John Hicks Email & Phone Number

Kirkland, Wa, Us

Bellevue, Washington, United States

Lead the development of internal and external applications.

Greater Seattle Area

I work as the Architect of the $13 billion (annual) Safeco web-based quoting portal for 100,000 insurance agents representing 36,000 agencies. The team size is currently 120 people. We initially launched in 2022 and are now expanding to all business lines. • Very high-scale/high-performance architecture offering millisecond performance • Agents, consumers, and backend processes can work interactively on the same quote information and see each other's changes in real-time. This represents a paradigm shift in the agent experience. • The architecture enables complex quoting rules to be defined once and interactively presented to agents in the UI. Previously, the rule logic had to be developed separately for the UI, APIs, and purchase processes. • Users can dynamically filter the large set of questions to display only those that are most actionable, such as data that is incomplete, defaulted, in error, etc.I am also a co-architect for Safeco’s backend modernization roadmap, including cloud migration, code modernization, service decoupling, and data persistence. Overall team size of several hundred people.Technologies: High-scale distributed application (Microsoft Orleans), AWS, Fargate, containers, Angular, TypeScript, Redux, Observable streams, C#, .NET core upgrades, code modernization, mongodb.

Greater Seattle Area

INFRASTRUCTURE ARCHITECTI led a deployment and systems integration project to enable the largest insurer (and 6th largest company) in the U.S. to replace the calculation engine for rating, quoting, and renewal calculations for all insurance lines of businesses. This was a customer-facing role with a remote, matrixed delivery team.ARCHITECT / PROECT LEADEngaged by a large regional transit agency, I rescued a failed project to integrate financial systems. I proposed a roadmap and then led the integration of a cloud-based project system with the datacenter ERP/financial system. The engagement was extended to re-envision payment forecasting, budgeting, and work tracking; I designed, implemented, and deployed this solution suite.DEVELOPMENT MANAGERI managed the development team responsible for most corporate applications for a $1B+ company (9 direct reports). We implemented Kanban (Agile) and DevOps processes — including Git source control, continuous integration, automated testing, and automated deployment to both cloud-based and datacenter servers.Technologies: Angular with NgRx and responsive Material Design.ASP.NET Core API, SQL Server, Azure Cloud, OIDC, IdentityServer4, Cloud Migration, 3D programming (ThreeJs), Load Testing, Dev Ops, TypeScript.

Bellevue, Wa

I coached businesses throughout Outerwall on improving their software development and delivery processes. By the end of my tenure, every team had adopted Agile processes and new CI/CD tooling — including automated tests and automated deployments into the Tier 1 PCI environment.By sharing knowledge and code across geographically dispersed teams, I reduced “re-invention” and increasing collaboration.I managed vendors, partners, and licensing — including the enterprise relationship with Microsoft.Technologies and processes: Team Foundation Server, NuGet/ProGet, Octopus Deploy, Git, secure remote access (SSL, VPN), Global Traffic Management, DR failover, continuous integration (CI), continuous deployment (CD).

Bellevue, Wa

I managed all aspects of data system operations, including budgeting, strategy, policies, communication, team building, remote staff, 3rd party vendors, compliance (SOX, PCI, PII, Safe Harbor, ISO 27001), and operational reporting.I built a demonstrably world-class team: three team members subsequently became Microsoft Certified Masters (out of a global pool of about 120 people) and two of whom also have also been recognized as SQL Server MVPs (there are only a few hundred worldwide).I led the implementation of enterprise datacenter monitoring, from only a few dozen system metrics to several thousand events and counters, which enabled operations teams to detect potential problems long before customers were impacted.I integrated user identity systems to eliminate redundant data entry and ensure system and facility access is automatically removed upon employee or contractor separation.Technologies: SQL Server, Microsoft System Center (SCOM), ITIL, data integration, disaster recovery, high-availability, reporting, system integration, business intelligence, Kerberos/Active Directory, SSIS, server hardware, SAN storage, networking, virtualization, and firewalls.

Redmond, Wa

I consulted with Fortune 100 companies throughout the United States on their critical applications. This included: • Architectural work on the world’s fastest growing website (adding 2 million users per month) • System performance assistance at the largest corporate treasury in the world • A security implementation at one of the world’s largest defense contractors • Testing the primary revenue-generating software for the world’s largest shipping company. • A BI/reporting solution at the U.S.’s largest telecom, resulting in savings of $1M/mo. • Assisting with cutting-edge engagements with the SQL Customer Advisory Team.I also worked with product management to identify reusable solutions from consulting engagements.Every consulting customer asked to have me back for a subsequent engagement.Technologies: cryptography, geospatial queries, SOA services, SqlServer, business intelligence, very high-scale web sites.

Bellevue, Wa

I designed T-Mobile’s Engineering Data Warehouse and the RF Engineering Tools web site. The forecasts and analysis from these tools was responsible for 85% of T-Mobile’s capital budget. Our systems processed data from 30,000 files daily, then used that data to forecast seasonal traffic growth, then predict equipment, spectrum, and link requirements.I also built an interactive analysis tool to virtually optimize the network topology. When implemented in the test market, dropped calls were reduced by more than 30%.I recruited and led a strong development team was consistently recognized for their ability to deliver.Technologies: ASP.NET, Web Services, SqlServer, geospatial queries, Data Transformation Service (DTS), GSM radio engineering

Master Of Philosophy (M.Phil.), Philosophy

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Music