Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Gallagher, a global insurance brokerage and risk management services firm, helps clients address risk, protect assets and recover from losses. I was hired to manage and develop in-house software that could be used both internally, as well as by external clients such as large carriers.

July, 2018 - Present

• Responsible for rewriting an application from Sharepoint / SSRS to .NET Core with Angular and Embedded PowerBI
• Hands on development, architecture, and proof-of-concepts to bring new concepts into the organization
• Responsible for managing the planning and development of programming activities, applications systems, and requirements standards for multiple teams.
• Directs the activities of project staff to ensure the development and implementation of systems applications programs are on time and within budgets
• Develops short− and long−term applications systems plans that are consistent with the needs and priorities of the business

Ventiv Technology

Ventiv Technology, formerly Aon eSolutions, is a leading global provider of risk management, claims and safety solutions to businesses and public entities. I was rehired into a leadership role in charge of Architecture, giving management responsibilities on top of my previous architectural workload.

February, 2016 - July, 2018 2 years, 4 months

• Responsible for Software Architecture, Release Management and Software Change Management in a DevOps organization
• Successfully pioneered several large-scale software projects
• Architectural responsibility over 4 enterprise-class software suites
• Responsible for product selection and Proof-of-Concepts both developed in-house and purchased/integrated
• Worked as a DevOps champion to automate many of the day-to-day processes across teams
• Introduced React / React Native to start Ventiv Capture, an offline-first mobile solution for iOS, Android and the Web
• Used tooling such as DynaTrace to bring performance / scalability up to peak levels
• Designed / Implemented SAML2 based Single Signon solutions for various products
• Designed / Implemented JWT based OAuth Authentication flow for web-based and native-based project
• Introduced 'Architecture Governance Review' items to introduce approval process into more complicated changes

Gnosis Secured

Gnosis Secured is a transaction management, middleware, and processing company that gives our clients modern data delivery & optimized payment solutions. I was hired to be the sole architect / developer on a product which has only existed in concept, due to my prior experiences as a Sr Architect in the Insurance marketplace.

July, 2015 - February, 2016 7 months

• Developed a Proof-of-Concept application for an early-stage startup
• Implemented in-house hosting solution, based on Linux and Docker, while integrating with hosted services on Redhat Openshift
• Single resource for design, architecture, development, deployment and implementation of products
• Implemented ForgeRock stack to provision / maintain users with their Identity Access Management open source software
• Assisted in development of requirements and workflows
• Full stack development with AngularJS/NPM/Browserify, Spring Boot w/ JPA/Hibernate, PostgreSQL

Ventiv Technology

Ventiv Technology, formerly Aon eSolutions, is a leading global provider of risk management, claims and safety solutions to businesses and public entities. This was a continuation of my employment at Aon eSolutions, while moving on to be a Sr. Software Architect. This position was pivotal for building out a new platform for Ventiv Technology.

December, 2013 - July, 2015 1 year, 6 months

• Research / PoC of many large projects including: dynaTrace, Black Duck, Activiti / Camunda Workflows
• Primary Architect on grassroots project to combine the best of three projects into a new, clean architecture. Utilized AngularJS for the front-end and SpringMVC for the back-end.
• Developed Spring Security for authentication and runtime customization of authorization
• Heavy customization and utilization of Apache Solr. Injected security into Solr and asynchronous synchronization over RabbitMQ
• Custom Business Rule Framework. Utilized ANTLR to create a custom DSL that transpiled into Drools and JavaScript. This allowed for highly structured business rules that could be easily maintained, with custom built tooling.
• Converted infrastructure from shell scripts to Docker containers. Wrote Docker Manager (https://github.com/Ventiv-Technology/DockerManager) so anyone could control the infrastructure.
• Developed Load Testing tooling utilizing FitNesse and Jmeter.

