Jeff Barr

Current

• Senior Manager, Web Services Evangelism at Amazon.com

Past

• Web Services Evangelist at Amazon.com
• President at Vertex Development (Self-employed)
• Program Manager at Microsoft

• President at Vertex Development (Self-employed)
• Vice President of Engineering at Visix Software
• Vice President of Engineering at Visix
• Principal Software Engineer at American Management Systems
• Senior Member of Technical Staff at Contel Information Systems
• Systems Programmer at Intellimac
• Programmer at Moshman Associates
• Systems Consultant at The Retail Computer Store
• Programmer at The Retail Computer Store

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9 more...

Education

• American University

Recommended

13 people have recommended Jeff

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

• My Blog

Jeff Barr’s Summary

I have been working in the software industry since 1976 when I started working part-time at a computer store while still in high school. Since then I have worked at a variety of large and small organizations, served as VP of Engineering for a startup, worked at Microsoft and Amazon, and worked on my own.

Two of my recent projects are Syndic8.com -- a rich directory of RSS feeds (www.syndic8.com) and Headline Viewer, one of the first RSS newsreaders (www.headlineviewer.com).

At Amazon.com I lead a team of evangelists. We travel the world and talk about the Amazon Web Services to anyone who will listen.

My most recent explorations have taken place within Second Life, a new and exciting platform for developers and people with a creative bent. I see some great opportunities to use this platform to bring people closer together and to reduce the need for travel. I've done some scripting and some building and would love to talk about it.

Jeff Barr’s Specialties:

Second Life, XML, SOAP, REST, RSS, ecommerce, Linux, startups, web services, product evaluation, PHP, MySQL

Jeff Barr’s Experience

• Senior Manager, Web Services Evangelism

  Amazon.com

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; AMZN; Computer Software industry)

  December 2006 — Present (1 year 6 months)

  At Amazon I focus on making developers aware of our Amazon Web Services. I also work with tool and application vendors to create Amazon-centric demos and sample code.
  
  I'm a frequent conference speaker, and am always looking for opportunities to tell folks about our services.

• Web Services Evangelist

  Amazon.com

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; AMZN; Computer Software industry)

  August 2002 — December 2006 (4 years 5 months)

  At Amazon I focus on making developers aware of our Amazon Web Services. I also work with tool and application vendors to create Amazon-centric demos and sample code.
  
  I'm a frequent conference speaker, and am always looking for opportunities to tell folks about our services.

• President

  Vertex Development (Self-employed)

  (Self-Employed; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)

  October 2000 — August 2002 (1 year 11 months)

  Re-ignited Vertex Development to focus on my consulting practice. Focus areas include interim positions as VP of Engineering or CTO, due diligence for startups, technology evaluation, software development, and internet applications.
  
  In conjunction with AMP Capital Partners, evaluated startup teams, business plans, and technologies with an eye to possible funding. Provided post-funding guidance and temporary management.
  
  Other consulting customers included KnowNow, eByz, Imprev, Fouger-Pratt, NextPage, Utilis, and BlueStep.

• Program Manager

  Microsoft

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

  August 1997 — September 2000 (3 years 2 months)

  Responsible for the architecture and detailed design of all HTML and XML editing features for Visual Basic.Net including WYSIWYG design view, HTML source view, CSS Editing, schema-driven XML validation, and IntelliSense statement completion. Evaluated competitive products and wrote comprehensive specifications. Worked with development, quality assurance, and user education teams to plan and meet a schedule. Developed and maintained a relationship with the Internet Explorer team for the supply of dependent components. Organized and led weekly team, SWAT, and dependenent component meetings. Demonstrated the product to internal and external groups. Prepared and presented at the VBITS conference. Designed and implemented the multiple selection feature for Internet Explorer 5.5.
  
  Former duties included Development Lead for the DHTML Editing Component, Development Lead on HTML Editing on Visual InterDev 6.5, and Development Lead for the DHTML Page Designer feature of Visual Basic 6.0.

• President

  Vertex Development (Self-employed)

  (Self-Employed; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)

  February 1995 — August 1997 (2 years 7 months)

  Consulted for a wide variety of organizations including Caldera, J.P. Morgan, Diner's Club, Arbor Text, Visix Software, MTI, Software Emancipation Technology, and the Hurwitz Group.
  
  For Caldera, ported the Looking Glass and Looking Glass Advantage products to the Linux operating system.
  
  
  For Software Emancipation Technology, prepared an innovative 20-page white paper describing a complex software engineering tool, in 3 days. Wrote a brochure for the REENGINEER/SET product.
  
  For MTI, debugged and enhanced OASIS/RLM, an existing Galaxy application. In a subsequent project, produced a comprehensive infrastructure design for the user interface of a next-generation enterprise backup product. Created a web-based shared editing system to allow geographically disparate offices to collaboratively edit and review a specification, then used this system to gain consensus on a complex specification.

• Vice President of Engineering

  Visix Software

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

  March 1989 — February 1995 (6 years)

  Planned and led the development of 3 major releases of the Galaxy Application Environment on 5 platforms. Defined the product, generated a competitive analysis and built the development team. Authored corporate marketing materials including brochures and white papers. Worked directly with strategic customers to gain an appreciation for product requirements. Personally authored the Resource Manager. Designed a set of database extensions to Galaxy.
  
  Designed and built Looking Glass Professional, a complete Unix desktop environment. Worked with OEM hardware and software vendors to customize and port the product to their platforms. Participated in industry standardization efforts including the X Consortium, the IEEE, and the Open Software Foundation.

• Vice President of Engineering

  Visix

  (Computer Software industry)

  1989 — 1995 (6 years)

• Principal Software Engineer

  American Management Systems

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 1985 — March 1989 (4 years 3 months)

  Designed and built the Directory Shell, a full-featured visual interface to Unix for character terminals. Developed a complete user interface system for character terminals. Studied Unix internals. Taught internal classes on Unix and Oracle programming.

• Senior Member of Technical Staff

  Contel Information Systems

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Telecommunications industry)

  January 1983 — December 1985 (3 years)

  Developed a broadband local area network for the American Stock Exchange, including software development, installation, training and support. Internal Unix consultant.

• Systems Programmer

  Intellimac

  (Public Company; 51-200 employees; Computer Hardware industry)

  January 1980 — December 1982 (3 years)

  Developed a multi-user Virtual Machine which allowed concurrent use of multiple operating systems on a single 68000 processor. Developed all system software to support a new line of hardware in support of three operating systems. Wrote disk, tape and serial drivers and hardware diagnostics

• Programmer

  Moshman Associates

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Management Consulting industry)

  January 1979 — December 1980 (2 years)

  Developed an exceptionally fast 6502 macro assembler, linker, and related utilities. Assisted in the development of a travel agency automation package.

• Systems Consultant

  The Retail Computer Store

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Hardware industry)

  August 1977 — December 1979 (2 years 5 months)

  Developed custom hardware and software packages for clients.

• Programmer

  The Retail Computer Store

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)

  January 1976 — August 1977 (1 year 8 months)

  Assembled and integrated hardware and software systems.

Jeff Barr’s Education

• American University

  BS, Computer Science, 1982 — 1985

Additional Information

Jeff Barr’s Websites:

• My Blog

Jeff Barr’s Groups:

New-New Internet, Mobile Web 2.0, Social Media Club, Wharton Tech Conference

•    Association of Virtual Worlds member
•    BarCamp Brighton member
•    Visix Alumni member

Jeff Barr’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch