Director Of Engineering

Owner/Principal

As the first employee and Professor at The Flatiron School, I had the opportunity to share the knowledge and skills I had worked so hard to gain with people who were passionate and excited about learning to code. I assisted in leading the class over two semesters, mentored students, and worked with Adam and Avi on all other operations. While there, I was also able to make a large impact on curriculum development that has shaped the school. I recruited new staff, helped students find jobs, put in long hours, and worked very hard to make sure that the students got the education they deserved.

Professor

In May 2012 I was asked by the partners at Carrot Creative, to take the lead in bootstrapping their first ever start-up. Along with CEO, Bobby Gaafar, I built a small team that was able to successfully plan and launch a product which surpassed my own expectations in just over three months. After a successful launch and a series of steady milestones met, I stepped aside on excellent terms to pursue other interests.

Tech Lead

As a Developer at Carrot Creative I built and contributed to applications for several of the best brands in the world. I also conceived and created several internal products, contributed to open source, and participated in creative brainstorms for pitches that helped win major business. I was also the head of the Propaganda Committee, and worked hard to make an impact on company culture. After 10 months there I was asked by the partners to join the former CEO and partner in a new venture, leading the development of their first ever spin-out, a startup which we named CropUp.

Developer

I joined Big Fuel immediately following their being named Social Media Agency of Record for General Motors. At the time it was a company of about 30 people, and over the next year it grew to over 200. During that year, I built several web applications for the company, interviewed and hired new staff, advised on nearly every project they pitched or pursued, built a number of internal applications, and even filed a patent. Our team of less than 5 people supported what ended up being a $30 million revenue year for the company, and they eventually sold a 51% stake to Publicis Group.

Principal

Two days after graduation I joined this bootstrapped, privately funded web-to-print start-up. During my two years there I designed and built both print and web products, as well as the workflows that made the process possible. I collaborated on all other aspects of the business, including meeting with potential partners like Xerox and Sony, strategy, sourcing vendors, and more. Though I made the decision to leave in April 2010, it was an experience I will never forget, and the lessons it taught me are with me every day.

Creative Director

As an Alumni Researcher I advised, represented, and evangelized on behalf of the lab and its greater interests.

Alumni Researcher

Founded in 2007 and based within Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Print Media, the OPL is a collaborative space where students and faculty work to imagine and create the future of publishing.

Student Researcher

"Cagers" are responsible for handling the rental of large variety of photographic equipment to students, maintaining studios, troubleshooting equipment problems, and managing the output of student work on a variety of large format inkjet printers.

SPAS Equipment Cage, Computer Lab and Digital Output

Assisting Prof. Forest McMullen in the administration of Photo Arts IV and V: offering advice and technical support to students, and taking part in group critiques.

Teacher's Assistant

I have been a rubyist since 2008, with open source contribution to several prominent libraries over the years, and taught Ruby at the Flatiron school.

I have been developing web platforms with RoR for 10 years, and I taught it both at the Flatiron School for a year, and via skillshare.

Along with Ruby and RoR I have been using the Sinatra framework for several years

Been making web pages since the early 90's!

I have been building web sites and apps with javascript for some time, for clients and employers big and small.

I have been using Git and Github for version control since 2008

Postgres has some amazing features that I've been fortunate to get to use in a demanding production environment. Schemas, Hstore, Jsonb, Text search and more!

Been using SQL for quite a few years now, was given enough time to teach the basics at Flatiron School, and wrote a curriculum for beginners there.

I was an early adopter of the platform, have used many of their great features and add-ons over the years. Have gotten to use the platform to scale sites of both low and very high traffic, have been fortunate enough to meet and speak with the CTO, and have been given access to new beta features.

As an early adopter of Heroku, it was a no-brainer to start using s3 to manage uploads and other assets. I also have use Route53 to host static sites there, and have managed deploys of web apps to ec2 on occasion, and sometimes I boot up a box for a random task here and there.

Personal details

Robert W.

Summary

Technical skills

Work Experience