Brian Scheffer Email & Phone Number

Greater Seattle Area

As founder I conducted customer interviews to identify and refine product offerings. Evaluated and sized potential markets. Developed wire-frames and prototypes to solicit feedback from customers and users. Launched Short Exchange, a process as a product, completing initial product definition. Used lean start-up strategies to engage prospective customers to refine product offering.Developed process for addressing screen time addictions in pre-teen kids, conducted initial testing, developed requirements for MVP, and conducted customer interviews.Developed and presented training material for beta of Career Search application, a desktop application that assisted job seekers in developing and tracking goals for their job search. Conducted market research (market analysis, competitive analysis, and technical analysis) for product concept using Microsoft Kinect as a virtual changing room for online shopping.

Redmond, Wa

Managed MyTaxPrepOffice.com's initial product launch in 2014 and the 2015 tax preparation season, focused on launch activities, go to market pricing, promotion, market identification and segmentation.Gathered customer feedback and guided development on initial product backlog. Delivered prioritized backlog of features for sprintsProvided on-boarding and customer support to gather feedback that was then used to prioritize backlog.Completed UX and UI design reviews of new features prior to launch to ensure usability goals were achieved.

Bellevue, Wa

Took over organizer duties for Job Club Bellevue. A meetup group focused on job search employment. As organizer my role was to organize content discussions as needed by the group. Presented materials and coordinated group discussions. Used this meetup as a focus group, conducting market research on career management tools and new methods of finding employment. http://meetup.com/job-club-bellevueEngaged members/customers by developing training focused on networking in the job search and finding a career, not a job.

Harvest Education Foundation is a non-profit organization formed with some friends with a focus on assisting kids in the lower Snoqualmie valley with educational needs. Prepared marketing and promotion materials to educate parents about the foundation, it's offerings and how they could get involved. Reviewed scholarship applications with other directors to determine recipient of annual summer school scholarship. Participated in weekly tutoring sessions assisting students with studies in math, science, history and social studies.

Bellevue Wa

Participated in sponsor gathering and assisted team as project manager maintaining and communicating project schedule, key deliverables, and milestones.

Bellevue, Wa

Responsible for inbound and outbound product management and product marketing activities for all assigned products.Managed product strategy and requirements backlog for various product offerings that included desktop application, enterprise application, data center, and online SaaS Tax preparation products.Developed and presented product roadmaps to executives and key customers.Launched internal and external reporting portals developed using Microsoft Reporting Services, and managed ongoing operational details of reports, analyzing usage and engaging internal and external customers to discuss usage results and ensuring portals met performance metrics. Managed customer experience of refund lending products for banking partners as their product offerings were integrated with IntelliTax Products.Subject matter expert for electronic filing, bank products, fee and payment processing across the entire suite of IntelliTax products.Team admin for internal communication tools, SharePoint and FeaturePlan.Customer advocate for internal IT/accounting teams responsible for integrating internal systems with Microsoft Dynamics (Axapta) overseeing customer experience resulting from systems integration.

Responsible for the budget and success of the team delivering features and functionality for critical areas of the companies software and service offering, nearing 80% of all corporate combined revenue.Managed IT operations team responsible for data center file servers and application servers.Launched 43 individual state electronic filing applications.Implemented a number of tele-communication projects that integrated Orrtax's data center with multiple IRS service centers, states, and major banks.Managed software development, and deployment of data center supporting federal and state electronic filing, and refund lending for desktop applications implementing a wide range of technologies that included dial-up and internet.Participated in customer focus group discussions to gather, refine, and prioritize customer requirements for Orrtax's data center, electronic tax filing and refund lending products.Developed methodology for integrating internal systems with purchased accounting packages to ensure complex billing and payment systems reconciled across all platforms and packages.Oversaw multiple telecommunication projects that included dial-up PTP communications, dedicated PTP communications over ISDN, Frame-Relay, ATM, and internet.

Responsible for designing and coding new features and frameworks to be used by other development members. Strong emphasis on coding optimization to ensure applications executed and scaled efficiently. Improved application performance by approximately twenty percent year over year based on timed batch tests.Developed generic message queue component used by data center application servers.Designed and coded user interface change to check printing module to address customer usability issues that resulted in an improved user experience and a reduction of customer support issues.Finished coding penalty and interest calculation framework, simplifying annual changes to state penalties and interests to simple table updates.Analyzed financial discrepancies in excess of $200,000 by comparing anticipated deposits and actual deposits, identified system and requirements errors, worked with bank partners to refine requirements, updated system for new requirements eliminating the errors.