professional roles

Senior UI Engineer - Monster / Randstad (2020-Present)

• Innovator, Researcher, and Developer on groundbreaking "Design System for Design Systems" allowing precise export of CSS data from Figma and improving design to dev pipeline across brands.
• Corresponding extensible component library used TypeScript and styled-components for displaying Figma derived properties. Later selected to be member of focused team to adapt technology to parent company Randstad's "Orbit" design system revamp.
• Sole developer on revamp of embeddable job search widget for placement on partner websites, developing robust and responsive CSS in a tech-platform agnostic way.
• Anchor for Monster.com's core UX team, enhancing key job search application and promotional pages for array of international site and brands handling over 10 Million Vistors monthly.

Senior UI Engineer - CarGurus (2016-2020)

• Senior UI engineer, flourishing in a data-driven culture dedicated to constantly iterating and improving customer response on the industry leading website. Implemented UI improvements leading to 5-10% increases in lead volume, helping team consistently exceed target goals.
• Developed in React/Redux as well as legacy Freemarker Template stacks on core listings and international expansion teams on site averaging over 37 million monthly visitors.
• Central player in "A11Y council" taskforce for improving accessibility and decreasing legal liability. Advocated for customers and helped determine standardized evaluations with hands-on use of accessibility tools.
• Designed and taught coworkers in classes in Processing/P5 - recreational and data visualization programming.

Senior UI Engineer - AOL / Millennial Media (2014-2016)

• UI Engineer and Scrummaster for small development team. Integrated Angular.js and Datatables kit. Pivoted to maintenance and enhancement of super-scaled mobile ad delivery systems. Thought leader in move to RESTful API structure. Created small tools for team management.
• Developed learning prototype in Ember for new "greenfield" UI proposal.

UI Engineer - ThruPoint / Café X

(2013-2014)

• Full stack engineer (with UI emphasis) for R+D group of company with focus on integrating large scale video conference equipment with emerging desktop technologies, especially WebRTC and IVR. Created functional prototypes and toolsets for large Financial and Retail clients.

UI Engineer - alleyoop.com@Pearson

(2010-2013)

• Primary UI Engineer for consumer-facing website to help teens prepare for college success. Created rich UI experience against a RESTful middle tier in HTML5 and jQuery. "Lean" and MVP methodology along with weekly user testing allowed for cycles of constant metered improvement.
• Advocated for increased "juiciness" in applications via frequent functional prototype creation exploring animation and interaction.

see earlier roles

at kirk.is/resume/

Level 2 Consultant - Lincoln Peak Partners

(2009-2010)

• Consulted for Jaz'd Markets, leveraging and extending their RESTful infrastructure to create a complex, richly functional web-based frontend using GWT & Freemarker. Implemented Ehcache.
• Debugged and enhanced Tax calculation/financial management applications for Second Decimal. Apps were complex, data-driven JSP/RichFaces UI with multiple Hibernate and JPA persistence layers.

Senior Engineer - Enpocket / Nokia

(2007-2009)

• Developed new features for large-scale Mobile Messaging and Ad Server; built, debugged, and wrote Junit test in legacy J2EE/Tapestry/Python infrastructure and was at forefront of Wicket and Hibernate based redesign. Collaborated on overhaul of Enterprise Ad Serving algorithm.
• ScrumMaster for Data Warehouse and Reports Engine Product Team. Brought a geographically distributed team into better compliance with Scrum best practices. Guided team in coordinating development and testing for performant reports against gigabytes of ad impression and click data.
• Designed array of performance testing and QA tools including Python-based stress and algorithm testers, Processing-based visualization applications, and Selenium UI tests.

Implementation Engineer - Refresh Software

(2005-2006)

• Performed onsite installation, custom application development, developer and user training and consulting on Enterprise Content Management product for clients such as Janus and T-Mobile. Implemented Perl API for core product, enhanced, standardized, and did original development work against Java, ColdFusion, ASP.net, PHP APIs, and Google Mini Search Appliance.
• Contributor on core Content Management Product code base across full J2EE stack. Added new functionality, fixed defects, and designed new modules. Worked on "scale up" team tasked with making orders of magnitude increase in data asset handling capability.

