Brian Duchek

Current

User Experience Designer at Apptio

Past

Partner at Snowflake Media
Senior Software Engineer at Hewlett-Packard
Vice President at Hawthorne Condominium Association

Senior Software Engineer at Opsware
Software Engineer, Interaction Designer at iConclude
Web Developer, Technical Analyst II at Ajilon Consulting
Sr. Technical Web Producer at United Airlines
Email/Web Producer, Assoc Project Mgr at MyPoints.com Inc
Certified Repair / Support Technician at S&S Automotive

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Education

William Rainey Harper College
DePaul University

Recommended

9 people have recommended Brian

Connections

207 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

Brian Duchek’s Summary

Over ten years of interactive design and development experience. Equal parts web-craftsman, user experience advocate, and front-end engineer. Can skillfully balance best practice theory with practical business goals.

Passionately creates great software experiences and user-focused results at all levels of the software development life cycle. Drives user experience priorities from idea conception and architecture planning through testing and deployment. Countless hours spent iterating design and code of web application software systems. A strong record of using advanced visual design skills for producing usable interfaces, promoting standards advocacy and practical accessibility features.

Brian Duchek’s Specialties:

Usability and dynamic interactivity of web-client interfaces using traditional web technologies (HTML, XHTML, XML, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, DOM), next-generation rich-client technologies (Adobe Flex, GWT, JS toolkits) and various server technologies including Java, PHP, and various CMS/template frameworks.

Brian Duchek’s Experience

User Experience Designer

Apptio

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

September 2009 — Present (3 months)
Partner

Snowflake Media

(Internet industry)

December 2008 — September 2009 (10 months)

Web design & development firm specializing in front-end coding, usability, and forward-compatible web applications. Consulting SMB clients on internet marketing, SEM strategies, and interface and graphic design issues.
Senior Software Engineer

Hewlett-Packard

(Public Company; HPQ; Computer Hardware industry)

October 2007 — September 2009 (2 years )

Exported user-focused philosophy to broader HP Software product community, sharing expertise with stakeholders in dozens of enterprise software applications and helping release next generation interface standards for HP enterprise software.

Provided strategy and technical expertise to facilitate and deliver localization of enterprise software product by an external translation team, opening doors in APAC market to million dollar software contracts.

Pioneered role of Functional Architect for Agile-leaning team to facilitate requirements and documentation efforts. Dramatically increased team communication on new feature development over three months.

Defined next-generation UI and product vision for team, creating forward-tension for product and engineering teams. Ensured market leadership by increasing usability and performance lead over major competitors.
Vice President

Hawthorne Condominium Association

(Non-Profit Organization Management industry)

May 2006 — May 2008 (2 years 1 month)

Various seats on Board of Directors for a non-profit homeowners association.
Senior Software Engineer

Opsware

(Public Company; OPSW; Computer Software industry)

April 2007 — October 2007 (7 months)

Rapidly re-branded product and compared application design heuristics (post acquisition) to streamline integration of product and facilitate product adoption.

Leveraged minimal assets to create a library of paper personas for reference by internal development staff, leading to a greater understanding of the product audience by engineering staff.

Conducted regular usability reviews and tests to uncover opportunities for quickly rewarding software enhancements that required minimal time and effort by engineering.

Paper-prototyped concepts for new interaction in the product. Benefits were greater refinement of idea conception and reduced time spent on approval and implementation.
Software Engineer, Interaction Designer

iConclude

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

May 2005 — April 2007 (2 years )

Lead graphic design efforts and held primary interaction design accountability for startup-stage engineering team. Launched beta and 1.0 software product iterations, followed by two additional releases within twelve months.

Authored and delivered front-end application components for web-based execution environment of an intuitive visual scripting and programming tool which defined the IT Process Automation market space in terms of ease of use and user experience.

Learned and applied new / emerging technologies, various J2EE frameworks & libraries, Javascript & Ajax toolkits, and other standard SDLC tools and practices to provide a cutting-edge user experience for enterprise IT users.
Web Developer, Technical Analyst II

Ajilon Consulting

(Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)

February 2005 — May 2005 (4 months)

Contributed to small team of developers by coding and administering changes to the e–meetings web site and supporting web applications using PHP and JSP.