Aon eSolutions

Aon eSolutions is the technology solutions arm of Aon Corporation. Our product and services include risk management information systems (RMIS), claims and policy administration systems, safety, OSHA reporting and incoming certificate tracking. I was hired as a Sr. Software Engineer to develop a product which I had previously been a client of. From there I progressed to Technical Lead to Manager while gaining valuable experience and responsibility.

May, 2013 - December, 2013 7 months

• Managed team of 3 in a role of Software Architecture
• Research done on Alternative storage (NoSQL). Ultimately decided to table the implementation as to reduce impact to business during transition period.
• Implementation of Groovy AST transforms to build framework for lightweight AOP (Timing / Caching)
• Introduced Git to the enterprise, migrating from SVN. Had to contribute LDAP authentication to the OSS GitBlit project to help adoption.

April, 2010 - May, 2013 3 years, 1 month

• Researched and transformed a monolithic application into a modular system over a transitional period utilizing Equinox Servlet Bridge (OSGi) to manage module lifecycle
• Pioneered a new UI framework based on GWT / GXT. Allowed for high level of configurability through custom-built tooling (also in GWT / GXT). This configuration over development cut development costs by 40%
• Introduction of Internationalization (Language, Date Formats, Number Formats, etc…)
• Used Sencha Touch to build a web-based mobile application for iPhone / Android / Blackberry

August, 2007 - April, 2010 2 years, 7 months

• Designed new back-end architecture for two “Greenfield” modules that needed to be fully integrated into existing product
• Separated single class into DAO / BO / VO Architecture to increase maintainability of code
• Utilized Drools to introduce new rules engine (JBoss Drools) to break down complex algorithm into simple independent rules

Broadspire

Broadspire is Crawford's global Third-Party Administration (TPA) division specializing in servicing the claims needs of corporations, brokers and insurers who wish to take greater control over the claims process, indemnity spend, data capture, and to access meaningful management information. I was hired at Broadspire due to my previous experiences with building a large-scale J2EE Claims Adjudication System.

October, 2006 - August, 2007 10 months

• Used Java / J2EE to architect and develop an Event Processor System. System was built using open sourced tooling such as Eclipse, utilizing several frameworks like Spring, Spring MVC, and Hibernate to process messages. System was designed to be deployed on JBoss with a SQL Server 2005 / Oracle 10g back end.
• Utilized JMS (MQ Series) via an MDB to asynchronously respond to messages produced by a 3rd party system
• Designed and developed batch processes to assemble and print mailing packages with various documents and rendered checks from templates.
• Built tooling in C# to assist analysis of outsourced software, aiding in generating requirements.
• Repackaged code structure by function while implementing full UCM capabilities with ClearCase / ClearQuest integration
• Developed administrative screens to communicate via JMX to dynamically configure application

Zurich American Insurance Company

Zurich is a leading commercial property-casualty insurance provider serving the global corporate, large corporate, middle market, small business (not offered in Canada), specialty products and programs sectors. I was hired at Zurich after two successful internships while studying at university, due to being able to accomplish any task while exceeding expectations.

May, 2002 - September, 2006 4 years, 4 months

• Used Java, JSP, and Struts to design, develop and deploy an application for the company’s claims and corporate customer department. Systems were built in WSAD / RAD6 for deployment on Websphere v5.1 for z/OS connecting to a DB2 database.
• Used Hibernate to read from database, and homebrew framework for persistence.
• Leveraged Java Management Extensions (JMX) to control the application at runtime.
• Used Adobe LiveCycle to create Dynamic PDF Forms
• Proof of Concept with Google Web Toolkit to deliver exceptional user experience
• Extensive use of profiling tools to analyze code for memory inefficiencies and to improve performance.
• Designed and tested Proof of Concept code to ensure that design ideas were functional before attempting to implement.
• Analyzed and provided feedback of code to off-shore developers while validating estimates of work to be done by outsourcer
• Mentored and transitioned key knowledge of important subject matters to team mates.
• Full Lifecycle Development (Requirements, Design, Development, Testing)