Hanging Out the Shingle

I'm a bit disappointed I lost some of my "resume blog" Google ranking. Given that I've only updated this blog twice in the past two years, I can't say I blame Google for dropping me from number 1 to number 7.

Anyways, forget about that. I've been picking up quite a bit of work recently as a web site optimizer and developer. And although I've never actively pursued these side projects, I've decided I'd like to continue to do more of them.

If anyone has an existing web site, and you'd like to look into ways to make your site rank higher in search engines, or even just make it more friendly and useful for visitors, send me an email. My main web site it at http://www.mydemos.com/ and you can contact me using the Contact Me link on that site.

It's not that expensive to perform a few basic optimizations on your site. And it can't hurt to ask for some ideas and an estimate.

And Another And Another

Just a quick status update. I've been renewed for another year, so my availability for full-time contract positions is now early February 2008.

I am always open to talking about project-specific contracts, and other work that can be done remotely. Feel free to contact me using the Contact Me link at my main web site http://www.mydemos.com/

One More Year

I just signed a renewal with my current client, so I will be unavailable for one more year.

What Do I Do?

I am primarily interested in Application Architecture positions. Over the past couple of years, my time has been split between the software development side and the design/architecture side. But I think that, going forward, I would prefer to concentrate more on the architecture side. This is where my 15 years of software development experience can be most effectively applied.

I have almost always been involved in design and architecture during my career. Even in my first job with Petro-Canada in 1993, I designed and architected a complex multi-server distributed application. Of course, I did everything on that project from building the servers themselves (they were shipped to me in pieces, I put them together, and shipped them to the distributed locations), to installing the OS/DB software, to writing the code, to travelling to the remote site for the actual install. That was a cool project, and still remains a personal highlight of my career.

And I believe on every project from that day til today, I have had a varying amount of design influence. Even on projects that had dedicated information and database architects, you don't even approach them without some idea of how you want the database or business objects to look. More often than not, they accepted my ideas without major modifications.

Don't get me wrong though. I'm not the type of person that sits around "architecting" all day while others do the coding. I am totally immersed in .NET, able to code in both C# and VB.NET. When presented with a problem, I will often whip up a "one time use" program to generate the answer for me. I don't expect that part of me to change. I will always want to have a hand in the code, even if it's just as a reviewer or mentor. And when a particularly tough bug is stumping a developer, I will be there in a heartbeat to help decipher and fix.

But software architecture is my specialty, and so that's where I think I will be most useful to any organization.

Resume Blog

It's odd (and somehow nice) to discover that this blog is the number 1 hit on Google for the search phrase "resume blog" (in quotes). It is number 2 without the quotes.

I didn't mean that to happen, I assure you. But I guess I feel a bit more responsibility now to actually keep this blog going, and fill it with highlights of my skills and experience...

Speaking of which, I might be available for contract or full-time work in the new year. Is anybody hiring? Drop me a line!

Describing Myself

I once heard someone describe a good friend of mine (whom I will call "M") as a "bulldog", and it struck me right away how appropriate this description was. M was the type of person who you assigned a task to if you really wanted it to get done. Now M himself didn't do the work, but he was awfully good at asking me (and other programmers on the team) for status updates on a regular basis. It got to the point where I completed the task (which I considered lower-priority than other tasks on my plate) just to get M off my back. He was a bulldog, in the nicest way.

Thinking about "M the Bulldog" has got me thinking about what one or two words I would use to describe myself.

Scott the? It's hard to come up with one easily.

I'd like to think others would describe me as intelligent. I take a certain amount of pride in being knowledgable on a wide range of topics. Whether it is databases, programming languages, current events, new technologies and gadgets...

I would also like to be known as a good problem-solver. I often find myself being given some strange problem (like, the system is deleting records in the database and noone knows why) and being able to think through the most likely reasons, and often being right about my hunches. Problems, in fact, motivate me. Perhaps I would have become a detective if my love of computers didn't guide me on my current path...

I could probably come up with a few more. I work hard at developing a deep understanding of the business. (I have a certain business-savvy - I am considering getting an MBA.) Some programmers like to just work from specs - in essence have the business analyst do all the heavy-lifting in figuring out how a particular program should be used to solve a client's problem. Wherreas I can work alongside a business analyst, to help influence some of the decisions within the spec to help make things easier for everybody.

Anyways, what does that make me? Well, perhaps the best description is senior, in every positive connotation of the word. I prefer working in an environment where I can influence software design decisions (or even make them). I give generously of my time and experience to others. And I apply all of my 14 years of professional experience, learning from my past mistakes and trying hard not to repeat them.

Doing What I Do Best

Over the course of my career, I have had the good fortune to have worked on more than two dozen different software development projects for almost a dozen different companies. (Of course, some of those projects have been more enjoyable than others.)

I thought it would be worthwhile to list my top two or three favourite projects and talk about what I did and why they were special for me. This list is in no particular order.

* Ministry of Health, Water Testing Information System (WTIS) project
This was a VB 6 application, that help the public laboratories in Ontario process water testing results. It automatically notifies the public health authorities in the province when bad water results are discovered. This application replaces what formerly was a paper-based process, and ensures that people with contaminated water on their properties are notified in only a few days instead of a matter of weeks.

I was the main developer of this application, and was able to deliver three releases of the software in 1 year. I also spent time transferring some of my skills and knowledge on proper VB6 and SQL Server development to the full-time employees on the team, so that they could continue to enhance the application after I had left.

All in all, this was a highly satisfying job. Not only did I work with some extraordinary people, the team was well-organized and the department manager was definitely concerned with providing good opportunities for learning to his staff. If I was interested in full-time employment at that time, I would have definitely wanted to stay.

* Petro-Canada Inc., Distributed Transaction System (DTS)
This was my first full-time job after university, and I was there for nearly 5 years. For who I was (a kid right out of school) I was given a remarkable amount of resposibility - and I loved it. During my time there, I developed a distributed multi-tier componentized application that mainly dealt with recording sales of products to major competitors.

My application communicated with systems from Imperial Oil (Esso), Sunoco, Husky and a few others. I was entirely responsible for the design, development, implementation, and support of this application which was installed on 12 servers in cities across Canada. I got to travel a little bit (which I love), worked to solve real customers problems, and saved my employer a ton of money by improving the time required to send out invoices. What was formerly a paper-based process that could take weeks to reconcile the sales between disconnected systems, became highly-automated so that billing could commence on the same day a sale is made.

Given that 12 years later I am still basically doing the same thing (improving communication between disconnected systems), it's quite impressive (to me at least) how successful the DTS project was.

* The Marketing Store, Dealer CRM Project
This is my current contract. The project has been to migrate almost 100 car dealers from using an old version of a CRM tool to a new version. This involved quite extensive customization of the new CRM to meet the needs of the manufacturer, and the data migration issues (ensuring a flawless migration) have been a definite challenge.

I was the lead developer of the migration project, working with two other developers. It involved a lot of .NET development (in both C# and VB.NET), and SQL Server coding. I then moved on to another project that involved designing a bunch of web services to provide access to our database to an outside vendor.

Basically, this contract has been a blast. I love the people I work with, and I also love the attitude of the entire company. It's a fun place to work. I have also been challenged with complex problems and new technology, and that is fun as well.