Employment History
VP of Information Systems and Product at Renalytix
September 2021 -
present
As the VP of Information Systems and Product at Renalytix, a company focusing on AI-enabled in vitro diagnostics, I provide strategic leadership of both the Product Management and IT departments, including directing Development and DevOps teams. My role involves driving the technological trajectory that aligns with our company and industry benchmarks, while also managing key integrations with major health systems.
My current role expands on my previous responsibilities as the VP of Digital Health Technology Delivery (Promoted in November 2023).
- Led FDA De Novo Authorization: Drove technological initiatives resulting in FDA authorization of KidneyIntelX.dkd, a tool predicting kidney function decline risks in diabetic adults with early-stage kidney disease.
- Product Management Leadership**: Oversee all product decisions to ensure the delivery of top-tier quality, patient-centric results.
- Information Systems Management: Direct the IT department, managing business software and vendor relationships to ensure efficient and effective operations while keeping budgets in check.
- Directing Development and DevOps Teams: Lead and guide our Development and DevOps teams, ensuring the delivery of robust, reliable, and efficient technological solutions.
- Change Control and SDLC: Continue to improve our Change Control Process and Software Engineering Life Cycle, emphasizing agility and efficiency in all we do.
- Team Guidance: Foster a collaborative and excellence-driven environment across multiple departments.
- Stakeholder Relationships: Nurture and grow key stakeholder relationships, amplifying RenalytixAI’s influence in the industry.
- Technological Scouting: Scout novel technological avenues, positioning us as industry pioneers.
Technical Director at Nearform
February 2020 -
September 2021
Nearform is a large remote-first node.js oriented consulting firm with hundreds of employees all over the world.
- Client Engagement Leadership: Managed the entire customer journey, from initial sales conversations to final project delivery, ensuring satisfaction at every touchpoint.
- Project Management: Supported multiple teams across various projects within the organization concurrently, effectively balancing resources and priorities.
- Technical Solutions Architecting: Designed and planned technical solutions architecture, transforming business needs into actionable and scalable tech strategies.
- Technical Leadership: Occasionally assumed roles at client sites for technical leadership positions, offering hands-on support and expert advice.
- Team & Line Management: Guided my team as their leader to meet project deadlines and deliver high-quality results in a remote-first setting.
- Client Relationships & Account Management: Built robust partnerships through regular communication and expectation management, contributing to client relationship and account management.
- Strategy Setting & Innovation Driving: Participated in setting internal strategy and driving innovation within the organization; my contributions influenced our approach to problem-solving and growth.
Delivery Architect At Nearform
May 2015 -
February 2020
Nearform is a large remote-first node.js oriented consulting firm with hundreds of employees all over the world.
My Delivery Architect role is a compound role with the responsibilities of Team Lead, Lead Architect and Engineering Manager. I was a crucial component in making sure that my teams successfully delivered to our enterprise client’s requirements.
- Global Project Management: Spearheaded the successful delivery of an Ethics and Compliance Investigation Product through effective leadership and team coordination across different time zones.
- Open Source Portfolio Leadership: Successfully managed nearForm’s entire Open Source portfolio for a year, demonstrating strong oversight capabilities in key business operations.
- DevOps Proficiency: Actively contributed to the development of a micro-services-based platform for a payroll processing company’s next-gen products, proving technical expertise in DevOps technologies.
- Complex Project Execution: Helmed the creation of a Course Management and Computer-Based-Training System for a Global Consulting Firm, signifying my ability to manage and lead complex projects.
- Enterprise Project Management: Coordinated the design and implementation of a system optimizing cash distribution across banks and ATMs for a Global Consulting Firm, emphasizing my skills in handling large-scale enterprise projects.
- Continual Learning in DevOps: Regularly expanded knowledge on DevOps as part of daily activities, reflecting my dedication towards continuous learning while leading technical teams.
CTO at Wayfinder
May 2014 -
November 2014
- Knowledge Sharing Tool Creation: Conceptualized and executed a unique tool focused on crafting narratives around link lists, augmenting knowledge sharing capabilities within the team.
- Front-End Overhaul: Transitioned from an inefficacious Ember front-end to a more streamlined React-based front-end, while simultaneously shifting from monolithic architecture to microservices on the back-end.
- Microservice Management: Pioneered a custom Docker-based tool designed specifically for efficient microservice deployments.
- Leadership & Agile Adoption: Directed a team of five full-stack developers, proficiently managing sprints and successfully incorporating agile development methodologies.
Lead Architect at GoBe.me
May 2012 -
March 2014
Responsible for design and implementation of online simulation and decision support platforms.
Making critical technology decisions about the entire system infrastructure.
Ensuring that best practices are followed, such as consistently maintained unit tests tied into continuous integration systems and release management.
Publishing our MVC development framework as an open source project to encourage the team to properly separate concerns.
Developer at DevelopmentSeed
March 2009 -
April 2012
I was initially employed as a means of funding the open source Aegir project, that I had founded while working for my previous employer. I stayed on with them and transitioned into a more development support and system automation role, and eventually working with them on various client projects.
During my time with them we all made the decision to refocus our energies on Node.js, and proceeded to find new maintainers for several successful open source products we had built using Drupal. They have built many data driven sites with very complex mapping components since then, and I was involved in many of their projects during that time.
Developer at Raincity Studios
November 2007 -
December 2008
Responsible for the maintenance of the hosting system I had built before being acquired.
I was also tasked with a completely rewritten replacement for the aging system, that took into account all the lessons we had learned, and would allow for us to offer more functionality to our clients.
Co-Founder of Bryght
June 2004 -
October 2007
Bryght was the first Drupal services company, co-founded by myself and some other developers.
