Liz Howard Email & Phone Number

I founded another school, y'all. I run the social media, teach, recruit, run classes, manage teachers, and do cutting-edge AI capabilities research backed by a group of multi-disciplinary scientists applying this to their own disciplines as rapidly as possible. We're trying to prevent as many of the AI apocalypse/dystopia scenarios as possible.

https://lizthe.dev/Currently founding https://TheMultiverse.schoolRecent clients:CodePath.org - Director of Programs Karat.io - Content Development Process Consulting & Psychometric Validity Evidence GenerationCSUMB / Cal State Network (professor / course developer / video training producer)Raytheon (enterprise training)Girl Develop It (curriculum, teacher training & recruitment)Edify (Team Restructuring CTO)Examples of projects I’ve done in the last few years:Startup Engineering Crisis Management & Emergency Team RestructureEnterprise TrainingTechnical Curriculum DevelopmentTechnical Editorial & Content ManagementKnowledge Base DesignArchitectural Review & ScalingCloud Billing OptimizationMVP DevelopmentEngineering Management MentorshipInstructional DesignContinuous Improvement Process DesignGrowth Marketing (technical educational events, aka Developer Evangelism)

Restructured the team, roadmap, and product strategy during a focused strategic refactoring period. Reduced engineering spend by 80%.

Taught advanced algorithms the Computing Talent Initiative. Videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZXAM5-21A3wfAnPgXtTIUn-dVsut70U5

∙ Directed 12 program managers overseeing all CodePath courses, consisting of 100+ teachers with thousands of students per cohort, across all of CodePath’s 38 partner universities. ∙ Moved all of CodePath’s courses to remote learning over the pandemic.∙ Taught CyberSecurity program; provided technical and instructional leadership.∙ Wrote and taught a 3-year Data Structures and Algorithms program.∙ Ran DevOps for an active Capture The Flag competition.∙ Improved NPS scores to 90+ for all courses.

Seattle, Washington, Us

My role has been to lead the Research and Development function at Karat as both a Program Manager, and as a contributing IC Data Scientist and prototyper of new models and methods for scoring and evaluating Software Engineers. Since 2019 I have been “taking off hats” and handing them out. Currently I primarily focus on gathering psychometric validity evidence, gathering and evaluating adverse impact data, and mentoring the content team to produce more effective content on a reliable schedule. This is a large-scale, long-term, complex research project with many internal and external stakeholders.Some features of this work entail:- Collaborating with interdepartmental stakeholders to produce software requirements that meet everyone’s needs- Translating requirements into technical solutions, evaluating the technical feasibility of those solutions- “Medium Data” research (~100gb) (for example, web-scraping job descriptions for massive research projects, or creating NLP models to translate job descriptions into a standard language of competencies)- Writing Python for data analysis, to produce working prototypes, or building out scoring models- Creating multi-year research roadmaps with ELT- Working with industry-leading I/O Psychologists to create scientifically valid competency modelsensuring on-time delivery and hand-offs of new business processes, training, and materials that have downstream effects on the entire business- Providing my skills and experience as a Professor of CS to help create a standardized language of KSAs- Leading cross-functional panels of job experts to validate KSAs- Leading cross-functional teams to create standardized rubrics from KSAs- Reviewing content for relevance towards KSAs- Providing training on how to create industry-aligned content- Evaluating new technologies and their potential impact on many key areas of our business

San Francisco, Us

Stack: Node, Python, Mongo, React, React Native, dialogflow / NLP, AWS, & an open source technical curriculum + community of hundreds of thousandsRan a team of 8-16, spread across up to 6 timezones and 7 countries.Directly managed and mentored a cross-functional team of technical writers, interns, junior devs, senior devs, data scientists, architects, designers and product managers.In my time here I have:Directly contributed code to several prototypes and personally fought devops fires, ran many technical war-rooms and mob programming sessions.Rearchitected the curriculum model to support reporting and organized the content into courses that have created a new Line of BusinessDeveloped a continuous process to reduce average cloud spendReoriented engineering team culture to value revenue validated experiments Researched, designed, prototyped, and market-tested a new product using existing platform assets that has created a new LoBTrained every developer up at least one technical “level”, trained all developers up at least one “level” in soft skills and communication by creating a learning cultureImproved developer throughput and autonomy with a microservice architecture and team structureLaunched and ran a curriculum fellowship that produced 3 courses worth of content and trained and onboarded 5 full-time hires in 6 monthsImplemented a 360 review system and promotion ladder system that the team finds engaging and satisfyingRecruited and hired 8 engineers, 3 of them senior developersImproved reliability through 100%+ user scaling (uptime rose despite more users) & developed processes around reliability & escalation of critical issuesBrought data management into compliance with GDPR (on time!)Personally marketed new products and services with public speaking and training efforts and my personal networkPersonally audited securityWrote several courses, outlined dozens more Managed several client relationshipsTaught classes

