Aaron Maxwell's Resume/CV
Aaron Maxwell - amax@redsymbol.net
Updated, enhanced version at http://redsymbol.net/resume/
Summary
Aaron Maxwell is a technology entrepreneur with a strong background in software engineering and scientific research. He is an author of books and essays, contributor to open-source and free software, and public speaker. He currently lives in San Francisco, CA, USA.
Professional/Work History
Founder, Mobile Web Up
Mobile Web Up helps mid-sized and enterprise-level businesses and organizations extend their web presence, marketing, and ecommerce operations to the mobile web. Aaron Maxwell is the founder and chief technologist.
Successful market analysis to determine high-quality, underserved need in marketplace. Designed, implemented and iteratively expanded the original core software, Mobilize by Mobile Web Up, used to create and host clients' mobile websites. Developed, deployed and iteratively updated original digital marketing strategy to establish early success stories and paying clients.
Software engineer in testing/QA, SnapLogic
Designed and implemented a distributed, fault-tolerant, evolvable QA infrastructure for automated testing of a large, multi-(process, threaded, platform, language) software product. Includes unit and integration test discovery, advanced reporting, code coverage measurements (both per-test and aggregate), static source code analysis, performance benchmarking. Built a quality monitoring service with automated alerts based on events, such as drops in code coverage. Designed and implemented a multidimensional benchmark performance tool capable of spanning multiprocess integration tests, complete with an extensible plug-in architecture for new metrics, and data analysis and report generation. Leveraged existing open source tools as possible, extending as needed. Contributed code implementing significant functionality to the BuildBot Figleaf projects. Presented overview of our automated QA approach at Pycon in March 2009.
FindForMe.net
Conceived, designed and implemented FindForMe.net, an automated book shopping assistant and advanced Amazon affiliate. Service consists of web site plus several attendant programs, implemented in Python 2.5 using Django 1.0, which make use of the Amazon Associates Web Service to continually scan inventory of thousands of independent booksellers, alerting user when books become available at their preferred price.
Web development
Multiple mid-size Web development projects for SnapLogic, Inc., and for various clients of RadicalFusion. Using Agile practices and test-driven development, worked individually, and in teams of up to 5 developers, in both supporting and technical lead roles. Select projects include: created a "community forge" site based on Python and Django for SnapLogic, integrating user registration with central LDAP back-end, and integrating site functionality across separate Django (Python), Trac and Drupal (PHP) websites. Isolated and created fix for mod_python issue affecting Django; submitted patch was accepted by upstream and integrated into trunk (http://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/4710). "Updates" server used by SnapLogic client software to query for new versions from customer installations.
Publications
Books
Wrote and published two math books: Inner Algebra and Integrate Your Brain. Content available online at http://boostmath.com.
Articles and Essays
Multiple technical, professional and personal development essays published at http://redsymbol.net/articles/. Wrote many marketing-serving articles for the Mobile Web Up blog. Chief editor of the mobile business newsletter. Quoted in important industry publications including Mashable, Inc.com, ReadWriteWeb, most of which are documented at http://mobilewebup.com/in-the-news/. Wrote contributed and well-received article for http://mashable.com/2011/02/24/mobile-app-dev-cost/. Wrote technical essays on cloud computing implementation using Amazon Web Services at the AWS Journal, with cloud computing software shared online.
Public Speaking, Presentations and Teaching
Business and Mobile Marketing
Teach mobile marketing workshops to entrepreneurs, and management for mid and small-sized businesses. Workshops and classes taught at the Small Business Administration, the Chamber of Commerce, and other venues in San Francisco, CA, USA.
Technology, Software Engineering and Development
Gave presentations to highly technical audiences on software engineering topics, at Pycon (2009) and various meetings and groups mostly in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley region in northern California. Partial list at http://redsymbol.net/talks/.
Technical Skillset
- A world class expert in the following technologies: Python (2 and 3), the HTTP protocol, mobile web technology, Linux and Unix.
- Facility with cloud computing, particularly Amazon Web Services and EC2. Has designed and implemented scaleable web applications based on EC2, with fully automated deployment and control systems.
- Good understanding of security practices, including PCI-DSS compliance of web ecommerce systems.
- Experience and ability with REST protocol design; and with DOM (the document object model), especially as applied to real-world HTML.
- A degree of Linux system administration ability that is unusually high for a software developer.
- An outstanding writer on technology. Has written highly technical software articles, extensive tutorials and manuals, two small math books, and deep and insightful works explaining obtuse engineering topics to nontechnical audiences.
- Excellent communicator on technical software topics. Has given very well-received talks both to audiences of business and marketing professionals while wearing a suit and tie, and highly technical presentations to rooms full of software engineers (no ties in sight!). More prosaically, can clearly and effectively converse with team members of a diverse range of skillsets, from engineering to marketing to legal to C-level management.
- Excellent web design and development expertise. Has implemented over a dozen webapps based on the Django framework. Can fluently read and write HTML, CSS and Javascript. Possesses a great understanding of HTML5 and related tech (e.g. CSS3), and what they have to offer. Has SUCCESSFULLY applied search-engine optimization for competive keywords.
- Mathematical ability. With a strong background in theoretical physics, is able to read an academic paper describing an algorithm or technique in mathematical notation, and produce code implementing it.
- Contributor to open-source, both with original projects, and substantial contributions to projects created and maintained by third parties.
- Expert in mobile web development and mobile web design, specializing in cross-device an cross-platform (e.g., mobile sites that work well across iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7, Nokia/Symbian, Bada, and more).
- Fluent in several artificial languages, including Python, C, Javascript, and Lisp. In the past has also been productive with Java, C++, and Perl. Can read and understand code in almost any Turing-complete language.
- Is well versed in important software engineering practices: working with both centralized and decentralized version control systems; automated testing (unit tests, integration tests, TDD); excellent API and code documentation; object-oriented and functional programming; refactoring; code reviews; agile and iterative development.
Education
- B.S., Physics, UT Dallas, May 1998. Summa Cum Laude
- Graduate work in biophysics, UC San Francisco, 1999-2000
- Graduate work in computer science, SFSU, 2007-2009
Aaron also regularly and systematically partakes in training in many aspects of entrepreneurship, leadership and marketing through other workshops, courses and longer trainings, e.g. having studied in the Guerrilla Business School from Peak Potentials in 2009.
Previous Resumes
Several times in my life, my work has changed dramatically enough that I rewrote this resume from scratch (you probably don't need details of my retail management experience now, for example). For brevity, I tend to omit things older than a few years if they are not really impressive. Check out the old versions if you like.