Shape, strengthen and then scale.
I build companies into empires.
There are hundreds of thousands of developers in the world building tools for countless computer systems. However, not all of them are specialists when it comes to building great software systems. Through my career I have studied countless systems to figure out not only what type of systems to build, but WHY we build them in certain ways. Whether it be design patterns or methodologies, always keeping an eye on the bigger picture of why we should build one system one way versus another is paramount. Anyone can build a house, but it takes a structural engineer or architect to make sure it doesn’t fall apart in a week. Below are a couple of large-scale examples of systems that I built with proper structure in mind. The result has been companies reaping years of rewards from great design and calculated implementation.
One of the new flagship products of CounterPath Corporation, this subscription based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform composes of softphone client software for multiple devices (desktop and mobile) and a web platform responsible for managing user’s subscriptions. I helped CounterPath Corporation realize their vision of a web platform that would allow a customer to sign up for a free trial of the software, download the client software, provision multiple softphones simultaneously and help customers manage their online account to control costs. With a great architecture the platform scaled to several thousand signups in just the matter of a few months and lead to a recurring monthly revenue of tens of thousands of dollars. This formed the beginning of a new channel that has helped the company grow ever since.
Technologies Used: ASP.NET (C#) | API Development | HTML5 / CSS3 / JS | Responsive Design
Lumerical had a problem, a very large problem. They were locked into a web platform that was from 2008 and had no upgrade path forward. Not only that, they had years of custom dev work built on top of it that would require a rewrite if they were to change platforms. It was limiting how far the company could grow their web presence and what systems they could integrate with. They asked me to come in and see what could be done. Within a year and a half I had converted their platform over to a self updating system, developed 3 new integrations into existing systems and developed an entirely new services architecture that could help them fully realize their vision for the company on the web. This architecture allowed them to then launch their new product App Gallery which enables users to download example files from inside their product as well as conduct in product trialing. Something they only thought about doing before but thought to be out of reach. They were acquired in 2020 by Ansys. They mentioned that my low touch trialing system was a highlight in their acquisition.
Technologies Used: LAMP Stack | jQuery | OAuth | WordPress | Timber | API Development and More
Uniglobe Travel International needed a way for their intranet style tool called MyUNN to be redesigned and scaled to meet the demands of their growing agency network. The old system had been created back towards the beginning of the 21st century and they wanted something that was fresh and allowed over 700+ agencies worldwide to login and read information about the organization in a handful of languages. I designed this system to take advantage of newer technologies to foster more interaction and encourage their agents to interact with the company’s international headquarters to provide useful feedback from all corners of the globe. At the same time I allowed their agencies to also receive timely information from headquarters and take action on industry events to stay competitive and drive value for those people booking travel.
Technologies Used: PHP | HTML / CSS / JavaScript | API development | News Readers | Templating Systems
Want to know more than my architecture work? Continue on to see how I have helped cultivate thought leadership for others.