you know that you wanted to be a UI/UX Designer? "When I started my own company and realized how bad our product looked. No one was using our product and I wanted to do something about it and figure out why. I taught myself how to make a product more useful, usable, and enjoyable. I scrambled to consume everything I could find on research methodologies, information architecture and wireframing techniques. I took several online courses, went to meetup groups and started shadowing an adept, seasoned designer. By the time we sold our software to an industry competitor I had a working knowledge of the UX process and my passion for building engaging, user-friendly products was born."
Katherine Zhao is a graduate of Princeton University. At Princeton, she co-founded a theater company, planned its first season of shows and events, and managed operations of the company in its first season. She led marketing efforts to establish its brand as a theater company focused on representing diverse experiences and worked to establish its presence in the university community. In her current role as Marketing Lead at Def Method, Katherine is building the Def Method community and presence in the NYC tech scene and working with partners to build strong and sustainable digital products.
When did you know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
"I've always loved starting my own clubs and organizations at school whenever I felt like there was a space in the community that needed to be filled by one. There's something really exciting to me about adding value to different spaces and communities and people."
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech?
"In college, I took a computer science class and was super excited to learn more about the growing influence of technology on our lives. Then I went to an entrepreneurship conference where I heard about the useful products and services that tech innovators are creating."
Ask Me About: Full-Stack Development, Scaling Solutions, Process, Test-Driven Development, Platform Architecture, Third-Party Integrations
Keith is a self-taught Senior Software Engineer with ten years of engineering experience. He started his career working at the University of Arizona’s Language Learning Lab, before starting his own captive portal company. After moving to NYC and building software for several fashion companies, he joined Def Method in 2016 and has been providing programming, management, and consulting services.
Keith excels at understanding all parts of an application and ramping up quickly on new projects. He has experience leading engineering teams and coaching clients on development and agile best practices.
When he's not writing code, Keith likes to learn human languages, make puns, woodwork, ride bikes and find beautiful places to hike.
Languages & Technologies Ruby, Python, MySQL, RSpec, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, jQuery, SS3, MongoDB, Redis, jQuery, PHP, React.js, Heroku, Aurelia, Sinatra, Django, Postgres, AWS Services
Campaign Finance Technology: Led scaling efforts during the beginning of Covid-19 quarantine, when campaign finance technology became the only viable method for people to donate to NYC-based political campaigns.
Art Museum: Rebuilt three archive applications’ front-ends and created a standardized API interaction design.
Government Agency: Helped build the front-end of a flood risk calculator to compute insurance prices for all addresses in NYC’s 5 boroughs. Also helped refactor the calculator when FEMA updated their flood insurance rates.
Fashion-Tech Startup: Worked with the team to build the front-end of an E-commerce platform for preordering high fashion clothing and the admin area to editorialize any page. Keith managed the remote team in India and also built an isometric rendering engine based on Algolia and Mustache.js templates.
Flash Sale Startup Post-Acquisition: Completed overhaul of the front end of the site and the eventual integration of sale-affiliate reporting to the acquiring company's corporate APIs.
Government Contractor: Taught the engineering staff React.js and React best practices, and provided a roadmap for implementing React throughout the rest of the application.
Early Stage Startup: Build a custom captive portal to monetize commercial internet connections
Ask Me About: Test Driven Development, Agile Software Development, Clean Code, Refactoring, Handling Legacy Code
Senior Software Engineer, Mark Simpson brings over 20 years of software development experience to Def Method. He has been involved in software architecture and design, coaching and mentoring and development in numerous environments, domains and team sizes. He has extensive experience in the design and implementation of diverse technologies.
Languages & Technologies Typescript,JavaScript, React.js, Redux, Angular.js, Clojure, Common Lisp, CSS3, Docker, Heroku, MongoDB, MySQL, Python, ReactiveX, Redis, Ruby
Projects
Blockchain:
Worked closely with end-users and product managers to implement back-office tools for managing blockchain assets including the customer's own crypto-currency.
