Kevin Bedell

Ruby/Rails * Agile development * Team Lead

603-275-9461 • kbedell@gmail.com

SUmmary

Seasoned, flexible Technical Team Lead with experience at all levels of the software development process – from developer/coder, to Tech Lead, to systems/application architect, to department and project management. Track record of carrying significant responsibility for building and maintaining production applications in both start-up and large company environments. Team player and willing to play whatever role required to get the job done.

Strong communication and mentoring skills. Conference speaker veteran with 100+ published articles and interviews. Co-authored popular book on Jakarta Struts, a widely-used Java/J2EE Application Framework. Broad knowledge and deep expertise in developing and getting applications live using Ruby/Rails, RSpec/Cucumber, Git, Cloud Deployment. Education includes a BS in Engineering and an MBA.

Experience

Director of ENgineering – Backchannel Media, Boston, MA (10/2009 to present)

Responsibility for delivery of Backchannel Media’s primary business application. Directly manage ruby/rails developers, production operations, QA, project management, etc. Operate as scrum master in an agile development process. Also spent time coding and contributing to ruby/rails code.

Partial list of accomplishments:

· Developed overall schedule for core business application development. Brought project in on time.

· Wrote Ruby/Rails code. Use GIT, RSpec, Cucumber. Deployed to Engineyard. Used S3 for image storage.

· Interviewed and hired rails developers. Located and brought candidates in for interviews.

· Configured NAGIOS for production monitoring. Published ruby gem to integrate Rails servers to Nagios for monitoring.

· Host monthly ‘hackfest’ in conjunction with the Boston Ruby Group.

· Outsourced work to local Ruby/Rails consultants Thoughbot and Vermonster. Oversaw outsourced work and managed relationships.

Director of advertising technology – CourseAdvisor, Inc, Wakefield, MA (11/2006 to 1/2009)

Early employee of a start-up utilizing Search Engine Marketing in the Higher Education market. Developed deep knowledge of managing Search Engine Marketing including Google Adwords, Yahoo, MSN, etc using automated systems. Utilized Ruby/Rails/MySQL for most application work. Developed very deep skills as both a MySQL developer and a MySQL DBA.

Handled a broad range of responsibilities in a fast-growing startup including department management, coding, design, architecture, managing off-shore staff, etc. Staff was very lean and I did a great deal of coding in addition to management.

Technical duties included:

· Performed maintenance and modification of production Ruby/Rails application to support ongoing site needs.

· Maintained and extended an internal Ruby/Rails application for internal reporting and management.

· Data Warehouse star-schema modeling including fact, dimension and summary tables.

· Implemented a nightly batch ETL process based on Pentaho Kettle. Replaced it with a real-time ETL process written as a set of SQL scripts/procedures that allowed us to achieve a ‘live data warehouse’ 10-20 mins delayed from production.

· Wrote 10,000+ lines of MySQL Stored Procedures.

· Implemented deployment and batch jobs using Ruby / Capistrano.

· Was primary MySQL DBA for a 1TB+ set of databases including performing backups/restores, server migrations, capacity planning, performance tuning, etc.

· Architected, managed developers and performed detailed code review for an extension of the Java-based Quartz scheduler to enable it to schedule jobs on multiple servers.

· Maintained Python code for applications including fetching data feeds from our production site to feed the data warehouse.

Senior technical team lead – Axis Technologies, Burlington, MA (6/2005 to 10/2006)

Java/J2EE Team Lead, Architecture and Senior Development work. Worked on-site at Fidelity Investments in Merrimac, NH.

Consultant working on-site at Fidelity Investments doing Java/J2EE development. Performed senior development and architectural duties on a large, enterprise-class application with an intended user base of 10,000+ users. Assignment extended multiple times and eventually moved to the core, system framework team.

Worked with a wide range of technologies including IBM Websphere, Eclipse, Clear Case, SOAP-based Web Services and a range of other Java- and J2EE-based technologies. Performed code reviews and coordinated work with off-shore teams in addition to my core, development responsibilities.

Senior Consultant – Black Duck Software, Waltham, MA (9/2004 to 6/2005)

Open Source Software Management and Licensing Consulting. In addition to billable consulting time, I also wrote articles and white papers and spoke at Industry Conferences for this highly-visible start-up. I was an early employee of the company and developed/sold/delivered all early professional services offerings.

Select Projects:

• Top 10 Software Company – Performed detailed analysis of a well-known, shipping product with a very large, mature code base. Identified licensing issues including open source software licensed under restrictive licenses. Educated management and staff on open source licensing issues and management strategies.

• Top 10 Software Company – Worked with customer to design a service offering that met a specific set of needs they had and closed the sale of the initial services contract. Subsequently sold multiple follow-on engagements that contributed significantly to meeting sales targets during the early days of Black Duck Software. The service involved analyzing all open source libraries in use on particular projects within the company to identify possible licensing issues.

E-Business Architect - Sun Life Financial, Wellesley, MA (6/2001 to 9/2004)

Led and supported a full-range of technical development, architect, and implementation functions to enable seamless operations and to satisfy changing technology requirements for a leading financial services firm.

Select Projects:

• Administration Server - Served as key member of an architecture team responsible for evaluating the replacement of a mission critical mainframe application with a smaller, more flexible application based on Java/J2EE.

• New Business Underwriting System - Team Lead and Lead Architect/Developer; oversaw and supported the development and implementation of a J2EE-based system created to manage new business underwriting functions for the company’s Individual Insurance group. The system is integrated with 9 other systems including several external vendors. Communications are specified using XML/XML Schema and are implemented over JMS, SOAP/Web Services, e-mail, etc. using a mixture of application-specific XML formats and ACORD-standard (TXLIFE) formats. The system relied heavily on the previously developed Integration Hub infrastructure. I also oversaw an off-shore development team implementing an application that was to interface with this system.
• Integration Hub - Lead Architect / Developer for an internally developed Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) system created to serve as a core infrastructure for numerous future projects. The system is based on JMS/EJB/J2EE and was implemented utilizing a range of design patterns. The EAI saved the company a significant amount of money considering the high cost of a comparable commercial application.
• Rules Engine - Designed, built, and deployed a flexible Rules Engine based on Java and J2EE for general usage by Sun Life in various projects. Implemented rules specification using XML configuration documents; Rules Engine was integrated into newly developed Integration Hub application.
• Customer Billing System – Architect and Senior Developer leading and supporting the development of a web services-based billing system. Completed back-end system architecture, coded EJB's to support web services, defined web service SOAP/XML specifications, and developed tcp/socket communications to remote system. Mentored staff in design and development areas to ensure quality progress.
• Customer Transactions System - Designed and developed code for JMS/MQ Series communications to mainframe system. Completed subsystem architecture activities including development of Use Cases, Class Diagrams, and Sequence Diagrams. Wrote, debugged, and deployed JMS code for managing transactions to/from mainframe system. Worked with low-level code for MQ Series communications and performed maintenance on EJB's for transaction activity tracking.

Technologies:

Weblogic Server 5.1/6.1/7.0/8.1, Netegrity Siteminder, SQL Server 7/2000, Apache Axis, Netscape Enterprise Server, Netscape Directory Server (LDAP), J2EE, EJB, JMS, JMX, Servlets/JSP/Struts, JUnit, Ant, XML, SOAP/Web Services, Xerces/SAX/DOM/ JDOM/Castor, J2EE Architecture, UML, and Object-Oriented Design and Development.

Technical Manager - Viridien Technologies, Inc., Westford, MA (8/2000 to 6/2001)

Technical Management responsibilities including managing teams of developers, overseeing architecture, implementation and delivery of applications.

Select Projects:

• CVS Stores (http://www.cvs.com); high-traffic e-commerce site – Technical Manager directing system development, integration, testing and deployment to production platform. Performed code reviews and mentored junior staff. Had extensive customer contact. Directly managed 7 Engineers.
• Superdrug (http://www.superdrug.com); high-traffic e-commerce site – Technical Manager directing full development cycle, from early development through soft- and hard-launches. Coordinated aggressive launch schedule for demanding customer and met launch deadlines. Directly managed 14 Engineers and QA Staff.

Technologies:

iPlanet Application Server 6.0, iPlanet Web Server, Netscape Directory Server, ATG Dynamo Application Server, Dynamo Personalization Server, Dynamo Commerce Server, J2EE, JDBC, EJB, RMI, Servlet, JSP, Log4J, JUnit, Ant, CVS, Oracle 8i, 8.1.6, Sun Solaris 8, and Linux Operating Systems.

Web Application Architect - CMGI (1/2000 to 8/2000)

Served as Architect and Team Lead overseeing and supporting application development and web-based architecture initiatives.

