Supporting the open banking community with API-related courses

LaunchAny is a consulting firm that specializes in digital transformation through APIs, microservices, and cloud-native architecture.We bring business and IT needs together into a cohesive solution that delivers value to both your business and your customers.We have worked in a variety of business domains and product categories, including:- Commercial Insurance- Healthcare- Supply Chain Management- Manufacturing- Airline Industry- IT Management and Monitoring- Enterprise Mobility- SaaS-based software products (B2B)- Consumer-Facing (B2C)

Consult to the API Office for a Fortune 20 health insurance and health services provider. Engagement includes:- Establish a formalized API program, including governance, API style guide, and review processes that are heavily automated and scaled across the organization- Train staff on API design processes using the ADDR design process (https://addrprocess.com/) to offer a repeatable, scalable approach to API reuse- Develop and deliver self-paced training videos to scale the training efforts beyond live workshop delivery- Deliver resources to the API office to accelerate process development and API style guide creation- Coach teams on the ADDR API design process through facilitated design sessions

Establish and grow a formalized API governance program for a national commercial insurance carrier. The engagement included:- Developing and delivering API training content for cross-functional roles that included: API fundamentals, consuming REST-based APIs, designing REST-based APIs, documenting APIs using the OpenAPI Specification- Coaching teams on API design improvements- Establishing formalized lightweight API governance, including API style guides, design and delivery processes, roles and responsibilities for the API Center for Enablement (API C4E)- Rollout processes to global teams- Establish a federated API coaching program to scale the efforts of the API C4E beyond a centralized team to a global coaching presence- Conduct business architecture interviews and formalized mapping processes to map business needs to API roadmaps across multiple domains, insurance products, and market segments

Consulted to the API Center of Excellence (now Platform Services Center of Excellence) to offer training and expert advice in maturing and scaling the API program of a Fortune 500 North American Bank. The engagement included:- Developing and delivering API fundamentals and API design training materials across North American and Canadian software development teams- Content development to train and support 2500+ agile teams in API design and delivery fundamentals- Improve and grow API standards and practices, patterns, and guidance regarding REST, GraphQL, and gRPC-based APIs- Review and recommend API governance process improvements- Develop and deliver a federated API coach program to scale the API Center of Excellence from a centralized team to coaches across North America- Establish and review event-driven architecture and asynchronous API designs including WebHooks, WebSocket, Kafka message streams (AVRO)- Facilitate design sessions with internal teams for internal and externally-facing APIs- Assist in product development activities by leveraging APIs from their catalog of 1000s of internally-facing APIs into external product offerings- Generate reporting metrics for API teams and executives to track API program health

Delivered remote and on-site API design coaching and training materials for various banks in Europe and the United States. The engagement included:- Customization and delivery of workshop materials (live and recorded) for preparing product owners, developer, architects, and business analysts with a repeatable, scalable process for designing and delivering web-based APIs- Review and coach teams on API design techniques for specific time-sensitive initiatives- Review API Center for Enablement (API C4E) artifacts and processes, such as API governance, style guides, tool selections, and API generators/accelerator tools

Consult to the Cisco DevNet team to help them unify multiple product teams in standard API authorization and design approaches. The engagement consisted of:- Facilitating workshops across multiple product teams to reach agreement on API standards and practices- Deliver resources and training content to accelerate teams' API design and delivery efforts- Develop and manage an API style guide to be consumed by multiple Cisco product teams- Assess existing APIs and provide design review feedback for improvement of the developer experience- Represent Cisco DevNet at Cisco Live San Diego, gathering additional API improvement feedback from engineers- Expand API design patterns and practices to include network automation, including incorporating standards for NETCONF/RESTCONF, gNMI, YANG models, and OpenConfig

Developed content and training materials for the Cisco DevNet Certifications, to be completed and delivered by third-party trainers. Focused on topics such as consuming APIs, designing APIs, cloud native architecture, software architecture, and asynchronous APIs (e.g., WebHooks). The content is consumed by thousands of network engineers and developers each month as part of their certification track.

Responsible for interim CTO duties at evoSure, including: product strategy, product management, software architecture, cloud architecture, internal and external data storage/integration strategy, and development of API and data storage. Applied lean software principles with my expertise in scalable enterprise software development to ensure a product-market fit while expediting the time-to-market of the evoSure platform.

Advise early-stage startups on product management, software development, and cloud computing strategies. Help identify methods of applying lean startup and agile development practices to take an idea to market quickly. Provide product and business strategy to help gain market traction.

Provided architecture and leadership of a 6 developer team for a variety of internal projects. The primary project included the architecture and development of an internal initiative to map desktop and laptop service tags to existing hardware for a new self-service support website. This required deep integration with a number of internal web services and an understanding of their master data management (MDM) approach to product data and catalog storage.

SOA architect and development lead for businesses ranging from early-stage startups to Global 1000. Mentored developers and advised clients on technology decisions and implementation techniques to decrease time-to-market and increase revenue opportunities. Established best practices regarding agile methodologies, large-scale data processing/big data, and distributed computing.

Architected an auto-scale, distributed processing system to process and report against databases up to 10 TB in size. This system was built using Java, Spring, JMS using ActiveMQ, Mule, and Oracle. Previous attempts yielded months to process the data, while this solution fully completed in production against a 10 TB database in 72 hours.Also provided architecture and leadership of development teams from 4-18 developers in size for a variety of internal projects. Mentored other project teams on the application of distributed computing techniques using JMS and transactional messaging. RenewData helps organizations proactively manage the inherent risks associated with electronically stored information (ESI) and is a leading provider of discovery, archiving, and governance services.

Member of the Architecture Group that assists in the vision, design, and development of the BetweenMarkets, Inc. product solution suite. Standards included ebXML, RosettaNet, and EDI. Technologies included Java, JBoss, Weblogic Application Server, MySQL, and Oracle 11i integration.

Provided architectural and development leadership for a variety of consulting engagements, including startups and Global 500 corporations. Mentored developers and advised clients on technology decisions and implementation techniques to decrease time-to-market and increase revenue opportunities.

Consulted to a variety of Fortune 500 companies and startups, providing software and database design and development using Java-based technologies. Projects included a custom HR requisition system, manufacturing reliability system, and voice-enabled desktop applications.