Learned programming languages and technologies (Go & Docker) on the fly to get the needed work done with the client-team didn't have the bandwidth to work on those parts.
High-end Real Estate:
Worked with client team to produce new version of broker facing property search application, while maintaining and integrating features from the old system.
Also consulted on Agile practices such as retrospectives and helped make them 'stick'.
Options Volatility:
Joined team working to add features to existing application to make it useful/usable by a new set of users.
Learned/reacquainted languages/technologies on the fly to get the job done.
Learned, then taught, customer team how to test and write redux-saga code which was in the codebase but unfamiliar to current customer team.
Logistics Company:
Consulted with team to reinforce Agile processes (regular retrospectives, more informative iteration planning meetings).
Configured management tool adhering to ITIL standards to maintain application environments and availability
Ed-Tech Company:
Developed software for a mission critical detailed network discovery, device monitoring, topology visualization, and RCA tool
Worked with the client team to extend and maintain the application which helps postgraduate programs market to students by building flexible jQuery based web form plugins to gather student information and interest quickly and seamlessly.
B2B Data Centers:
Took over (unfinished) product from previous vendor and brought it to a state where an MVP could be released and produce useful information.
Worked with customer to narrow the MVP definition
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer?"Since I was very little I wanted to be a 'scientist' of some kind. Around the time I was in Junior High, Digital Equipment Corporation moved into my town - part of the deal was that they'd donate computers to the school system. In 8th grade 'Industrial Arts' class we were shown how to use one to write a simple Basic program (it was actually a VT52 networked with the PDP-11(?) in the high school). Something about that dumb program got me hooked."
Merziyah is a detail-oriented, multifaceted product manager with over 8 years of experience in Product Management. Prior to working as a PM, Merziyah was a software developer who found a knack for understanding stakeholder needs and communicating effectively as a liaison to engineering, design, and upper management. As such, she brings deep technical knowledge to her clients, along with her expert ability to find the root of a problem, scope a project, and deliver feasible results. At Def Method, Merziyah has worked on 14+ products focused on driving startups to their MVP. A generalist at heart, Merziyah has extensive experience with B2C and B2B products, across various industries, such as healthcare, finance, and consumer goods.
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech? "I have always been fascinated by computers starting back in the day when I installed Lotus Suits by feeding in 30 3.5" hard disks and learnt what software had to offer. Today it's the application of technology to solve basic human problems in unique and innovative ways that fascinates me."
ON THE JOB
Balancing cost and value to prioritize clients’ needs
On a government-run project working with the Campaign Finance Board (CFB), Merziyah worked within a fixed budget to maintain and enhance a platform used by campaigns to collect contributions. As a product experiencing increased user growth, there was a need to refactor and optimize the feature set to support the growing user base. To ensure that the optimizations would remain within the scope of the client’s budget, Merziyah critically evaluated the cost of addressing issues via support, versus optimizing the product in order to balance time and resources appropriately. Through the evaluations, she helped the client determine which opportunities needed allocation of engineering resources for a permanent solution and which issues were better to deprioritize.
Experimentation to improve team performance
Merziyah was asked to jump in on a project where the team was flustered, disorganized, and unable to deliver around on the set expectations. Unable to set realistic timelines, the engineers often scrambled to finish requested features, resulting in the production of non-prioritized and technically faulty code. Merziyah was able to quickly identify the root cause of the issues as lack of engineering involvement and lack of data for accurate estimation. Through continuous experimentation of agile team processes, such as weekly planning and grooming, regular retrospectives for team feedback, and collection of velocity, time tracking, and delivery date data, Merziyah increased the productivity of the team. These processes gave engineers the opportunity to be more hands on and committed to user stories, improving their motivation and ability to succeed. The data collected gave the team the ability to reflect on past work to better estimate future work. The process concluded with increased productivity due to happier engineers who were able to set the right delivery expectations with the stakeholder.
Identification of core challenges to feasibly build a product
A non-profit client was looking to build a new member center for their website that would allow their donors access to new features as well as the ability to manage their donations online. Although seemingly straightforward, the challenge was that the clients’ website operated on one CMS system, but the donation data was driven by a donor CRM system without a clear link of data between the two systems. Merziyah talked to different teams across the organization to better understand the nuance of how the systems were set up, how the data could be linked between the two, and what the technical challenges of doing so were. Applying her technical knowledge, Merziyah identified the required data exchange in order to present a solution to connect the online portal to the donor CMS system. Going above and beyond the fundamentals of developing a product roadmap, Merziyah took her role to the next level by identifying exactly where the challenges and considerations were before launching and building the product. In doing so, she mitigated the risk of losing donors by laying out the necessary product requirements in order to ensure a seamless integration between the donor’s online experience and client’s backend donor CRM.
HIGHLIGHTED SKILL ACROSS THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
CreationIteration
Maintenance
KEY STRENGTHS
SKILLS
FIELDS OF EXPERIENCE
Ask Me About: Full-Stack Development, Test-Driven Development, Agile Software Sevelopment, Functional Design, Linux Administration
Michael is a Senior Software Engineer with 12 years of experience in Full-Stack and native application development across all phases of the product life cycle. He has owned every part of the software development lifecycle and has designed and implemented the entire IT infrastructure for a growing company. Michael's experience includes building networks and servers, supporting end users, gathering requirements, designing, building, and deploying complete applications; implementing ERP systems; and plenty of troubleshooting. Michael loves Linux and Linux System Administration, as well as teaching and learning!
Languages & Technologies TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Redux, RxJS, Testing Library, Python, Django, Flask, C#, .NET, Node, HTML/CSS, Nginx, SQL, Linux, Kubernetes, Docker, Ruby, Rails
Projects
Campaign Finance Technology: Performed data maintenance for a campaign fundraising platform
Fashion E-commerce: Implemented product search for a children's fashion brand, while improving overall site performance by several times.
Delivery E-commerce: Developed tooling and services to enable ultra-fast product delivery from a variety of retail locations.
FinTech: Developed user interface for a derivatives trading platform.
Sports Team Management: Built out a front-end web application for managing youth sports teams
When did you know that you wanted to work in the tech space? "When I was young, my family had a Commodore 64. I spent hours playing games and fumbling around with BASIC. Then, as a teenager, I discovered Linux and became fascinated with how an operating system is constructed, and with the idea of software developed in the open, as a community."
Paul is an engineer, musician, and bibliophile. He is well-versed in web and mobile development and is committed to software craftsmanship and professionalism with a determination to build technical excellence and business value. Currently, he is working primarily with Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, React, PostgreSQL, Python, Django, Objective-C, Swift, and related technologies.
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "I was first introduced to programming twenty years ago at the age of 7 with QBASIC on a DOS laptop, typing and modifying short programs published in Boys’ Quest Magazine (http://funforkidzmagazines.com/back-issues?cat=5&limit=all).
Software’s promise of creating something purely from one’s imagination was thrilling. It still is. The excitement of transforming empty text files into functioning systems has been unparalleled for me."
Languages & Technologies <Ruby> <Python> <Java> <PostgreSQL> <RSpec> <Ruby on Rails> <JavaScript> <Objective-C> <C> <C#> <jQuery> <Backbone.js> <Heroku> <Swift> <React.js>
Case Management System for Human Services: Lead a team to meet SOW feature requirements and refactored Javascript to pay down technical debt and allow faster new feature delivery
Mobile Wallet Software: Developed mobile payment processing tools, administrative portals, custom analytics processes, and APIs for web and mobile application
Educational Nonprofit: Built enterprise information systems for document management/delivery and text analysis tools
Ask Me About: Front-end Development, Back-end Development, iOS App Development, Troubleshooting, Building An MVP, How to Communicate with your Engineers
Steve is an experienced software engineer with over a decade of professional experience in full-stack development. He takes an approach to thoroughly understand the business side of a product before diving into development. In his spare time, Steve enjoys hiking, cooking, working on digital art and music creation, reading, and game development.
Languages & Technologies Java, Javascript, iOS, Swift, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Ruby, Rails, Kotlin, Python
Projects
Healthcare: Developed an iOS application in Swift with Rails API and a React administrative interface from scratch.
Media and Technology Company: Upgraded a significantly outdated Rails application to a more modern state and set up the application deployment on a new infrastructure.
Social Media Startup iOS application: Built out features for an iOS application using Swift; focused on onboarding, image sharing, and topic subscription flows.
Government Agency: Developed features for and supported a campaign-finance web application, working with Rails and PostgreSQL.
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "My interest first began when I was 10, when my parents brought home our first computer (Gateway 2000). I started by exploring every folder I could navigate through looking for games, pictures, and sound files to play with. Over time, I eventually started creating my own games, artwork, and audio, as well as teaching myself programming languages. The ability to create and do anything I could dream up is what drew me in and keeps me interested and active to this day."
Tom started working in the software industry in 2012. Between 2012 and 2015 Tom worked on Windows desktop applications and transitioned into a Full Stack developer in 2015. Since 2015 Tom has worked on a variety of platforms and technology stacks.
Languages & Technologies C#, ASP.NET, T-SQL, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, HTML, CSS, Ruby, Rails, Java, PostgreSQL
Projects
Financial: Bootstrapped the onboarding experience for a financial startup using React, Spring, and a variety of compliance services.
Fashion: White labeled an existing Ruby on Rails fashion sharing product so that it could be branded by any given company looking to collect feedback on its fashion line.
Legal: Created a functioning investor demo for a document review platform in React and Ruby on Rails.
Real Estate: Created a "cross framework" integration in a code base that was switching from Angular to React so that Angular services could be piped into React during migration.
Crypto-currency Finance Platform: Worked closely with the compliance department of a Crypto-currency exchange to ensure that their internal back-office tools met the Department of Finance's expectations. Later helped rebuild and migrate customer facing trading website, focusing on keeping both platforms fully functional during the transition.
Education Technology: Worked closely with offshore development team to implement multi-language search on learning management platform. Implemented connections to new learning management system, and supported client transition to new platform. Provided support to keep platform running near platform's end of life.
Education Technology: Assisted in migrating large corporate client from end of lifed platform to a modern platform by increasing API performance beyond what was documented against a strict timeline.
Education Technology: Worked with client team to plan and begin transition of product suite running on .NET Framework 4.6 to .NET Standard.
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? My interest in programming was first piqued by a highschool electronics class project. The goal of this project was to get a small 3 wheeled robot wired up with sensors such that it could navigate a small floorplan, find a candle, and finally blow it out. Having not written code previously this felt like a difficult task to complete. After reading through manual that came with the STAMP board that we were using I was finally able to get the robot to turn left in response to waving my hand infront of a sonar sensor mounted to the front of the robot's chassis. That was the moment I knew I was hooked on learning about software development.
Ask Me About: Front-end development, Back-end development, Agile Software Development, Responsive Web Design, Web Accessibility
Christine is a Software Engineer with experience in data analytics, marketing, and consulting. As a graduate of Flatiron School and Carnegie Mellon, she has 3 years of experience in designing websites, consulting, and analyzing data. When not working with the latest and greatest technologies, she enjoys game nights with friends, looking for new investment opportunities, and relaxing with a podcast or magazine.
Languages & Technologies Javascript,Typescript, React, Node, Python, Flask, Ruby, SQL, PostgreSQL, Rails, HTML, CSS, Docker, Heroku
Legal-Tech Company: Developed a tool to help law firms visualize the potential long-term impact of a merger or acquisition.
Legal-Tech Startup: Built a proof-of-concept project for providing accused persons and defense attorneys transparency into the legal system using data visualization.
Sports Technology Company: Built out a new and improved site for sports team managers to manage their players, games, and scores directly through the browser, which were features previously only available through their mobile apps.
When did you know that you wanted to work in tech? "Back when I was using only Excel, I was manually combing multiple separate csv files to create a weekly reports. After doing this time-consuming (and error-prone) task a few times, I thought there had to be a better way of doing this and there was - with a simple, reliable command line script. That was when I discovered the power of programming."
Robert Runes is a Certified Public Accountant and has been a senior financial officer for businesses in the construction, home building, distribution and real estate industries. He has also served as senior financial officer for two not-for-profit institutions. In his currentrole as Controller for Def Method, he is assisting senior management in the development of long-term strategies to maximize operating results and long-term growth.
Ask Me About: Front-end development, Back-end development, APIs, Platform Architecture, Third-Party Integrations, Agile Software Development, Mobile Apps, Building an MVP, What’s new in SwiftUI
Yisselda is a Senior Software Engineer with 6 years of professional experience in software build, maintenance, evolution, and consulting with diverse customers. She holds a Masters degree in Computer Science, with a specialization in Human Machine Interface and Artificial intelligence. Yisselda acquired experience as a software consultant in fintech, fashion tech, healthcare, and developed internal tooling for YoutubeMusic at Google.
Languages & Technologies: Ruby, Rails, Swift, SwiftUI, Java, C#, Python, Django, React, Redux, Javascript, WPF, HTML, CSS, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, Heroku
Projects
Healthcare: Built a multi-platform native iOS app for an IOT device to help patients track their treatments and connect via Bluetooth.
Social Media: Lead the initial architecture of an iOS app and API for a new social media platform allowing people to connect with close friends. Prototyped a solution to test out the new concept.
E-commerce: Lead the build from scratch to first features of an iOS mobile app for shopping assistants and drivers within the supply chain logistics to enable ultra-fast delivery operations.
Open Source Project: Piloted a project to generate slack themes from images. Design architecture, implement and maintain the deployment of the app. Slackable Themes
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer?
One summer, I was building a website for a musician as well as helping around in the recording studio. At that time, I was interested in becoming a sound engineer. I found getting the website up and running and coming up with the creative content so rewarding that I persevered in Computer Science!
Steve is a software craftsman, engineering manager, and team lead with more than 20 years of experience in full-stack software development, architecture, agile coaching, and team building. Steve has lived in both New York and Boston and currently lives with his wife, son, and cats in Madison, Wisconsin. He enjoys playing classical guitar, reading, playing video games, and eating Thai food.
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "My Dad worked in computer manufacturing, so we always had computers and spare parts around the house to tinker with when I was growing up. I saw them more as fun toys to play with rather than a career aspiration. That changed while I was working on my senior research project at Wesleyan. I'd spent months unsuccessfully trying to levitate a droplet of liquid so my adviser and I could observe how it oscillated. Seeing my frustration, my adviser suggested I try creating a computer simulation. In less than a month, I had a working visualization written in C++ and spent the rest of the year adding features and exploring the physics of fluid dynamics. That experience showed me the power that software has to improve our understanding of the world and set me on my career path."
Languages & Technologies: JavaScript, TypeScript, React.js, AFrame, Node.js, Express.js, Ruby, Rails, PHP, Laravel, Java, Spring, Hibernate, Groovy, Grails, C++, HTML, CSS, SASS, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Docker, Rancher, AWS
Projects
Drug Discovery: Led a team in building a Laboratory Informatics Management System (LIMS) for a high-throughput biological screening facility from the ground up. System used 24/7 by more than 100 biologists, chemists, and automation engineers and handled workflow and data capture for testing 2+ million compounds per month.
Healthcare: Led a team in building a system to improve employee engagement and reduce turn-over at skilled nursing centers and long-term care facilities.
eCommerce: Led a team in building a kiosk application that allows people to create and purchase customized jackets.
Open Source Project: Developed JustNotSorry, an open source Chrome extension for Gmail that helps people be more aware of the language they use in their emails.
Open Source Project: Developed ElectionVR, an open source data visualization of U.S. presidential election data in virtual reality.
Ask Me About: Front-end development, back-end development, APIs, Agile methodologies, Rapid Application Development (RAD) platforms, cross-platform tools
Matt is an experienced Software Engineer with 7 years of experience working in the information technology and services industry. He completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Connecticut and has been a software consultant since 2014, providing customers with product support, design, and implementation as well as Agile coaching. When he isn't helping clients build amazing web applications, Matt enjoys sports, the great outdoors, and traveling the world.
Languages & Technologies: Javascript, Typescript, React, Ruby, Rails, ASP.NET, Python, TSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, HTML, CSS, SASS, Heroku
Projects
Sports Statisticians: Developed new features on a 10 year old legacy system that provides historical statistics for 6 professional sports leagues and 2+ national broadcasters
Sports Broadcasting: Developed a system to generate real-time statistical information for NBA and NHL broadcasts. System is used by 2+ national broadcasters as well 3+ major-market local broadcasters on a nightly basis
Legal-Tech: Built front-end and back-end of a proof-of-concept project for a legal-tech app
Open Source Project: Refactored JustNotSorry, an open source Chrome extension for Gmail that helps people use more empowering language in their emails, to use modern web frameworks and improve user experience
Healthcare: Lead a team of developers to implement a web application allowing doctors to analyze and suggest new claim-filing policies for various healthcare companies
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "I got my first taste of programming when I accidentally stumbled across my browser's developer tools at the age of 11. Realizing that there were far more languages than and uses for HTML (other than pranking friends), I became increasingly fascinated by the world of computer science."
Ask Me About: Best practices, Object Oriented Design, Full-stack development, REST, Building an Automation Framework, Test Driven Development, Clean Code, Agile Software Development
James is a Senior Software Engineer with a Masters degree in Information Systems Management. He started his career in 2012 at IBM, working on mission critical networking and case management systems for IBM Cloud and Watson Health.
He has 8 years of experience in customer facing roles surrounding the product lifecycle, from the phases of planning, analysis, design, implementation, and delivery to maintenance.
Other experience includes:
Certified IBM Application Developer for Cúram SPM V7.X
Building prototypes to investigate new technologies and patterns
Utilizing Domain Driven Design and design thinking to provide solutions to customer problems
Working alongside Product Managers to drive MVPs from product planning to implementation
Mentoring junior members
When not brushing up on best practices and new technologies, James can be found playing guitar and finding new places to travel.
Languages & Technologies
Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, REST, Hypermedia, GraphQL, SQL, Oracle, DB2, Ruby, Rails, HTML, Cucumber, CSS, React, Redux, Bash, Linux, Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, Gradle, Maven, Ant
Object Oriented Design and Design Patterns, Domain Driven Design, Test Driven Development, Behavior Driven Development
Projects
Sports Team management web application:
Built the front-end MVP for a web application responsible for managing and displaying sports teams, events, and statistics
Health Care Case Management:
Investigated and implemented API best practices and patterns across the organization
Contributed to open source research
Utilized automation to drastically cut developer setup time by 50% across the organization
Created and successfully handed over end-to-end test automation framework
Service Lifecycle Manager:
Designed and implemented from the ground up an automation framework designed to fulfill user and contract acceptance tests
Validated Kafka messages and REST API endpoints and payloads
Information Technology Infrastructure Library:
Led knowledge transfer and collaborated with external customers to identify and drive to resolution all software issues
Configured management tool adhering to ITIL standards to maintain application environments and availability
Network Management:
Developed software for a mission critical detailed network discovery, device monitoring, topology visualization, and RCA tool
Re-developed an applet based topology visualization UI into a user experience rich HTML5/ Web 2.0 Style UI
When did you know that you wanted to be a developer? "I was always considered the 'technical one' at home growing up. This meant setting up TV's (VCR's, if anyone remembers those!), Stereos or just anything that was plugged in or took batteries. In general, I have always loved learning and understanding how things worked. I did a HTML course when I was younger but when I wrote my first 'Hello World' in Java, I knew this was where I wanted to be."