Select Projects:

• CMGI Content Management System - Performed architecture, project management, and system development roles. Utilized Interwoven Teamsite, ATG Dynamo Application and Personalization servers, Oracle 8i, Apache web server, and Netscape Directory Server/LDAP Used XML/XSL technologies for presentation of dynamic content on site.

• CMGI Acquisition Tracking System - Lead Developer responsible for managing and 2 other Developers. Deployed the system on Solaris 5.6 with Oracle 8.05 and used Apache web server as web listener. Application was exclusively written using Oracle PL/SQL packages, stored procedures, and triggers.

Technical Sales Consultant - Oracle Corporation (6/1999 to 1/2000)

Served as a technical sales consultant conducting technical pre-sales work for a full range of clients spanning multiple industries. Specialized in Oracle Database, Java and Application Server products. Completed significant training on Oracle product suite.

Select Projects:

• $1 Million Plus Sale - Assisted web-based B2B company in architecting a site using Oracle 8i, Oracle Parallel Server, Oracle JDeveloper Java IDE, and Oracle Enterprise Manager with Performance Tuning and Change Management packs. This project generated over $1 million dollars in revenue.
• $750,000 plus sale - Assisted web-based advertising and media company in architecting a site using Oracle 8i and Oracle Application Server with Java and PL/SQL Cartridges. Provided on going support to the customer during the development process. This project generated more than $750,000 dollars in revenue.

Technical Presales Engineer - Information Advantage, Corporation (1/1998 to 6/1999)

Managed technical pre-sales responsibilities for a fast growing data warehousing software company.

Assisted a broad range of customers in the design and development of prototype data warehouse applications; defined data warehousing requirements and made recommendations for design/roll-out strategies. Technologies included Solaris/AIX, Oracle and Red Brick relational databases, Star Schema Data Modeling and Database/Data Warehouse Design.

Director of Information Systems - WELBRO Constructors, Inc. (3/1995 to 1/1998)

Functioned as hands-on Technical Manager who led this $100 Million Construction company through a major technology transformation to support changing business and technology needs. Was Technical Lead for a Reengineering project that resulted in a significant restructuring of the company.

Senior Software Engineer / Team Lead - Johnson Controls World Services (5/1988 to 9/1992)

Deployed high-reliability, complex applications based on C/UNIX. Served as Team Lead and directed software engineering projects and deployments for this diversified Fortune 200 company. Received 3 significant promotions in 5 years. Received the highest possible ratings for "Creativity in Approaching Problem Solving" and for "Technical Knowledge" during performance reviews.

Earlier Roles:

Senior Software Engineer - Automated Custom Systems – C/Unix Developer

Programmer/Analyst - Electrospace Systems – C/Assembly Language Developer

education

MBA, Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL

§ Merit Scholarship; Director and Project Leader - Crummer Consulting Group

BS Mechanical Engineering, Michigan Tech University, Houghton, MI

§ Michigan Higher Education Association Merit Scholarship

Professional Development

Certifications Earned:

• Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform
• Oracle PL/SQL – Passed Certification Exam
• Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE - NT)

Conferences/Presentations/Leadership Activities:

• Toastmasters International – ‘Competent Toastmaster’ and ‘Competent Leader’ designations.
• Former Toastmasters Chapter President.
• LinuxWorld Conferences – Speaker for Boston, Toronto, San Francisco conferences
• Edge 2005 East Conference and Expo - “Strategic Web Services”
• Edge 2004 East Conference and Expo - “Best Practices for Off-Shore and Distributed Development Projects”
• Wharton Technology Conference 2004 and 2005 – Panelist, Open Source Business/Technology panels
• IBM Internal Developer Conference (Winchester, England/2004) - “Emerging Open Source Business Models”
• Comdex 2001 - “Java Server Shoot-Out”
• Numerous other conference speaking engagements.

Publications:

• Book: "Struts Kick Start", ISBN: 0672324725, SAMS Publishing, 2003. Book on the Struts JSP/MVC Framework.
• LinuxWorld Magazine, SYS-CON Media, 100+ articles and interviews published on-line and in print.
• O’Reilly Network, O’Reilly Associates. 60+ Blog Posts/Articles published
• Linux Journal, Interview with DHH of Ruby/Rails fame (cover story) among other articles.
• Numerous other articles published on-line and in print.