I built and maintained a PaaS at bryght.com, that allowed for turnkey deployment of Drupal sites.
To monetize this system I also built a custom ecommerce solution, with reseller capabilities, to allow for recurring payment
of the sites.
Part of my responsibilities were to push through significant improvements to the Drupal platform,
and a large portion of my time was spent working directly on the Open Source underpinnings that drove
the company.
Bryght was purchased by Raincity Studios, our biggest client, in November of 2007.
Application Developer at Obsidian Systems
May 2001 -
May 2004
Obsidian was arguably the largest company in South Africa solely focused on Linux and Open Source.
My primary motivation for seeking employment with them was to be able to focus on various open source technologies, at a time when the majority of the local industry were tied to Microsoft products.
I was involved in a number of projects including multiple web portals written in PHP, a cross-platform desktop application written in Tcl/TK, and a touch screen point-of-sale system written in Python.
Selected Projects
Wayfinder
May 2014
- November 2014
microservices
node-js
javascript
react-js
mongodb
webpack
extensions
docker
elasticsearch
logstash
kibana
AWS
ember
famous
Wayfinder is a tool that allows you to collect several links on a subject into one page that can be shared with others. I first discovered the product as a user, and joined to help build a next iteration of it.
We replaced the ember front-end with a much cleaner and simpler react-based one and migrated from a monolithic architecture on the back-end, to a microservices one.
We also needed to build a custom Docker-based tool to manage the deployment of our microservices.
This allowed us to work on individual parts of the system without greatly affecting other developers with our changes.
voip
tropo
socket-io
webrtc
xmpp
sip
node-js
coffeescript
mocha-js
jade
state-js
backbone-js
marionette-js
grunt-js
browserify
phantom-js
socket-io
VOIP-based multiplayer game for 7-16 players. Leverages WebRTC to work directly in a browser window without requiring any additional plugins.
We recorded many hours of narration, which is stored on the VOIP service provider’s servers, so that we can we dynamically play these
recordings to the players in the same way that you would play hold music on a PABX system.
Each player is connected to a teleconferencing system that the application controls by selectively shifting the players
between different conference rooms, and controlling whether they can hear or speak to other players based on the shared game state.
The experience is akin to being part of an interactive audio drama.
Browsr
September 2013
angular-js
javascript
couchdb
elasticsearch
couch-app
node-js
bower
grunt-js
jade
Tumblr Picture Browser. I built this demo over a few weekends to experiment with a bunch of technologies that I was curious about.
This application will scrape entire sites to mirror them locally on a CouchDB database, and provides an Angular.js-based Couch-App as the front end.
It then integrates with an ElasticSearch to allow you to build faceted cross-blog searches on various fields. I also built
some rudimentary tablet support into the application.
node-js
javascript
backbone-js
marionette-js
d3-js
couchdb
elasticsearch
bootstrap
less
gulp-js
jade
browserify
cordova
continuous-integration
mocha-js
One of several vertically integrated products I have built while at GoBe.Me. It provides career guidance support to job seekers through it’s analysis of a variety of data sources, but most significantly it makes use of proven psychological assessments to form a more cohesive personality profile of the consumer.
The goal of the application is not to match you with any job, but rather to find a career path that is more likely to be fulfilling to you as a person and therefor improving your quality of life.
node-js
javascript
backbone-js
marionette-js
socket-io
redis
Realtime Collaborative Fridge Poetry. This demo application was built in 48 hours as our entry into the 2012 Node Knockout Hackathon.
Allows for a shared virtual fridge where all participants can re-arrange the words and have them be updated in realtime
on everybody else’s screens. You are able to create and share custom fridges based on your own sets of words.
node-js
javascript
backbone-js
geo
mapbox
inkscape
svg
nginx
We partnered with the Atlas Project to build out the mapping component of their election data visualization toolkit.
The system allowed for the dynamic composition of maps from hundreds of data layers that represented every local or national election in the last several decades in the United States.
The data was further broken down into dozens of demographic indicators, allowing one to trace the shifting attitudes of various cross sections of society over time.
node-js
javascript
couchdb
backbone-js
geo
mapbox
inkscape
svg
nginx
The Global Adaptation Index™ (GAIN™), a project of the Global Adaption Institute, provides a data-driven approach to help countries and the private sector invest in adaptation to climate change and other global forces.
node-js
javascript
backbone-js
couchdb
elasticsearch
geo
inkscape
svg
mapbox
The Business for Good Map shows where and how businesses are improving communities and lives all over the world. The platform is a tool for businesses to connect, find partners, discover ideas, and share best practices and lessons learned.
node-js
javascript
couchdb
geo
elasticsearch
mapbox
inkscape
svg
nginx
We partnered with the Federal Education Budget Project at the New America Foundation to help better communicate how each U.S. school district compares to its surrounding districts, how it performs relative to other districts in its state, and how it compares to other schools in the country across a range of indicators. The custom data browser shows each school district on a map next to its neighbors using custom mapping tools.
php
mysql
unix
drupal
bash
openssl
bind
apache
nginx
javascript
Aegir is an open source project that I founded, that builds a cloud-based hosting platform for Drupal, using nothing but command-line PHP scripts and sheer determination.
I built a community around the project, and was able to successfully hand off the project to my co-maintainers when the project reached the 1.0 milestone.
Drupal
December 2002
- April 2011
drupal
php
mysql
postgresql
css3
linux
javascript
I was deeply involved with the Drupal content management system for nearly a decade. I was responsible for the design of a series of APIs that became the very foundation of how the application evolved.
I attended nearly a dozen Drupalcon’s around the world, and I presented to large crowds of developers at eight of those conferences.
