About

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I am a software developer and development manager with more than fifteen years of professional experience. I live in Toronto, Canada.

Do you need help with:

  • Web application performance and scalability?
  • Software development using Ruby? (I also have a lot of experience with Java and a variety of other languages and tools.)
  • Ruby on Rails deployment and scaling?
  • System architecture?
  • Cloud computing, EC2 and Amazon web services?
  • Leading a software development team?
  • Agile software development process?

I have experience with all of these things and I’d be happy to help.

Experience

A few of the interesting things I have done are:

  • GigPark (named one of the top 10 Toronto web startups of 2009): as Director of Technology I built the first versions on my own and then expanded to a small team that I managed through to the acquisition by Canpages. I then completed the transition and integration with the Canpages.ca site. GigPark was built using Ruby on Rails and Amazon EC2.
  • Created several open-source projects including EC2 on Rails which was very popular at the time.
  • Spoke at the FutureRuby conference on Ruby web application scalability.
  • Founded a software company in 2003, we created a web-based product for improving the efficiency of on-boarding new employees and managing exiting employees. We defined a market which didn’t previously exist, and all major HR software now includes this functionality. We created a great product that our customers loved.
  • Built the first two versions of QuickTaxWeb, Intuit Canada’s online tax software, from 2000 to 2002. This was ground-breaking Java web development at the time and had huge scalability challenges which I enjoyed solving. We developed a stable and reliable app that our users loved.
  • Worked in Hamburg, Germany doing web development at the height of the dot-com boom.
  • Together with a great web designer and UX expert I launched the web development department of an ad agency in 1995. I did this while I was still completing my comp. sci. degree at the University of Toronto. It may have been a slight distraction from my studies at times.

Other interests

at_the_gym.jpgWhen I’m not developing software I can be found either with my son Miles, at the gym learning Jeet Kune Do and Filipino martial arts, or doing something active outdoors.You can follow me on Twitter, see my code on GitHub, and of course you can see who I recommend on GigPark.If you’ve enjoyed working with me or found my open source contributions useful, please recommend me on LinkedIn or Working With Rails or GigPark.