Andrew Kandels

Current

• CTO / Lead Software Developer at CATS Software, Inc.

Past

• Software Developer at Iver H. Carlson & Son, Inc.
• Web Developer at All Used Car Rental

Education

• Brown College

Recommended

2 people have recommended Andrew

Connections

20 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

• My Company
• Iver H. Carlson & Son, Inc.

Andrew Kandels’s Summary

I have been working with PHP and MySQL since 1998, and other languages like C far before that. I specialize in designing clean, efficient object-oriented architectures -- especially when it involves migrating older datasets into newer technologies. I love challenges and small budgets.

On systems, I am very comfortable working from the UNIX/GNU Linux command-line and scripting using Bash and with regular expressions for things like sed, grep and awk. I love installing and troubleshooting hardware, networking and operating systems and tweaking for maximum performance. I have designed backup/restoration strategies using LVM, tar (archives), rdiff-backup and many other common approaches.

On the database and as a certified DBA, I am extremely comfortable managing MySQL servers. I know how to configure MySQL for varying hardware requirements. I would rate one of my highest skill sets as SQL, I am very apt at re-writing and optimizing queries for the best performance. In addition to MySQL, I've worked with MS SQL Server and Oracle.

On development, I have been working with PHP professionally for 11 years. I understand PHP's object oriented syntax very well and have experience working with design patterns from C++ and Java. I have a lot of experience designing and working with web services and XML over PHP.

On user interfaces, I have an eye for never over-engineering a solution. I have built numerous interactive, simple and easy-to-use HTML, JavaScript and CSS interfaces. I've integrated many with Ajax and Comet for that feeling of instant-satisfaction only a modern web application can provide.

Andrew Kandels’s Specialties:

MySQL administration,
SQL optimization,
HTML/CSS User interface design,
JavaScript (Prototype/jQuery),
Ajax / Comet,
Adobe Photoshop / CSS Sprites

Andrew Kandels’s Experience

• CTO / Lead Software Developer

  CATS Software, Inc.

  (Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

  June 2007 — Present (2 years 7 months)

  Since 2007, I have lead development for CATS, which is a software-as-a-service tool in use by about 10,000 recruiters in 120 countries. I've designed the project's web site, written documentation, recorded and narrated videos and performed search engine optimization (SEO). The freemium project currently gets about a half million page views a month with a few thousand paying subscribers.
  
  I developed an efficient, object-oriented code base over an MVC framework to handle terabytes of customer data in a single database instance using customer index segregation to separate data per-client. I've designed a highly scalable application which has gone from a handful of users in 2007 to tens of thousands today while still improving performance and response times. I managed and assembled multiple servers in the Minneapolis data center with 99% uptime since 2007.
  
  The software runs on the LAMP stack harnessing Web 2.0 methodologies like RESTful web services, Ajax, and the latest JavaScript frameworks (Prototype/jQuery). I've configured Apache, Lighttpd and Comet servers to meet the project's requirements.
  
  I designed most of the core libraries and services for the application, the most notable being search, datagrid, billing, web forms, internationalization/localization, asynchronous queue processor, document previewer/text extractor, human language parser and the Application Programming Interface (API).
  
  I've written numerous pieces of technical documentation for the project and frequently write press releases and blogs.

• Software Developer

  Iver H. Carlson & Son, Inc.

  (Construction industry)

  February 1998 — January 2007 (9 years )

  I designed a software solution using LAMP to replace the payroll, estimating and job tracking tasks of this 70 year old brick and mortar company. Long waits to schedule estimates and lookup past order information were eliminated with the addition of search and the instant-response of a web-based product.
  
  With sales declining from big box stores, I talked them into putting their products and prices online, allowing customers to build and design their products on the website and instantly receive a price quote. This later resulted in 30% of the sales coming from the website, and allowed the company to drop costly advertisements in magazines, phone books and other print media.
  
  I designed dozens of print and web graphics including the company logo which were used in newspapers, magazines, flyers, apparel, storefront banners and online to market the company and its products.

• Web Developer

  All Used Car Rental

  (Computer Software industry)

  July 2000 — November 2000 (5 months)

  I was contracted to design a LAMP based website for a local used car rental company to market their product of inexpensive used rental cars to younger (mostly college student) renters as an alternative to the pricier chain rental companies. I designed the graphics, layout and content management tools to allow the owners to make continual updates.
  
  I migrated large amounts of data from an older desktop based renting application to updated software products on several new computers of which I also installed and networked.
  
  As a short term contract position, I took a company primarily based in traditional media marketing (yellow pages) onto the web where their customers were more easily reached and gave them a low cost solution to market their services.

Andrew Kandels’s Education

• Brown College

  Certificate , Computer Programming , 2000 — 2001

  I've always been fascinated with programming languages. With a strong knowledge of C/C++ and PHP going into this program and a full time job as a developer, it succeeded in polishing my understanding of "professional" development.

  Activities and Societies:

  Dean's A-List

Additional Information

Andrew Kandels’s Websites:

• My Company
• Iver H. Carlson & Son, Inc.

Andrew Kandels’s Interests:

MySQL, PHP, Ruby/Rails, Perl, Bash, Python, Regular Expressions (PCRE), Javascript (Prototype, Scriptaculous, JQuery), CSS, XML (Web Services, SOAP, RESTful), GNU Linux, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, C/C++, CSS Sprites, Comet, Ajax

Andrew Kandels’s Groups:

MySQL (+PHP) Twin Cities User Group

•    Brown College/Institute Alumni *the original*
•    CATS Applicant Tracking Software (ATS)

Andrew Kandels’s Honors:

MySQL 5.0 Certified DBA #11122
MySQL 5.0 Certified Developer #11122
Zend PHP 5 Certified Engineer

Andrew Kandels’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• consulting offers
• new ventures
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch