Demetrius Johnson - Résumé
For the past six years, I have focused on building and scaling AJAX/Web 2.0 applications. My recent responsibilities have included the design and implementation of web apps, widgets, mashups, and plug-in using JavaScript, HTML5/CSS3, C#, NodeJS, PHP, Java, REST, Web services, RSS, flash, and leading frameworks like .NET, Blueprint, YUI, and ExtJS. My responsibilities have included coding, architectural design, unit testing, mobile, API development, interactive cutting edge AJAX clients, back end development, and product management. I have a strong background in architecture, n-tier, asynchronous programming, and distributed/threaded systems. Some of the products I have worked on recently have had to support millions of users. Features have included online store with shopping cart, video on demand, affiliate marketing and advertising, mobile sites, gaming, social media, social sign on, weather, IPTV, SEO/SEM, automated workflow, chat, real-time analytics, Geo targeting, content management system, search, geospatial indexing, automated billing and subscription management, support & forms, clustered batch processing, mashups, screen scrapers, MCE applications, yahoo IM plug-in, Facebook apps, MySpace apps, Twitter client, RSS syndication services to publish content, integrate with POP3/IMAP/OLAP/WebDav, and prototypes for ASR/TTS interfaces, automated text indexing and clustering through NLP and LSI, and cross-domain AJAX widgets.
Most of my responsibilities in the last two years have been split between front and back end development. The software I work on handles petabytes of data, thousands of transactions a minute and has to support many cutting edge features. One of the challenges was having to support multiple devices including mobile, set top devices, and support integrated services. I developed in a heterogeneous environment supporting IIS, apache, NginX on windows and UNIX. I use multiple languages, frameworks, and architectures. With over 1200 domains and multiple product lines, my team supports over 80% of the MSO (cable and satellite) providers (38 million customers) with our online VOD/pay site and tube sites.
The previous five years I worked at Fuser and NewsGator, on building news and social aggregation platforms. Fuser interfaced with Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, etc. and provided users a unified approach to all their communications. I worked on some of the most advanced AJAX and java applet integration around. NewsGator, was one of the pioneers in the RSS space. I worked on both their front end and back end systems. During this five years, I was mostly focused on web based applications and Internet standards supporting large customer bases.
Previous to that I designed and implemented a web-based, desktop, and mobile CRM application which included an automated underwriting, work-flow, pipeline management, and B2B solutions for a leading mortgage company doing business in 40 states. I have also worked in the telecommunication field on speaker independent voice recognition and incentive motivation software for call centers.
I have gained experience with project management and business development through working and contracting with many companies; including owning and being involved with startup and public companies. With years of real-world experience building and supporting commercial software, I have a deep understanding of the problems our field faces. My strong academic background in architectural design, design patterns, agile/XP discipline, test driven development and configuration management began over 15 years ago.
I pride myself on being a coder throughout my entire career, resulting in a balanced view on how to build and develop software for the real world in a timely fashion with few defects. Other areas I have worked on include operating systems and compilers, embedded controllers and frameworks. While working at STI and NeXT, I worked on frameworks and platforms that helped support fortune 100 companies.
I believe I have a well-rounded understanding of how to design APIs, frameworks and scalable architectures to support the software design processes. I also have a good understanding of applied algorithms, OOP, test driven development and other critical concepts, that aid in effective software design and maintainability. My diverse experience and grasp of current technology stacks has given me unique abilities to build and solve complex problems.
PERSONAL INFORMATION & GOALS
At the age of seventeen, I was recruited by NASA through the University of Colorado, to help write data acquisition software for the space station Freedom. Following that I worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT, Spatial Technology and Pixar upgrading their compilers, operating system and QRM/PRM (RenderMan) to support ACIS Kernel. I headed the largest port of C/C++ code that NeXT and Pixar had ever been involved in. I then started my own software company using this technology in one of the first CAD/CAM products for NeXTSTEP. I gained experience in the development of visualization and physical modeling, expert systems, simultaneous system solvers, networking, databases and CAD/CAM modelers. Which supported complex mechanical systems with a variety of attributes including geometric, management, financial, mathematical and design characteristics. I headed the development of one of the first next generation unstructured, contextual object oriented databases. I have also excelled in other domains including embedded controls, printing, digital rights management, peer-to-peer networks, UNIX administration, non-language and localization support and encryption.
I feel very fortunate to have such a diverse exposure to so many different technologies, as well as having worked with some of the best developers in the field. My bag of tricks is vast and creative because of this experience.
