Robert Becker Email & Phone Number

Chicago, Illinois / Castle Rock, Colorado

Reporting to the CTO at UCLA, I completed phase one of a modernization project, collaborating with all infrastructure and application teams to assess and document their system details, laying the foundation for the development of a strategic multi-year plan. Recommended actionable items to drive improvements.Collaborated with the Disaster Recovery team to enhance strategies and preparedness. Improved access to the system documentation I published by integrating hyperlinks into the Fusion Risk Management platform.

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Led team, with no prior UI experience, to develop a React and Node.js UI for the Menards Buy-n-Fly rewards program. After a third-party travel-service provider terminated our contract, we quickly researched alternatives and implemented the UI to interface with our rewards system API before the contract expired.Led team to redesign Menards credit card rewards cloud systems as part of a mainframe-to-cloud migration, adapting to new data sources, formats, and mapping old to new account numbers. Developed a new Java component and collaborated on a new Kotlin component to replace two mainframe data feeds, both to run on our existing Spark/EMR cluster. Implemented significant changes to these systems (both use Postgres, Docker/ECS) and developed new data exchange interfaces. Successfully executed a 4-day implementation plan, with two Postgres conversions, coordinating with the mainframe data conversion team.Led team to develop and implement cloud-based components for the Walmart credit card program, enabling accurate rewards calculation at the product category level. Leveraged an engineer's limited Spark/EMR experience to guide the team in building a new Java-based Spark/EMR cluster, able to process 4 million transactions in 20 minutes. Designed an intelligent Lambda-based batch scheduler to handle consecutive non-processing days, which varied, automatically determining which files to process each day (if any).* Focused on growing each engineer by developing their technical and soft skills through offering opportunities and guidance. Met biweekly, or as needed, with each engineer to discuss their experiences, providing positive reinforcement on successes and constructive feedback on areas for improvement.

Guided the team to develop a proposal, including a proof of concept and estimate, to use Apache Airflow as the new scheduling system for the Rewards platform. Collaborated with Rewards engineers to understand the major issues with the current scheduling system, ensuring these were addressed in the proposal.Challenged the team’s previous approach of building systems with minimal fault tolerance and guided them to adopt more effective and efficient methods, setting a higher standard for future system design.Developed enhancements to various AWS components to broaden my newly cultivated cloud skills. Made changes to a Java API, developed Lambdas using Python, and created new Jenkins CI/CD pipelines.

Chicago, Il

Architected and implemented changes to the Credit Card Authorization system to enable Apple Pay for Neiman Marcus credit cards. Collaborated with Apple, Mastercard, and Capital One architects to define the overall flow, and worked closely with Mastercard engineers to design request/response exchanges through TCP/IP sockets, facilitating the token-to-credit-card-number conversion required for authorization.Led Raptor Fraud system upgrade. Devised an implementation strategy where both the old and new fraud systems ran concurrently in production. Interfacing the Authorization system with both versions allowed priming of the new machine learning algorithms while the old system handled live fraud decisions. New configuration settings controlled decision-making and supported: data analysis as the system matured, a gradual rollout to avoid a risky big-bang implementation, and provided a seamless fallback solution.Designed and successfully implemented changes to the Card Authorization system to support EMV chip authorizations, dynamic CVV/CVC, and both Chip+Pin and Chip+Signature authorization variations, as mandated by MasterCard before the October 1, 2015 deadline.Collaborated with senior engineers to architect a unified Credit Card Authorization (FAS) and Fraud platform supporting both Private Label and MasterCard/Visa portfolios. Previously separate platforms with distinct architectures, we merged all custom code into a single VisionPLUS FAS version, implemented across multiple LPARs with 7 CICS regions and 4 started tasks, delivering improved resiliency and performance.Rearchitected the Private Label Credit Card Authorization failover system to enhance resiliency across multiple CICS regions and LPARs. Designed real-time interfaces to seamlessly push new account data to the system, enabling same-day application and purchase, even during a failover scenario.

Greater Chicago Area

Consulted with Ernst & Young to design and develop systemic changes supporting the integration of several Unix and Mainframe systems involved in two corporate mergers.

Rosemont, Il

Collaborated with engineering leads to rearchitect and rebuild numerous subsystems across all International Fare Quote reservation system platforms from the ground up. Developed a three-year plan to integrate the new subsystems into a cohesive whole, resulting in a highly accurate, adaptable, and resilient system.Led the redesign of a multi-platform system supporting international booking class agreements between airlines, resulting in an 85% reduction in manpower for data maintenance and a significant drop in debit memos from airlines due to incorrect fare quotes. The design was adopted by the US filing house (ATPCO) and became the industry standard for storing and processing this data.