Boulder, Colorado, Us

Created and managed the curriculum for the nationwide Galvanize Web Development Immersive (in JavaScript, Node, Express, Angular, React, and Python), as well as the Computer Science curriculum. Typically this means writing articles about those subjects, creating assignments, writing tests (software tests), and creating other types of educational experiences.Worked on educational research projects and grant development.Matrix managed lead instructors to maintain the curriculum, a multi-million-line codebase. It's like being a technical lead on a large open source project. Helped design the content-creator formats and systems for our Learn product.

Boulder, Colorado, Us

Lead instructor for the Full Stack program at Galvanize. I taught 2 6-month cohorts, graduating 42 total students. Of those, 39 are employed as software developers, who gave me perfect 5-point ratings as a teacher. At night I wrote the curriculum, staying two weeks ahead of the class most of the time. I managed a team of 2-5 teachers and hired a total of 4 teachers myself.I trained my replacement, and then moved on to a new role once they were ready to take my job.Tech: JavaScript, Node.js, HTML, CSS, Angular.js, React, SQL

San Francisco, California, Us

This was the first program I began without the help of another teacher. It focused on the skills needed to be a technical co-founder, and was meant for post-bootcamp grads to teach them enough to run an early stage startup.Educating engineers in a 4-month program who are ready to move to the early-stage startup phase of their career. Responsible for developing hands-on curriculum, leading multiple software projects and doing personal career development for the entire engineering track.Ran 4 overlapping cohorts, began a new cohort every other month.Tech: Python, JavaScript, Node.js, SQL

New York, Ny, Us

The first educational group I ever worked with- this is where I got most of my early hands-on teaching and community building experience. Part of the time here I was the lead, part of the time I just taught- it is kinda fuzzy, as it grew a lot of the roles and responsibilities rapidly shifted. Leader of the San Francisco chapter of Girl Develop It!Responsible for developing curriculum on Computer Science concepts based on the needs and skill level of a community of thousands. Also responsible for teaching said curriculum, doing community development, sourcing teaching/programming talent, evaluating talent, training talent and managing volunteer participation.Check us out at http://girldevelopit.com/chapters/san-franciscoTech: JavaScript, Node.js, Python, SQL

San Francisco, Ca, Us

My main role was as an instructor but because it was a startup, I was responsible for application development, curriculum development, strategy and community at Hackbright Academy. Mostly this involved coming up with new content and curriculum, partnerships with organizations that have aligned goals, involvement in the SF development community and explaining architectural concepts to our students. I also helped design, develop and deploy our various internal applications. We use and teach Python (2.7) and Flask, as well as JavaScript/ECMAScript & Node.js. I'm responsible for most of the JS content.

San Francisco, Ca, Us

The third time I was on the founding team of a company.Lead 25-30 students per semester through an intensive 12-week course that includes computer science curriculum, python and javascript language fundamentals, modern web development practices and other related topics. Students graduating have a 94% placement rate in technical positions as a result of skills gained through the program.Tech: Python, JavaScript, C, Java, SQL

Remote, Us

One of my former GDI students founded Hipcamp, and after I left Hackbright I stepped in as CTO and wrote the first web-scraper we used to determine availability data, along with the initial data schema. I helped design and guide the development of the original Rails architecture with Alyssa, who implemented it.Development: Ruby on Rails and Node.js, Front-end JavaScript, HTML / CSS, SQLStrategy, architecture, technical management, lean startup

Lead Developer and Technical Integration Specialist for the Fraud line of business at ArgoData. My team is responsible for developing enterprise fraud solutions, internal fraud prevention algorithms, social engineering prevention, and customer behavior modeling. These systems are integrated fully with mission-critical banking software, through which flows millions of dollars per second. Our products are successfully implemented in eight of the top ten banks in the US, as well as many others.Tech: C#, JavaScript, Node.js, Visual Basic, SQL