Goals:
To work with an energetic group of people who are passionate about delivering solutions which will change the world and leave us all a feeling of accomplishment. To maintain my focus on respecting the complexity of software development. I would like to work in an environment that encourages collaboration efforts and lightweight management processes (i.e. scrum). I would like to continue to focus on web based applications, AJAX, work-flow, algorithms and artificial intelligence and stay focused on challenging problems which will inspire me to grow. Most importantly I would like to work with a company that will allow me to be an integral part of its future.
EXPERIENCE
New Media Group | division of NF (2009-)
As the principal developer and leader of my team, my responsibilities include planning, design, coding, and execution of each project of the New Media Group. This includes all the Internet based technologies and new emerging technologies for the broadcast business. My accomplishments include successfully executing a wide range of projects from deploying many payed sites, video delivery systems, dating sites, weather channel, custom CMS/workflow, batch processing, mobile sites, flash based games, and more. Combined, our systems deal with petabytes of data, huge bandwidth and encoding requirements, complex work flows, automation, a heterogeneous environment, and multiple technology stacks. Including cutting edge technologies like NodeJS, NoSQL, cloud offerings, and geo target advertisement. I have successfully worked on SEO/SEM white and gray hat campaigns and supported multiple affiliate marketing backends. I work on mobile, social media, set top box solution, and integrated IPTV offerings. Specifically I work with Panasonic on integrating our services into their Viera connect TV. Our weather product uses geo targeting, the social graph to target hyper relevant content dynamically.
McKESSON (2009 - 3 month contract)
I worked on revamping their flag ship product that runs in most hospitals around the world. This GWT based application, RxWriter, tracks and manages hospital pharmacies. RxWriter handles prescription writing, drug interactions, patient discharge, reporting, and complex insurance and administration rules. I worked on the user interface and integration into McKESSONs legacy back end systems. As a highly regulated industry, we practiced TDD methodology religiously. We also worked on some of the most complicated IT infrastructure in the health care industry. RxWriter was built using GWT, EXT, hibernate, swing on JBoss and jetty. My extensive knowledge of JavaScript helped me lead and solve complex problems with GWT and EXT, because at the time it was an emerging technology with very little industry documentation.
Fuser.com (2007-2009)
As the most senior web developer/architect, I led the redesign of Fuser’s original ASP.NET web application to a pure AJAX based app using only JavaScript, web services, and HTML/CSS. I had to evaluate many JavaScript toolkits, SDKs, IDEs, and architectures. Leveraging my familiarity with different approaches, performance advantages, and usability of many JavaScript toolkits I was able to guide Fuser’s architectural plan. I also have a great deal of experience using tools to help profile, scale, and unit test AJAX applications. My responsibilities were developing Fuser’s mainline web application and widgets/plug-in for Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. I also had to train my team to embark into the new world of AJAX and cutting edge web 2.0 concepts. One of the most technically challenging problems I faced at Fuser is integration of our custom applet (Java JRE), that handled web based screen scraping to allow us to create an aggregate mashup of social networking sites, web based email, and other communication services like chat. I also worked with many cross-domain and offline issues while developing the Fuser web application. Other technologies I explored at Fuser were Adobe AIR, and Microsoft’s sliverlight, and text mining algorithms.
NewsGator, Inc. (2005-2007)
I worked in the platform, enterprise, private label, consumer applications and online departments. Most of my time was spent working with the online team as the software team lead. As the most senior developer I was responsible for managing and implementing the design, development, configuration, QA and deployment of all NewsGator’s online assets. Our team included a product management, usability experts, developers, QA, configuration and support. During my time working on the online team we delivered a dynamic corporate web site (CRM like), online store with shopping cart, industry award winning online RSS reader/aggregator, automated billing and subscription management, support & forms, windows media center RSS readers and mobile web version, SEO optimization, affiliates skinning API, AJAX based API/framework, yahoo IM plug-in, RSS syndication services to publish content to our online assets and the platform supporting 550,000 users and thousands of transactions a minute.
I was part of upgrading and modernizing the enterprise version of the reader and Microsoft exchange version, scaling the back-end platform and infrastructure to support more users and transactions. My proudest accomplishment was creating the architecture and implementation of NewsGator AJAX framework and designing a radically new back-end platform similar to Google’s GFS including an alternative persistent object store that outperforms Microsoft’s SQL server 2005, NewsGator’s current back-end. Other accomplishments include prototypes for ASR/TTS and latent semantic indexing for clustering and concept discovery and successfully converting NewsGator’s code base through Microsoft’s .net 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 frameworks.
