Matt Sears

Current

• Lead Web Developer / Co-Owner at Littlelines, LLC

Past

• Technical Lead / Senior Software Engineer at LexisNexis
• Software Engineer at LexisNexis
• Web Developer at Morningside House Inc.

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Education

• Wright State University

Recommended

24 people have recommended Matt

Connections

97 connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

Matt Sears’s Summary

I build web applications that work. My career spans nearly 10 years of designing and developing complex, large-scale, enterprise web applications. My strengths lie not only in the software development and practices of today, but in understanding the complexities of how challenges emerged, and ways in which to manage those challenges in the rapid evolution of today's Web.

I co-founded Littlelines, LLC with the goal of providing businesses a combination of high-quality software development with beautiful user interfaces.

Prior to Littlelines, I graduated from business school in 2002 with a degree in Management Information Systems. In my junior year of college I was recruited by LexisNexis, a global online search engine for legal, business, and news documents.

At LexisNexis, I developed a wide range of large-scale, enterprise e-commerce applications. I received the highest employee rating four years in a row and received several awards including the LexisNexis Recognition of Excellence in 2003. In 2005, I was promoted to Technical Lead, managing high-risk, large team projects.

Nowadays, I am a steadfast Ruby on Rails developer since 2006 and enjoy mentoring teams in Agile methodologies, test-driven development, refactoring, and continuous integration.

Technical Experience:

• Languages: Ruby, Java, Perl, JavaScript, ActionScript

• Web development: Ruby on Rails, J2EE, Adobe Air, JSON, jQuery, Prototype, CSS, XHTML, REST

• Testing frameworks: RSpec, Shoulda, Test::Unit, Cucumber

• Java technologies: Spring, Ant, JSP, Struts, JSTL, JUnit, Hibernate

• Server platforms: Nginx, Mongrel, Apache HTTP Server, IBM WebSphere, Apache Tomcat, MySQL

• Agile Methodologies: Domain-Driven Design, Design Patterns, Test Driven Development, Continuous Integration

• Development tools: Emacs, Eclipse, FlexBuilder, Capistrano, Git, Subversion,VI

• Operating Systems: Mac OS & Ubuntu Linux

Matt Sears’s Specialties:

• Ruby on Rails
• E-commerce application development
• Test driven development
• Design patterns
• Domain Specific Language Design
• Continuous Integration
• Nginx / Apache / Linux / Mongrel tuning and optimization.
• Capistrano deployments

Matt Sears’s Experience

• Lead Web Developer / Co-Owner

  Littlelines, LLC

  (Information Technology and Services industry)

  June 2007 — Present (2 years 6 months)

  Lead Web Developer and Project Manager specializing in building web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework. I'm responsible for managing projects, software architecture, and agile software development.
  
  Recent Projects:
  
  • Marketdrums.com brings real-time and complete news about companies from the world’s most reliable sources including Dow Jones. Littlelines is tasked to build the Ruby on Rails application from the ground up. Marketdrums is a subscription based application with credit card processing, Email and SMS messaging, iCal support, and RSS feeds.
  
  • Cityfile.com, a who's who of New York's most notable residents, media, finance, and politics. Littlelines executed the Ruby on Rails front-end development. Cityfile has received a great deal of buzz and has been profiled in publications including Gawker and The New York Times.
  
  • Tumblize.com produces elegant Tumblr themes for people who like nice stuff. Littlelines was hired to build the Ruby on Rails site and integrate it with Basecamp and Paypal. Tumblize has been featured on some great sites, including Valleywag.

• Technical Lead / Senior Software Engineer

  LexisNexis

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; RUK; Information Technology and Services industry)

  September 2002 — June 2007 (4 years 10 months)

  Served as Technical Leader and Senior Software Engineer for the Enterprise Information Solutions department. I was responsible for managing a team of software engineers to ensure timely and accurate performance of all team projects.
  
  This position demanded great problem-solving skills, organization, and leadership. I facilitated and evangelized agile software development methods such as test-driven development, continuous integration, domain-driven design, and pair-programming.
  
  Most of my worked focused on e-commerce web development with the J2EE platform. A couple notable projects include:
  
  • The development of a Domain Specific Language used to describe a set of complex business/pricing rules processed by a custom-built business rule engine.
  
  • A Customer Relationship Management web application to manage contacts, upload and store documents, and process sales orders for the LexisNexis sales force.

• Software Engineer

  LexisNexis

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; RUK; Information Technology and Services industry)

  June 2001 — August 2002 (1 year 3 months)

  Served as Software Engineer for developing and delivering e-commerce web applications for the Sales and Marketing departments in the Enterprise.
  
  This position taught me what Enterprise truly means and gave me a solid foundation in e-commerce product development. A few notable projects include:
  
  • Sales Order Automation – designed and developed a solution for brokering front-office sales data with a back-office middleware system.
  
  • Sales Capture and Pricing Tool - a sales capture tool and pricing engine for LexisNexis sales force.
  
  • Marketing Campaign Web Tool - a web application for managing customer email campaigns for the Marketing department.

• Web Developer

  Morningside House Inc.

  (Publishing industry)

  December 1999 — June 2001 (1 year 7 months)

  Served as Web Developer for Morningside House Inc. As web developer, I was responsible for designing and developing a new e-commerce application for selling books and other publications on the web.
  
  Notable projects:
  
  • E-commerce web application - designed and developed e-commerce web application for selling books and other publications on the Web. Web applications included search engine, message board, and shopping cart.
  
  • Intranet CRM web application - designed and developed CRM web application for managing publications, customers, inventory, sales orders, invoices, purchase orders, back orders and stock levels.

Matt Sears’s Education

• Wright State University

  B.S.B. , Management Information Systems , 1995 — 2002

  The MIS program at Wright State provided me a solid foundation of systems analysis, business system design, and information technology management. The program strongly emphasizes business and organizational studies as well as information systems technology.
  
  During my time at Wright State I studied business systems analysis, business systems design, and computer programming.
  
  I completed course work in information system design and development methodologies, database management systems, electronic business, and data communications. The program also covers business fundamentals in accounting, finance, marketing, management, and management science.
  
  During my junior year of college, I was hired as a full-time software engineer by LexisNexis, finishing my junior and senior year in the evenings and weekends.

Additional Information

Matt Sears’s Interests:

Ruby on Rails, web development, web design, information architecture, technical leadership, entrepreneurship, agile development processes, emerging web technologies, methodologies and principles, test-driven development, domain model design, and continuous integration.

Matt Sears’s Groups:

Greater Dayton IT Alliance

•    Ruby on Rails
•    Linked Dayton
•    Wright State University Alumni
•    Elsevier Employees & Former Employees
•    Reed Elsevier (1,700+)
•    Web Standards Design + Development
•    LexisNexis Current & Former Employees
•    LexisNexis Alumni
•    Clojure Users
•    Cucumber

Matt Sears’s Honors:

• Received the highest annual performance rating for four years in a row at LexisNexis.

• Received the LexisNexis Recognition of Excellence award in 2003.

• Only missed one day of work in the last ten years (food poisoning)

Matt Sears’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

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