Resigned from LegalShield (left a highly-functioning team in great shape!) to focus on a mix of projects, writing, and consulting all of which have been brewing for a couple of years and beckoning for my focus.

As head of products engineering and in partnership with our CTO (Arnold Blinn), I led the creation, retooling, and reeducation of an entire team tasked with building a completely new software experience for the two customer-facing apps (LegalShield and IDShield) as well as another used by the internal lawyer network to service legal requests. Using a mix of React/React-Native (and later, even better, Flutter) my team created apps that run with complete parity on Android, IOS, and Web calling modern, cloud-based microservices via REST.As part of this work (and based on my background with both databases and microservices), I introduced a unique (and simple) microservice framework that was used to build the entire backend running in both AWS and our on-prem data center. Similar to GoDaddy (described below), we used this framework to break the dependence on both an AWS monolith as well as an ancient IBM iSeries mainframe (dismantle-in-pieces strategy used again). The microservice framework used is based upon a pattern that I and several colleagues from MSFT pioneered and have used to great success on numerous projects originally at MSFT and since spanning several other companies. If you are troubled over being too dependent on an increasingly expensive cloud, I am happy to discuss further.As a member of the Executive Team, I proposed, prototyped, and led a major vendor migration that yielded a significant increase (read: millions) of additional EBITDA dollars annually. The greatest products are created when engineers are informed and think holistically about customers, competition, and technology vs just the latter. To quote Arnold Blinn, "Most companies don't need the fancy, shiny. Most just need to focus on doing the basics well." I completely agree and this particular "big win" was nothing more than that along with a holistic viewpoint applied in obvious ways.

Led the internal commerce team's long-overdue (and feared) migration from a circa 2000, on-prem, Windows-based commerce system to a modern AWS-based one that was stable, predictable, and extensible - all while *not* breaking the "cash register". This was accomplished via a dismantle-in-pieces strategy wherein the old was retrofitted to call the new. Of interest here was the unique microservice architecture that was carefully designed with data-center (and cloud) agnosticism as a primary goal.As the owner of the front-end purchase experience, my team reduced average page load time worldwide by > 5x and introduced a simple A/B framework that gave marketing complete control over experimentation vs requiring engineering work for each experiment. Interesting testimony via stats: - Over 10,000 lines of code were deleted from the front-end alone- 35 billion pricing rules stored in a SQL Server database eliminated (due to old, unscalable model)- Fixed the basically "unusable internationally" commerce website (10+ sec page loads)- retrained (and in some cases re-staffed) the entire team in modern languages, stack, and testing.I was also a member of the Engineering Leadership Team in charge of company-wide architecture and led Fraud Detection engineering.

Pioneered an interactive story & game app format focused on teaching spiritual values to children. Won numerous award & reviews. I wrote & directed the screenplay while managing the artists, animators and company overall (hiring / letting go, contracting, payroll, legal contracts, etc.).Single-handedly built a 2D game engine that renders pixel-perfect Flash-authored (then exported) content on both IOS & Android at game-required frame rates (fast!). The data-driven architectural model automates most game levels without requiring custom logic. The innovation here empowered a skeleton crew to build a massive title quickly.Post-game dev work above also built a cross-platform, rich-client blood sugar management app that syncs with the cloud. This enables folks with Type-1 diabetes to achieve healthy blood sugar levels.(OS X, iOS, Android, Objective-C, C++, JSON, XML, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Parse (cloud and device), Google Cloud, OpenGL, SQLite, MySQL, app-hosted browser)

I was a member of the creative design team that invented “smart paper”. This project left MSFT and became the much-downloaded iPad app, “Paper”.(Consulted to internal incubations on the entire MSFT stack plus internal components spanning Xbox, Windows Phone, Zune, etc.)

Staffed and lead the engineering team and architecture for the Zune back-end music & video catalog, genius recommendations, and wireless sync for Zune music devices. Neither recommendations nor wireless sync were assigned goals. I took this job in Feb ‘07 with 2 junior developers. We shipped in November with 15 engineers and only 3 known bugs. I interviewed > 40 people that year and served as acting Product Unit Manager besides my assigned role due to the untimely vacancy of the PUM role. I received an additional bonus post review with the words, “You helped save Zune this year. We would not have shipped had it not been for your efforts.”(Windows, SQL Server (with partitioning and replication), IIS, Atom, Akamai (edge cache), C#)

I conceived of, prototyped, staffed, and led the engineering team that added transactional, reliable, and high performance distributed messaging to SQL Server 2005. I led the product and the team from inception to shipment during a time when shipping products at Microsoft was no small feat. This role included representing the SQL org through public speaking at both dev and database industry conferences.(Windows (kernel-level), SQL Server (internals), TCP/IP, C#, C++, Private//Public Key technology, message queuing)

Led the design and implementation of a microservice architecture that gave SWB a significant competitive advantage. This architecture allowed integration of a cacophony of platforms within SWB. The technology saved > $50 million on a single gov’t mandated project. It was also a major factor in SWB’s ability to grow by acquiring competing companies including BellSouth and PacBell. Much of what my team built in this era is still in production 20 years later.(SOA/Microservices, MVS (IMS), Unix/Linux, DEC Vax, C/C++, Cobol, TCP/IP, Message Queuing, in-house cloud architecture (Directory Services, multiprocessing frameworks, Resource Manager, Error Manager, distributed logging, etc.), Informix, Sybase, DB2, Oracle)