Ben Benson Email & Phone Number

Portland, OR, US

Simpler Method is a collaborative startup studio focused on building and launching fully developed products. Embracing a flexible, partnership-driven model, we tap into a network of expert freelancers, consultants, and subject-matter specialists. Our approach fosters a rich exchange of ideas, bringing the ideal mix of expertise to each project. With a.

Portland, OR, US

• Transformed the practice of architecture at NWEA. Established org model, roles and functions, engagement model for strategy, enterprise architecture, solution architecture, governance and guidance
• Architecture review boards for transparent and inclusive decision making and an enterprise governance model for compliance reporting and gap remediation
• Formed reference library, platform service catalog, and standardized all architecture deliverables
• Developed enterprise technology roadmap and model for building shared vision across the company
• Optimized workflows and project management discipline to support a diverse set of internal customers and business processes
• Grew architecture team from 4 to 18+ EAs, TAs and SAs. Modernized NWEA architecture including: migration to AWS, cloud native DevOps, identity management and data architecture.

Overland Park, Kansas, US

• Led ground up design of secure microservices platform for the development of government applications
• Directed and trained four geographically dispersed Agile teams
• Trained executives on SaaS microservice technical and organizational principles
• Established spec-driven architecture including generation of software interfaces, tests, API Gateway endpoints, SDK/clients and REST API documentation
• Automated comprehensive CI/CD pipeline with cross-account multi-region deployment
• Defined standards for platform, microservices and teams

• Designed and developed Spiderline®, a SaaS search engine supporting thousands of high profile customers including government agencies and Fortune 500 companies
• Developed custom Web crawlers, open text indexing/search
• Integrated with Lucene
• Co-founded sales company to provide marketing and establish direct sales engine

Austin, TX, US

• Helped steer “unicorn” startup into a mature SaaS platform by heavily leveraging AWS, microservice design principles and fully automating CI/CD
• Worked to break down architectural “ivory tower”, adopting and leading an engineering team to develop a new loyalty/offers platform to demonstrate best practices
• Instrumented spec-driven architecture with generated interfaces, API gateway configuration, SDKs and documentation
• Java, UNIX, Mule ESB

St Paul, MN, US

• Led the design and development of a next generation toll road and public transportation system
• Led the consolidation and conversion of legacy systems into a SaaS SOA/microservices platform in conjunction with $60M state contract in Georgia (SRTA)
• Managed multiple development teams ranging from 7 to 30 members as well as offshore teams
• Trained executives on new platform and assisted with sales presentations
• R&D work with Cassandra and Zookeeper
• Technical consulting during RFI/RFP process to do fit/gap analysis and solution architecture

• Designed and developed the first international P2P lending platform in China
• Designed custom accounting system for tracking donations and distribution of funds to field partners
• Replaced POC with AWS native architecture
• Multilingual website and crowd-sourced translation system
• Web affiliate solution for online and offline fundraising
• Created digital fine art product line with international art gallery exhibitions, QR code referrals, web sales, automated print fulfillment services and inventory tracking

Windsor, Connecticut, US

• Provided development and analytical support of BPM (Business Process Management) imaging, workflow and customer management software for financial service clients such as Lloyds of London
• Traveled to client sites worldwide to troubleshoot complex workflow software and develop integration, data conversion and reporting across a wide variety of ecosystems
• Solved mission critical problems in chaotic environments learning new languages and systems as needed

Windsor, Connecticut, US

• Designed and developed ePriority®, a secure Internet messaging service for the distribution of financial documents - now owned by DST Systems and used by more than 30% of US financial service companies
• Worked directly with mutual fund representatives and engineers to establish a unified vision and direction for the product
• Grew architecture to provide one of the highest volume secure outbound email platforms on the Internet for banking and other SEC regulated institutions
• Managed a small team of developers and outside vendor relationships
• Worked with system engineers to designed a true fault-tolerant architecture consisting of Sun, Amdahl, IBM RS/6000, and Cisco equipment to provide 100% availability and uncompromising security
• All SMTP and POP3 services written from scratch to support the required scalability, speed, storage and regulatory requirements

Overland Park, Kansas, US

• Redesigned Sprint's consumer site with increased functionality, simplicity, and esthetic appeal
• Participated in the selection and management of Sprint's core multimedia agency
• Designed scalable web infrastructure to provide high-availability and content staging capabilities
• Developed custom solutions to a wide variety of business needs including dynamically served versions of Sprint’s consumer web site (long before this technology existed in the main stream)
• Developed “TeamCast” product intranet for Sprint executives to track projects through internal and third party processes - written in C with server-side logic using NSAPI
• Customized dial-up connectivity software for Apple O/S and served as Sprint’s primary development contact in partnership with Apple and Netscape.

• Developed UNIX web applications for telecom and health care industry
• Developed prototype web interfaces to large-scale health care databases
• Served as technical aid to the executive directors group at NYNEX
• Provided IT support to engineering teams developing the Internet’s first interactive yellow pages “Big Yellow"