Brian Durand Email & Phone Number

San Francisco, California, Us

At We Heart It I have been responsible for building up the technology to serve dynamic, user generated content to a massive consumer audience (2 million daily active users) on a small startup budget. I have been intimately involved in building one of the largest Ruby on Rails sites on the internet and have focused extensively on architecting and scaling out the data tier. I advise the product and business development teams on the capabilities and limitations of technology and work out how to implement the best solutions with limited resources. I am also part of the senior management team responsible for the strategic direction and operation of the company.* Determine strategic direction of technology for the company* Design reliable and highly scalable back end systems that can be developed and maintained by a very small team* Scale Rails application to handle over 750,000 requests per minute* Scale database system to handle 100's of millions of write and billions of reads per day* Provide mentoring and code review for developers* Manage technology projects* Design API for integration with mobile clients* Set up software development and continuous deployment procedures* Build reporting systems for tracking statistics and business analysis* Provide product ideas and feedback from a technical perspective* Set up and manage web site ad operations* Design and implemented SEO strategy* Ensure security best practices are being followed* Evaluate outside vendor technology* Ruby On Rails, Java, MySQL, Cassandra, Redis, ElasticSearch, RabbitMQ, Javascript, Docker, Chef

San Jose, Ca, Us

Provide support and services for Open Town Hall product acquired from Peak Democracy.* Transition products and processes into OpenGov environment to complete the acquisition* Provide maintenance and support for Open Town Hall product* Redesign registration system to increase citizen participation

Hired as consultant to work with founder to lead small team of remote developers building citizen engagement software for local governments.* Provided technical representation on senior management team* Lead weekly development planing meetings* Write requirements and create user interface designs* Update processes and infrastructure to implement best practices* Ruby on Rails, MySQL, PivotalTracker

Chicago, Il, Us

* Oversaw and led technical direction for Tribune Company's digital portfolio of products* Provided technical guidance for senior management on web projects* Provided mentoring for developers and other architects* Reviewed and led adoption company technology standards* Reviewed other architect's solution designs* Served as Solution Architect on high profile and critical projects

Chicago, Il, Us

* Managed small team of developer deployed on critical or at risk projects* Provided oversight of digital project technologies* Oversaw development work to provide feedback and set best practices* Architected solutions for online/web projects* Developed advanced parts of code bases* Ruby On Rails, PostgreSQL, Solr, HTML, Javascript

Zurich, Canton Of Zürich, Ch

* Oversaw technical direction of Tribune's web technologies* Evaluated vendors and platforms* Brought in Ruby on Rails and Solr as new company standards* Led development of metromix.com on a new Rails platform for successful spin-off to new company* Develop advanced parts of code bases* Ruby On Rails, Java, MySql, PostgreSQL, Solr, HTML, Javascript

Zurich, Canton Of Zürich, Ch

* Lead developer on platform to power all Tribune Newspaper, TV, and stand alone web sites* Lead developer on content management system for all Tribune digital content* Project lead on deployments to convert legacy newspaper sites onto new platform* Developed in house Javascript libraries for use on Tribune web sites* Java/J2EE, Oracle Database, HTML, Javascript

Queensbury, Ny, Us

* Developed a variety of data driven web site modules that were syndicated as stand alone functionality to be incorporated into other web sites.* Developed and maintained live play by play webcast for Chicago Cubs web site.* Developed next generation of breaking news tools for Tribune newspaper and TV web sites* Developed stand alone web site and content management system for sports related web sites* Vingette StoryServer, tcl, Sybase, Java, HTML, Javascript

Chicago, Il, Us

* Developed client/server system for tracking the museum art collection.* Developed a multitude of desktop databased for use by museum curatorial departments.