Entrust Mortgage, Inc. (2000-2005)
Built and designed all Entrust in-house software handling their CRM, Automated Underwriting, work-flow management, processing, reporting, and B2B solutions. This publicly traded mortgage company has been using the software with 5,000 other broker companies in 40 states.
Chatter Box Communications, LLS (1999-2000)
I assisted in the development of a speaker independent voice recognition system including hardware that would work over traditional telephony. Identified the technology, negotiated world-wide exclusive rights from the CSLU Group (including three University research labs). Started a pilot project at US West/Quest and other call centers enabling customers to handle billing problems and use voice dialing. Davox considered acquiring the company for the technology I was involved with.
Hi-5, Inc. (1998-1999)
Chief architect and software developer at Hi-5 working on incentive motivation software for call centers. Including monitoring of all the agents’ terminals/computers and events from the call center switch (i.e. PBX, ACD, predictive dialer, preview dialer, etc.) I developed and assisted in the patent of the underlying motivation logic used by Hi-5. We worked and deployed the system to large and small companies including Maritz Group witch became one of our strategic partners and is one of the biggest motivation incentive companies in the world. Maritz Group is the founder of debit and credit card incentive programs.
Renaissance Software, Inc. (1997-1998)
Developed CAD/CAM software for one of the first NeXTSTEP CAD/CAM products using next generation OO software and tool-kits. Recognized for breakthrough developments in database management, user interface, module mixed-language development, and other 3D advancements.
Spatial Technology, Inc. (1996-1997)
Ported the largest block of C/C++ code to the NeXTSTEP OS. This included rewriting the GCC compiler and parts of the Mach OS. Constructed quality assurance systems to test thousands of scenarios. Spatial Technology is one of the most advanced CAD/CAM companies today; they have licensed their ACIS kernel to over 1200 companies including Ford, Toyota, AutoDesk, Intel, CADKey, and Ansoft. I was the first partner to start a small business group to enable startup companies to afford million dollar OEM licenses.
AWARDS, PATENTS AND PUBLICATIONS
- Help edit and author Microsoft Press book on Share Point.
- Mixed Language Development (C,C++, Object C) Under GCC given at Object World.
- Pending Patents on incentive motivation software for call centers using ACD, predictive dialing, and IVR.
- Made the semi-finalist in the NIST Advanced Technology Program. I made 3ndout of 2000 companies including Intel, IBM, and Microsoft.
- Exclusive rights to a web-based customer relationship management (CRM) software automated underwriting software, document and pipeline workflow software, rate and pricing engines, and a web-based.
- Participated as a member in the Wazniak fellowship program (though University of Colorado) that was chartered to identify young bright kids with futures in technology and help in their education.
- Successfully completed Oracle/MySQL DBA & Developer certification.
COMPUTER SKILLS
Languages
- Proficient in: JavaScript, NodeJS, C#, PHP, CSS-CSS3, HTML-HTML5, XML, SQL, NoSQL, Objective-C, JSON, Regular expressions.
- Previously used: Java, ActionScipt, FLEX, C++, C, VB, CLIPS, Lisp, ASCI, PostScript, HLSL, Perl, AIR, XAML, OpenGL, MSIL, XSLT, F#, Lex, YACC, MiG, Python, bash.
- Methodology: AJAX, OOP, Prototypical, AOP/Aspex, UML, Agile/XP, Waterfall, Design Patterns, TDD, Configuration management.
Software & Frameworks
- Software: MySQL, MongoDB, Microsoft SQL, Aptana, Eclipse, Visual Studio, Git, Perforce, Subversion, SourceSafe, IIS, Apache, Nginx, Redis, Solr, Lucene, Team System, CVS, Valut, Perforce, Star Team, Photoshop, Flash, Office, Borland IDE, Concerto EnsemblePro, and others.
- Frameworks: ASP.NET (1.0-3.5) ASP.NET AJAX, Sliverlight, NodeJS, blueprint, ExpressJS, YUI, ExtJS, GWT, JQuery, Dojo, prototype, Kohana, .NET Compact Framework, ADO.NET, LINQ, WinFX, Win32, SAPI, TrimPath, NUnit, WPF/E, WCF, OPENSTEP, RenderMan and others.
- Platforms: OS X, Windows, UNIX/Linux, Gecko, Webkit, IE, NodeJS/v8, NeXTSTEP, Embedded x86 and ARM.
In the hope of furthering my knowledge, I want to share my ideas and my passion for writing code and learn from all of you in return. In this blog, I plan to cover technologies I am working on including server and client side javascript, open source, cloud computing, design, the social web and more.
