Summary
10 years experience as a ColdFusion programmer
10 years as SQL Server database administrator
8 years focused on programming standard enforcement and education
6 years fulfilling HIPAA and DOD security requirements
6 years researching and implementing various JavaScript libraries and frameworks
5 years implementing Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-based servers
2 years active open source contributor
Experience
Software Engineer
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD — 2015-Present
- Sole backend programmer for jhsph.edu flagship and many subsidiary websites
- Project prioritization and management of many long-term projects along with daily duties and emergencies
- Project manager: I work with faculty and staff to collect project requirements to accomplish program goals
- Tight collaboration with design and front end team members
- Maintenance and improvement of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 databases
- Refactor dynamic web applications on public website
- Rewrite intranet website with modern security and practices
- Completely rewrote Course Catalog and Faculty Directory applications, the two most visited sections of the public website
- Reduced database calls by 10x, halving page load time
- Modular code allows for data reuse in websites hosted in different CMSs
- Amount of code was reduced by 30% while maintaining same functionality
- Succeeded in lobbying leadership to allow radical changes to interface that has dramatically improved user experience
- Project lead in piloting a migration from our existing CMS, SiteExecutive, to Drupal
At the School of Public Health, I have been tasked with refactoring and improving a codebase of about 100 disparate projects that have collected over a period of 10 years and 8 previous developers. I have been evaluating each project for future viability and deprecated those which are no longer in use.
First Steps
- Move code base into Git source control so that all changes and refactoring is tracked and can be reliably reversed
- Migrate to new web servers running newer Windows and ColdFusion
- Assess incoming data feeds and reduce the amount of data being hand-entered into multiple systems
Open Source Contributor and Project Maintainer
github.com/kevindb — 2015-Present
I am a firm believer in open source software, especially for web-based tools. When I’m building a tool that is common enough to be used by others, I try to publish it open source if I can.
- jQuery Form Plugin — github.com/jquery-form/form
A popular plugin with 4k stars and more than 1k forks, it serializes a form’s data so it can be sent to a server using an AJAX request, rather than a full page refresh. I was dismayed to find that the owner had stopped maintaining it. I have used the plugin in many projects, so I contacted him and offered to take the responsibility for overall project ownership. I have cleaned up years of neglect, closing 140 issues and merging 35 pull requests. The project is now compatible with jQuery 3 and has a fresh suite of unit tests and new documentation hosted on Github Pages. - jQuery Load JSON — github.com/kevindb/jquery-load-json
The first “abandoned” JavaScript project that I adopted. This project automates loading JSON data into an HTML form. - CF MailChimp — github.com/kevindb/cf-mailchimp
ColdFusion wrapper for the MailChimp 3.0 API, makes it easy to send and retrieve subscriber data to MailChip from a ColdFusion server.
Senior Programming Analyst / Database Administrator
Power 6 Software Inc, Clarksville, MD — 2012-Present
- Principal backend architect for online multiplayer mobile game
- Design and implementation of SQL Server 2012 relational database in fifth normal form to maintain online game state
- Wrote from the ground up a ColdFusion-based API to publish game web service via JSON to mobile application
- Created REST API and jQuery front-end for a data management web application
- Developed management metrics and reporting in spreadsheet form using Excel 2010 macros
- Management of AWS cloud-based IIS and ColdFusion web servers and database servers
- Management of company Git repositories on github.com
- Technology and scope creep Devil’s Advocate
At Power 6, I have developed the backend API using ColdFusion and SQL Server. The API provides all communication between players in multiplayer games and validates and stores game states to ensure fair gameplay.
Key API Considerations
- Data responses to mobile devices must be incredibly compact, especially over cellular
- Optimizing objects serialized to JSON and compressing HTTP responses halved our data usage
- Response time must be as short as possible to enhance and not interfere with the user experience
- API has an average response time of 85 ms
- Ever-evolving requirements require significant flexibility
- Extensive code reuse and functionalization allows changes while minimizing technical debt
Senior Business Analyst
Express Scripts Inc, Orlando, FL — 2009-2015
- Designing and updating ColdFusion based development framework for internal web application
- Development of rich and dynamic web-based tools and reports using ColdFusion, HTML 5, CSS, and Javascript
- Management of IIS and ColdFusion web servers in clustered and non-clustered environments
- Maintenance and reconstruction of existing Microsoft SQL 2005 & 2008 databases using normalization standards
- Building and management of Extract, Transform, and Load processes to move data between Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle databases, Excel and CSV files
- Developing scheduled and ad-hoc report output to web, PDF, and Excel formats
- Excel reports use a combination of Power Query and macros to refresh data daily from SQL Server databases
- Ensure security and controls over HIPPA and PHI/PII data
- Project Management: setting and meeting project milestones and deadlines, and internal client communication to fulfill changing needs
At Express Scripts, I was the lead architect of an internal web application framework serving 18,000 daily active users. The application houses over 900 individual reports and tools that are developed by a team of over 75 analysts. As the lead web developer in the department, my job duties included definition of programming standards and setting technical direction. I regularly attend industry conferences on ColdFusion and web development in order to stay current and bring that knowledge back to the team. I lead bi-weekly team training sessions in beginner, intermediate, and advanced ColdFusion and web development principles. Although management has not approved a formal code review process, one of my daily duties is providing assistance to more junior analysts. This always involves a degree of informal code review and constructive coaching. I also have responsibility over our web servers, including configuration of Adobe ColdFusion and IIS, as well as diagnosis of advanced network connectivity and permissions problems.
Highlights
- 2012: Principal leader of the task team in charge of combining multiple disparate reporting applications and systems for Operations, related to the acquisition of Medco, a fellow Fortune 50 company.
- 2013: Launched version 3.0 of our main reporting application with an entirely new security model to meet DOD and HIPAA requirements.
- 2014: Began an education program to teach our analysts SOFEA style front-end web development with an emphasis on jQuery AJAX data models in an effort to modernize our codebase and lighten the load on our web servers.
Senior Programming Analyst
Cabibbo Inc, Orlando, FL — 2007-2009
- Conceptualization, design, and implementation of Microsoft SQL Server databases
- Coding static and dynamic public-facing websites using primarily HTML, Javascript, and ColdFusion
- Web, email, and database server management based on Windows 2000 and 2003
- Project Management: working with external clients to define project specifications and deadlines
Education
Valencia College, Orlando, Fl — 2006-2010
A.A. Degree: Information Technology
Skills
Software
- Virtualization: Parallels, VMWare
- Cloud: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Source Control: Git, Subversion
Server Management
- Windows Server 2000 / 2003 / 2008 / 2012
- Internet Information Services (IIS) 6 / 7 / 7.5 / 8
- Adobe ColdFusion 8 / 9 / 10 / 11
- Microsoft SQL Server 2000 / 2005 / 2008 / 2012
Languages
Advanced
- ColdFusion Markup MX - 11, Lucee/Railo
- HTML5
- JavaScript, jQuery
- CSS
- T-SQL, PL/SQL
Novice
- Node.js
- PHP (with Drupal focus)
- Java
- C / C++