Lead DeveloperLead teams to successfully deliver several customized implementations of an enterprise CRM and CBRM management system.Team LeadTook ownership of client relations, projects, and development for a multibillion dollar client account. Steadily improved business relationship from 'struggling' to actively seeking more solutions from our company. Supervisor role for multiple developers as well as business analysts. Directed new development and architected from a business as well as technical standpoint for many key projects for the client.Tech: Front-end JavaScript, Node.js, VBScript, C#, VB.NET, SQL, HTML/CSS

Us

Developed software and operational procedures that delivered 600% expected throughput, and $280,000 profit monthly, up from ($10,000).Here's how:We started with two service centers, with four more planned to open to handle laptop and TV repair needs for all Firedog branded service centers in the nation. We could process about three hundred units a day, but brought in well over a thousand. Our service center posted a $10,000 loss every month.I was brought in to see what could be salvaged as far as productivity was concerned.In six months with productivity gains from software I developed, operational procedures I wrote and data munging between systems that didn't share data in the first place, we were able to post a $280,000 profit monthly, making us the the most profitable business unit of Circuit City at the time. The four planned centers weren't ultimately needed, and the preexisting center was also freed up to perform other service operations, as we were able to fully absorb all repair needs for our division. Through retraining programs, we were also able to retain all Firedog employees, and train these repurposed employees in marketable skills that brought them out of the unskilled labor market.Tech: JavaScript, AutoHotkey, SQL, Visual Basic

Developed and maintained client products, as well as internal workflow management solutions.What I literally did was make websites and flash slideshows for Dentists and created back-end forms so that clients could update certain parts of their website without asking us to do it. Wrote a lot of custom image upload controls.Tech: JavaScript, HTML / CSS, SQL, ColdFusion 8

This was the second time I tried to start a company. I and 3 friends who worked with me at the Geek Squad established a small company that provided 24-hour business support, Website Design, Infrastructure Support, Custom Windows Software Development, and Personal Computing Solutions.We built a few custom computers, we did some technical support for some business clients, and did some small websites back when twenty-somethings were still designing custom websites for small businesses. We only really had the technical chops- but not the business development skills. This is where I learned that no amount of technical execution matters if the market doesn't know about you. Once we'd exhausted our good-natured friends and small network, we were done. We'd captured all the market available to us. Our small network gave great testimonials, but demand wasn't frequent enough among the people we knew to keep us going, so we got day jobs and fizzled.Tech: VB.NET, JavaScript, HTML / CSS

Developed POS software for BHPH vehicle sales in visual basic.Tech: Visual Basic

Delivered high-end enterprise web solutions related to candidate and staffing needs for Fortune 500 clients. Personality and culture fit tests for restaurant chains and retail giants they use during the hiring process.Converted ASP code to MVC style .NET code and did releases.Tech: VB.NET, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, VBScript

Us

Lead a team of 9-12 technicians in the largest Geek Squad Precinct in the southern United States. Managed upwards of 75 intake requests per day, and ensured proper operation of the precinct in order to accommodate demand. Kept a high average customer satisfaction rate, and increased services sales 80%.I worked here while I worked on software to cover my costs- I'd badly underestimated my first project at Splash Web Effects and totally ran out of money trying to build it.

This was the first time I tried to start a company- a freelancing business. I was 18-20 years old. I read articles on FreelanceSwitch.com and decided I could manage handling the contract negotiations and design of programs on my own. The first program I wrote took me a year to figure out. The second one, 3 months. The third, a month. During this time I had to take a number of short term contracts from technical temping agencies, but I hustled and finished that program and delivered it to my client, and then took on my next one.I had a few clients- among them:Legal transcription service - File management system, allowing users to upload files online for transcription and receive output the same way. Also embedded shopping carts that calculated cost based on length of recording.Tech: Visual BasicA/C Service and Sales - Coded dispatch and inventory control system that allowed for dynamic scheduling of technicians and embedded maps, as well as calculating mileage for technician reimbursement. Tech: Visual BasicA/C Service and Sales - Upgraded inventory control system to work with larger vendors, as well as analytical tracking on sales to improve inventory holding efficiency. Tech: Visual Basic

Developed an EMR system that enabled doctors to standardize notation, organize patient data, streamline insurance management and qualify for Meaningful Use incentives.This is the startup I dropped out of high school to start with my dad.Tech: Visual Basic