Stephen Gill Email & Phone Number

Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

As a Senior Engineering Manager from 2023 to 2024, I led two engineering teams within the Marketing department, overseeing a team of six members initially and later managing a team focused on Paid Membership Acquisitions, with thirteen engineers reporting to me.In my role as Senior Engineering Manager for the Paid Membership Acquisitions team from September 2023 to March 2024, I orchestrated the transformation of two separate engineering squads into a cohesive unit, fostering trust… Show more As a Senior Engineering Manager from 2023 to 2024, I led two engineering teams within the Marketing department, overseeing a team of six members initially and later managing a team focused on Paid Membership Acquisitions, with thirteen engineers reporting to me.In my role as Senior Engineering Manager for the Paid Membership Acquisitions team from September 2023 to March 2024, I orchestrated the transformation of two separate engineering squads into a cohesive unit, fostering trust through regular one-on-one sessions and cross-squad sync meetings. By clarifying roles and expectations, I addressed squad lead conflicts, resulting in a remarkable 25% increase in team velocity, heightened engagement, and enhanced efficiency. Notably, I succeeded in boosting team morale to its highest level in over a year. Additionally, I spearheaded the development of cutting-edge Acquisitions experiences across digital channels using React, React Native, and Node.js, leading to a 5% increase in membership acquisitions while maintaining overall revenue levels.In the preceding role as Senior Engineering Manager for Marketing teams from March 2023 to September 2023, I drove the development of a communication-trigger platform using Google Cloud Platform native features such as Pub/Sub and Workflows. Through project documentation, implementation of Agile best practices, and effective collaboration with the product team, I ensured the successful launch of the platform supporting the Best Buy Drops feature, facilitating the sending of tens of thousands of messages daily. Show less

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

In 2022 my title was changed to Engineering Manager to reflect my role as a people manager on the team. I spearheaded the development of an admin console web application aimed at enabling message replay for the platform. Overcoming initial challenges stemming from the team's limited web development experience, I took charge of UX design and conducted knowledge transfer sessions with engineering and support teams. This application played a pivotal role in ensuring timely delivery of… Show more In 2022 my title was changed to Engineering Manager to reflect my role as a people manager on the team. I spearheaded the development of an admin console web application aimed at enabling message replay for the platform. Overcoming initial challenges stemming from the team's limited web development experience, I took charge of UX design and conducted knowledge transfer sessions with engineering and support teams. This application played a pivotal role in ensuring timely delivery of critical marketing campaigns and streamlining troubleshooting efforts. Notably, it significantly reduced production escalations related to message failures and provided other development teams with a mechanism to test message delivery in lower environments. Show less

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

In December 2020, my role at Accenture was acquired by Best Buy. In addition to my previous projects, I was added to the Marketing Data Hub team. We were tasked with building a platform for streamlining integration between distinct marketing systems. I led the creation of technical designs and implementation plans for the platform, leveraging a graph database, Java Spring microservices, and Apache Kafka. Over two years, we successfully built dozens of integration points, with an average… Show more In December 2020, my role at Accenture was acquired by Best Buy. In addition to my previous projects, I was added to the Marketing Data Hub team. We were tasked with building a platform for streamlining integration between distinct marketing systems. I led the creation of technical designs and implementation plans for the platform, leveraging a graph database, Java Spring microservices, and Apache Kafka. Over two years, we successfully built dozens of integration points, with an average build time of two weeks each. Additionally, I played a key role in facilitating the cloud migration of the Digital Asset Management team’s implementation of Adobe Experience Manager. Despite a compressed timeline of two months, we developed, tested, and executed the migration with precision. This involved gaining approval for new security architecture patterns from the enterprise security team and devising a data conversion solution. The cloud migration was executed smoothly, ensuring minimal disruption to business operations. Show less

As the Technical Architect Lead for the JustEnough implementation at Best Buy, I spearheaded our transition from waterfall to agile methodology. I led development of a custom companion applications to streamline promotion scheduling, integrating seamlessly with content delivery systems.During this tenure, I managed 30 environments for the JustEnough project, later offering consultation on Adobe Experience Manager infrastructure at Best Buy. I played a pivotal role in documenting… Show more As the Technical Architect Lead for the JustEnough implementation at Best Buy, I spearheaded our transition from waterfall to agile methodology. I led development of a custom companion applications to streamline promotion scheduling, integrating seamlessly with content delivery systems.During this tenure, I managed 30 environments for the JustEnough project, later offering consultation on Adobe Experience Manager infrastructure at Best Buy. I played a pivotal role in documenting existing environments and ensuring upgrades met stringent security standards.Post-release of JustEnough, I collaborated with the enterprise infrastructure team to facilitate the decommissioning of legacy promotion planning systems and migrate database servers from physical to virtual environments.Additionally, I delved into performance optimization using SolarWinds, identifying and addressing long-running SQL queries. Working closely with vendors, I implemented solutions and coordinated performance tests for validation. Show less

Technical Architect Lead, Implementation of JustEnough at Best Buy, 2017-2019I developed a custom continuous delivery tool using Azure DevOps and PowerShell to manage SQL script deployments for the marketing planning tool JustEnough. By streamlining the process, I was able to transition the activity to my direct report, freeing about 25% of my time to focus on other activities while at the same time increasing stability and speed to market for new development.I coordinated efforts… Show more Technical Architect Lead, Implementation of JustEnough at Best Buy, 2017-2019I developed a custom continuous delivery tool using Azure DevOps and PowerShell to manage SQL script deployments for the marketing planning tool JustEnough. By streamlining the process, I was able to transition the activity to my direct report, freeing about 25% of my time to focus on other activities while at the same time increasing stability and speed to market for new development.I coordinated efforts between development, testing, and product teams to ensure on time delivery.I estimated the hardware requirements for the software and worked with the enterprise Infrastructure team to build out the hardware. After receiving the 30 application servers needed to support development, testing, and production, I configured and maintained them, ensuring that the application was available for all project milestone Show less

Software Development Lead, Enhancements for Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server (RPAS) at Best Buy, 2016-2017I managed a team of offshore developers, tested defect fixes, communicated status to director level business partners, packaged software releases, and provided onshore troubleshooting.Deployment Lead, Upgrade of RPAS at Best Buy, 2016I orchestrated an upgrade of Oracle Advanced Inventory Planning and RPAS. This involved authoring and validating a thorough… Show more Software Development Lead, Enhancements for Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server (RPAS) at Best Buy, 2016-2017I managed a team of offshore developers, tested defect fixes, communicated status to director level business partners, packaged software releases, and provided onshore troubleshooting.Deployment Lead, Upgrade of RPAS at Best Buy, 2016I orchestrated an upgrade of Oracle Advanced Inventory Planning and RPAS. This involved authoring and validating a thorough deployment playbook, coordinating across multiple teams, and escalating risks and issues. This ensured a successful roll-out over a weekend, maintaining uninterrupted business operations by Monday. Technical Architect Lead, Oracle Retail Merchandising System project at a fashion retailer, 2014-2016I managed the environment life cycle for a complex, multi-release upgrade of a retail client’s merchandising system. I implemented an intake process, facilitated stakeholder communication, and prioritized work across teams. This resulted in an on-time and on-budget upgrade roll-out. Technical Solution Planner, Canadian expansion for a big box retailer, 2012-2014I coordinated 100s of batch jobs into a schedule across dozens of applications, and built a change management process to ensure any updates to the schedule did not impact other teams. I also built technical work estimates for change requests to the statement of work.Solution Architect, big box retailer, 2011-2012I organized disjointed documentation across hundreds of integration points between dozens of applications. This let us identify gaps in end-to-end processes and to help speed up the assessment of changes to the system.Solution Architect, Oracle RPAS project at a fashion retailer, 2011I designed solutions for the development team and then pivoted to managing the environments. I built, configured, and maintained environments for development, testing and production, ensuring a smooth on-time production roll out. Show less

Technical Architecture roles:OpenLink Endur Implementation at a commodity trading company, December 2009 – December 2010I implemented Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) for a global commodity trading giant. From meticulously selecting vendors to crafting cutting-edge proofs-of-concept, I ensured seamless compatibility with OpenLink, driving efficiency and future scalability. Oracle Retail Merchandising System implementation at an auto-parts retailer, October 2008… Show more Technical Architecture roles:OpenLink Endur Implementation at a commodity trading company, December 2009 – December 2010I implemented Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) for a global commodity trading giant. From meticulously selecting vendors to crafting cutting-edge proofs-of-concept, I ensured seamless compatibility with OpenLink, driving efficiency and future scalability. Oracle Retail Merchandising System implementation at an auto-parts retailer, October 2008 – October 2009I managed the application environments across development, QA, staging, and production to ensure smooth delivery across multiple teams. By meticulously managing infrastructure documentation, conducting thorough code quality analyses, and providing round-the-clock support for technical hiccups, I guaranteed flawless delivery across teams in two continents. Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server implementation at a big box retailer, January 2008 – October 2008I designed and implemented a unique solution to building on-the-fly training environments to ensure data consistency across a dozen training environments. This saved our training team a days’ worth of data setup for each class. Show less