dana jones

Part of the development team. Responsible for producing written developer training materials, documentation, and example code for users of the Spree e-commerce platform. Also charged with helping with bug fixes, feature releases, and improving automated test coverage. Interface heavily with the developer community to engage them about their needs and expectations, to help deliver on both.

We worked on a diverse array of projects as freelancers - from accounting software to a funeral planning website to an application devoted to recording stewardships for Catholic organizations. Working on such a broad spectrum of projects taught me to look for creative solutions to unusual development problems. All work done was with Ruby on Rails, with additional tools incorporated as needed.

Helped to found RailsBridge, an organization devoted to improving the culture of the Ruby on Rails community to make it more inclusive. I was most involved in the Rails Tutor initiative, to produce and publish tutorials for beginning developers using RoR as their first language.

I created and coded a website to aggregate information about Internet quilt stores for the quilting community. It included information about the types of products sold, location, services offered, etc. Eventually the site grew to include free quilt patterns and targeted advertising. In the fall of 2001, we added a scavenger hunt feature called a Quilter’s Mall Crawl to drive traffic to advertising stores. Participants were eligible to win prizes along the way. I organized and hosted Mall Crawls 2-3 times per year thereafter until 2008, when I closed the business to pursue open-source development. The site was developed in C#/ASP.NET.

Managed a team of ten software developers at all skill levels, both internal and contractors, stateside and overseas, across three teams. I balanced the requirements of Product and Engineering with a realistic roadmap for each team’s products. I wrote and reviewed code, conducted training sessions, supplied documentation, set coding standards, conducted review and planning sessions, participated in hiring and allocation decisions, and made product purchasing decisions. I also led team meetings including sprint kickoffs, retrospectives, collaboration sessions, and show-and-tells.

Worked on the Triage team, creating the Triage appliance product. Its purpose is to assist security analysts in the identification and containment of malicious email attachments. I worked primarily to integrate the product with third party services like Splunk and Cuckoo, via API.

I was hired as a Ruby developer to work with a growing team in the healthcare industry - specifically in cost transparency. After an initial onboarding process, I became intrigued with the company’s functional programming work in erlang, and requested to join that team. Within two months I was the development lead of a team that grew to three developers. Our work with EDI X12 included an erlang core, with Ruby coupling to the company’s Ruby on Rails client-facing application. Prioritized thorough testing and human-readable documentation, both to facilitate communication between technical and non-technical elements of the company, and to aid in troubleshooting and iterative development of the company’s core competency of complex, algorithmic cost computations. Work with this company involved front end development in HAML and ERB; backend development in Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and erlang; databases in MySQL; and extensive use of JSON and XML. Supported QA in the testing of new features. Worked in a strongly team-oriented environment, with pair programming as a primary component.

Upon joining this grocery store-industry company, I immediately began implementing automated testing, using Rspec, Shoulda, and FactoryGirl, so the team would have more confidence in upgrading the project moving forward. Led effort to move the company’s primary application off of Rails 2 and onto 3, with an eye toward eventually joining the Rails 4 community. Work with this company involved front end development in HAML and ERB; backend development in Ruby on Rails; databases in MySQL; and extensive use of YML, CSV, and other data-structure languages as we interacted with a variety of web service APIs.

Worked in McAfee’s new (at the time) online technical support team. We answered incoming tech support inquiries about McAfee products and developed knowledge base documentation for both users and support technicians. Was promoted to team support supervisor after 8 months.

Employed in Stream’s call center, solving customer problems and answering technical inquiries about Hewlett-Packard laptop computers.

* I manage a team of distributed engineers across various disciplines (frontend, backend, native application, QA) working on building the core functionality for our SaaS product, Abstract. My responsibilities include: * interviewing * hiring * conducting regular checkin meetings with employees * leading projects * coaching * writing and delivering performance reviews * planning off-site meetings * conducting sprint meetings (retrospectives, planning, pointing, demos, reviews) * and * helping establish a culture of learning for the engineering team.

* May 2013 * SpreeConf * Contributing to Spree User Documentation" * Sep 2013 * Windy City Rails * Documentation is Win" * https://www.windycityrails.com/videos/2013/#18 * June 2015 * Ruby Nation * Speed-dating Your Rails Application" * Sep 2015 * Nash.rb * Speed-dating Your Rails Application" * Oct 2018 * Cream City Code * A Tale of Two Teams"

Worked as a software developer on a variety of client projects, primarily using Ruby on Rails. Responsible for scoping, planning, implementing, and testing features and bug fixes, as well as communicating directly with clients about progress and requirements. Special focus on pair programming across various teammates, coaching/mentoring, and improving documentation. I chaired the company's internships committee. This involved managing the interns' schedules, arranging pairing sessions for them with co-workers, monitoring their progress through frequent checkins, conducting weekly meetings with the committee, helping establish weekly and monthly goals, documenting the interns' onboarding process, and coaching/mentoring as much as possible. I was proud to launch the company's wellness initiative to complement its stellar health care offerings. This effort included researching dozens of options, coordinating with team members to reach a solution that was cost-effective and measurable, and recruiting a team within the company to oversee and administer it after it was launched.

While working a full-time job, I accrued 56 credit hours, with a GPA of 3.893.