Saved bandwidth and improved site manageability by increasing CSS and web standards use on site. Proactively corrected incompatibilities with modern browsers on several products.

Advised on and installed new translations of content into multiple language offerings for the Conferencing site.
Sr. Technical Web Producer

United Airlines

(Public Company; UAUA; Airlines/Aviation industry)

January 2002 — February 2005 (3 years 2 months)

Provided technical analysis for feature developments, marketing promotions, business work-flow, content management, site enhancements and other initiatives in support of United's online customer touch points.

Developed online promotion registration and redemption system. Decreased time and costs to support promotions by 50%. Created platform for new programs supporting large CVA clients, such as Lockheed-Martin, generating new streams of revenue.

Coded Easy Check-in Online interface using DHTML and client-side scripting. Increased adoption rate to over 10% of all domestic flight check-ins, reducing costs and workload for CSRs at terminals nationwide.

Built and launched flyted.com web site. Increased brand awareness and promoted characteristics of new airline identity. Redesigned united.com homepage, integrating streamlined navigation. Decreased load time for page, saving over 25% in bandwidth allocation. Enhanced United Escapes usability and visibility by launching new search interfaces. Increased sales by developing dynamic ad placements by 50% month over month.

Built MyMileagePlus International marketing / loyalty program. Authored code-base to support 7 languages and 11 different countries, totaling 17 international versions. Refined using W3C standards to reduce time to produce by 30%, and source weight by 65%.
Email/Web Producer, Assoc Project Mgr

MyPoints.com Inc

(Public Company; UNTD; Internet industry)

1999 — 2002 (3 years )

[Email Producer]
Managed long-term targeted online marketing campaigns for MyPoints clients. Responsible for revenue of over $500,000 per year in billable email and web campaigns combined.

Created an enhanced version of CPC/CPM email product, allowing multiple links to be tracked within a single email message. Opened up new revenue opportunities with this new production process, meeting the changing needs and requests of clients.

Led training course for less-technical Producers on team. Enhanced overall efficiency of department by over 10% by eliminating often-asked questions.

Saved administration costs by creating time management solution on Microsoft Exchange. Increased flexibility of department by enabling telecommuting benefits to be more easily managed.

[Assoc. Project Manager]
Assisted Senior Project Managers with the preparation phase of a major software release process. Authored use cases, testing scripts and other requirements components, improving quality and accuracy of documentation.

[Web Producer]
Led development team for an intranet web site, increasing access to shared resources and building framework for future shared documentation applications. Maintained corporate web site. Fast turnaround of Human Resource requests enabled job postings to be quickly filled, reducing downtime for dependent groups.

Enhanced stickiness of MyPoints Shopping experience by building a dynamic "shopping frame" across all merchants. Refined the "Quicklist by.." interface, making it the number one destination page for frequent MyPoints Shopping users.

Updated client-side validation on complex enrollment forms, resulting in fewer errors in the enrollment process and decreased load on servers executing server-side validation.
Certified Repair / Support Technician

S&S Automotive

(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Wireless industry)

1998 — 1999 (1 year )

Troubleshooted and repaired damaged or defective cellular handsets, processing warranty claims when applicable. Provided technical support to non-technical sales staff and customers by explaining complex things in a simple, straightforward manner, increasing the quality of customer support.

Brian Duchek’s Education

William Rainey Harper College

Certificate , Web Development , September 2000 — May 2002

*Grade Point Average: 4.0
*Focus of studies: XHTML, JAVA, Visual Basic, Web Project Management and Internet Architecture
DePaul University

Bachelors of Science , Sound Recording Technology , August 1993 — April 1998

*Grade Point Average: 3.0
*Sound Recording Technology Major, Microelectronics Minor
*Presidential Scholarship and Music Performance Scholarship Recipient

Additional Information

Brian Duchek’s Websites:

Brian Duchek’s Interests:

big ideas, new technology, startups, good design, life-long learning, hiking, yoga, thunderstorms, aurora borealis, gadgets, wireless networking, good coffee