Thomas R. Email and Phone Number

I was the Tech Lead for one of Vitally's two product engineering teams. My team focused on collaboration features within the product. I lead and was the primary individual contributor in the creation and release of Vitally's new Survey tool.As a Staff engineer, I also worked to bring new technologies into the company to improve system safety and standardization. I introduced Nest.js to replace our existing Express.js backend endpoints. This allowed for better code modularity and testing.I also introduced OpenApi specifications for both Nest.js and Express.js. These allowed the backend to document its API and for the frontend to generate type-safe client libraries. This vastly improved the quality and trust of the data used on the frontend and avoided maybe issues with breaking backend changes.

I architected and implemented a transition from 2 monolithic REST backend services (split only due to data center security concerns) into a federated Apollo GraphQL super-graph of 5 subgraphs organized around shared types and product domain. Depending on the needs of each subgraph, I built each in either Node.js+typescript or Rust. This has created a single unified location for all API queries, metrics and documentation (Apollo Studio). Client-side engineers can quickly build features without searching for hand-written backend-specific documentation (usually out of date). Backend engineers are able to choose the right stack for their domain, avoid breaking changes using the Apollo suite of automated tooling and get access to realtime performance metrics and client usage.I also improved the code-quality and standards across all frontend repositories and many backend ones by setting up automated tests, lint rules and performance tests. These have drastically increased confidence in our deploys and enabled solid DevOps practices of publishing to production many times a day.Finally, I have build and converted many frontend components (in Svelte) to a Design System library which allows us to share components across many apps. This also allows designers to quickly iterate on designs and for participating apps to get these improvements without additional effort.

I lead the teams which provided web and native apps to allow Viasat customers to manage their internet service. I, along with several team leads who reported to me, lead a transition from a single monolithic React Native app to a new composable app architecture based on micro-frontends. This allowed each individual product feature team to design, release and deploy new features for their vertical without being blocked or requiring orchestration with other teams; drastically increasing throughput.I also spearheaded the migration from using many monolithic GraphQL services with incompatible semantics and design to a single unified federated super-graph on the Apollo GraphOS platform. This allowed client-side engineers to have a single API and source of documentation and to be able to develop features without learning the ins-and-outs of every unique backend. It also enabled backend engineers to confidently evolve their backends without the fear of breaking existing services by leveraging Apollo's suite of automated tooling.Finally, I also lead the Design Systems team responsible for shared company-wide designs, design tokens, CSS themes and React components. These allowed designers and engineers across the company to quickly create new features which matched the company design language.

Founded and ran the internal agency-wide engineering team. This team was a home for specialists who would not be fully resourced on an individual client team. We allowed client teams to scale up their expertise in complex areas by partnering with them on projects and loaning our expertise to them. This team included: experienced detail-orients project managers, iOS engineers, CMS specialists, 3D graphics engineers, UX strategists and rapid prototypers.We also assisted client teams by helping pitch projects and working with vendors to provide engineering resources for skillsets the team itself did not have.Finally, we also housed the QA department which provided in-house quality resources to teams to improve project outcomes.

Built, hired, trained, managed and lead the engineering team that supported our Google client for 7 years. Grew the team from 4 engineers initially to 16 at its max. I worked with our production lead to estimate projects staffing, costs and timelines. I worked with out design lead when pitching projects to Google and working with their engineering leads to discover the best approaches for projects.As a team lead, I ran the scrum and sprint planning for all projects and ensured the individual contributors would be able to execute on features without worrying about task sequencing or lack of specifications.As a team, we built many public projects for Google including the Google Drive marketing site, Google Fiber marketing site and the Google I/O conference (for all 7 years) site for marketing, purchasing tickets and booking sessions at the event. We also built interactive kiosks for live Google events.Because agency projects have such quick turn arounds (3-4 months), every one is different. Worked with wildly different technology stacks on each project depending on the client's needs.A common project type was the creation of Component Libraries for clients including (Specialized, OneMedical, Nike, Google, Oracle, and others). These were React-based components which were used to speed up internal development of web UIs at the companies. Creating these libraries required understanding those internal engineers needs, providing very good documentation and utilizing tools like Storybook to catalog, document and test these building blocks.

I built a prototype of a new version of the Ballpark app (https://getballpark.com/) using modern (2011) technologies. Unfortunately there were visa issues which could not be resolved (employer was a Canadian company) and I had to leave.

I built many interactive kiosks using web technologies for museums. These were large touch-screens (in 2010!) which had to run for 24hrs while in use.I also built the Computer History Museum's Revolution site (this was cutting edge design in 2010): https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14

Worked in an agency environment to build websites for clients in the entertainment, media, technology and healthcare spaces. Built high-quality web sites using Sitecore backends and web frontends which were required to conform to HIPAA laws.

Worked in an agency environment to build marketing websites for clients. Worked on new projects every 3-4 months, usually with a .NET backend and XHTML frontends. Delivered high-quality websites with great attention to detail in short timelines.

Built tools and sites in Perl to acquire leads from search ads.

Built the website and form which allowed prospective students to apply to the school. The tool was built in PHP.

I was a member of the QA team testing Java-based CAD tools. I also implemented the company's test plan software and bug tracker in PHP.