Senior Java Developer - Taxware

(2002-2005)

• Developed toolset and extensible framework for front-to-back testing of Enterprise product. Acted as advocate for QA team in design of scriptable tools for bulk loading of Castor XML testcases and analysis of returned results. Leveraged existing QA infrastructure for quick project turnaround.
• Designed and implemented query modules for Enterprise Sales Tax Platform. Created UML, implemented Entity and Session EJBs, and developed DHTML UI in Struts. Led small teams using Extreme Programming methodologies. Analyzed and duplicated legacy API connection to new system. Worked with Technical Documentation team to create API Developer's Guide.
• Sole developer selected for "due diligence" team to assess corporate acquisition. Created shrinkwrap data translation tool in Perl (GUI/CLI) to bridge legacy systems with new product. Engineered 1000-fold increase in file and table conversion speed.

Software Engineer - Gale Group

(2001-2002)

• Designed, developed, and deployed periodical and reference article search/compilation tool for production use by editorial staff in Java (JDBC/JSP/XSLT.) Created Sybase schema, SQL stored procedures, screen workflow, and Java objects after demonstrating proof of concept prototype in Perl.
• Designed, developed, and deployed web-based content management system for corporate website. Implemented content preview, publish to multiple live servers via ftp, versioning and rollback.

Software Engineer - Event Zero

(2000-2001)

• Created Java front end allowing secure access to financial data from existing ATM infrastructure via web, portal, WAP, and automated e-mail after participating in design of highly scalable and redundant messaging architecture. Created company-standard Java Servlet/JSP best practices document and utility classes including intelligent properties, logging, sessioning, text processing, and HTML-form-aware JavaBeans.
• Led front-end team for online business card and contact exchange. Developed roadmap and mentored other developers in Servlet/JSP construction and interaction with EJB backend. Created Java objects for real-time generation of GIFs and JPEGs with flexible business card layout options from XML data.
• Implemented Servlet/JSP and JavaBean components for real-time compilation and generation of PDFs. UI utilized sophisticated dynamically generated Javascript while maintaining wide browser compatibility.

Web Developer - Banta Integrated Media

(1998 - 2000)

• Designed schema, oversaw massive data conversion, and implemented e-commerce for large catalog retailer. Created tools in Perl to allow dramatic decrease in turnaround time for Quark to HTML conversion of print catalog including merge with inventory and pricing files.
• Implemented online catalog browsing, developed interface and back-end for targeted electronic mass-mailing and co-engineered Oracle schema for complex product/inventory system for Nine West shoes.

Software Engineer - IDD Information Services

(1996-1998)

• Sole developer for the Internet's first shareholder proxy voting system on behalf of the First Chicago Trust Company, including proxy form editing and transmission of vote results to remote EBCDIC system.
• Participated in UML design and functional prototypes of highly scalable system for Dow Jones news feed alerts to multiple platforms.
• Established series of CGI utilities to facilitate placement of advertisements using the NetGravity rotation system on Barron's financial weekly website, code later rolled into NetGravity product.

Lab Supervisor, Instructor, Developer - Tufts University

(1992-1996)

• Directed operations of two Tufts computer labs with a staff of 30 students as undergraduate Lab Supervisor. Responsibilities included staff hiring/management and maintenance of 60 networked PCs.
• Designed and taught a for-credit course on programming using Visual Basic and the Windows API.
• Brought a Microsoft Win32 C/C++ introductory statistics program for classroom use from conception to publication by Prentice Hall for Curricular Software Studio.

independent projects

• Designed and maintained full web experience for Jamaica Plain Porchfest facilitating the organization of 150 bands, 70 locations, and 3,000 audience members. Implemented online registration, a drag-and-drop block scheduler, a responsive map/schedule site and generation of printable maps and band guides. Built technology base for resue at Porchfests in Fenway, Belmont, Newton, Natick, Dedham, and Dedham.
• Created numerous small games, digital toys, infographic tools under personal freeware production company. Programs developed in Processing, P5, Vanilla.js, Perl, Java, PHP, Visual Basic, and PalmOS. Wrote new games for the Atari 2600 in 6502 Assembly Language and created canvas-based "Advent Calendars" in Processing and P5.js.
• Created and continued as managing editor for the Blender of Love, the web's oldest extant community-based monthly poetry journal built on a custom CMS. Site referenced in print editions of The New Yorker magazine, USA Today and the L.A. Times.

see earlier projects

at kirk.is/resume/

education

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and English from Tufts University
• Graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.