Software craftsman
Rochester, New York Area
- Current
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- Principal at Replaid
- Past
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- Consultant (via Obtiva) at Pampered Chef
- Senior Consultant at Obtiva
- Consultant (via Obtiva) at Sears
- Consultant (via Obtiva) at Stark Investments
- Consultant (via Obtiva) at NASA Langley Research Center
- Senior Application Developer at SubscriberMail
- Consultant at Site9
- Consultant at Institute in Basic Life Principles
- Principal Consultant at NIKA Consulting
- Software Developer at Mainstay Church Resources
- Lead Designer at Harbor.com, Inc.
- Web Developer, Application Developer at Taylor University
- Education
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- Indiana University Bloomington
- Recommended
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2 people have recommended Ryan - Connections
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159
connections
- Industry
- Computer Software
- Websites
Ryan Platte’s Summary
Lead software developer and designer. Over nine years of professional experience across many languages and environments. Bring fresh approaches to challenging problems.
Ryan Platte’s Specialties:
Expertise in Ruby on Rails, JavaScript and Ajax, Java, agile methods, and much more.
Delivery experience has also included JRuby, Struts2, Hibernate, Spring, standards-compliant (X)HTML+CSS, ColdFusion, PHP, WebObjects, shell scripts, some system administration, various GUI libraries, Perl, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase.
Ryan Platte’s Experience
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Principal
Replaid
(Computer Software industry)
October 2008 — Present (1 year 2 months)
Developing web and iPhone applications with startups and small- and medium-sized businesses. Improved application performance throughout the stack for a hosted service that supports Fortune 500 clients. Environments include Ajax, Ruby on Rails, web performance optimization, Java, Cocoa Touch, and Unix system administration.
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Consultant (via Obtiva)
Pampered Chef
(Computer Software industry)
October 2008 — May 2009 (8 months)
Worked on a 15-member agile team building and maintaining a Java web application with heterogenous architecture and several kinds of external interfaces. Trained staff in applying agile and object-oriented design practices.
Performed an emergency rewrite of JCE cryptography code to use BouncyCastle lightweight APIs. Identified the issue, researched and tested the fix, and delivered sooner than expected, permitting a very visible release to proceed on time.
Reworked legacy SQL-oriented code to integrate driving-directions information from the Google Maps API into a complex geographic selection algorithm for a major direct-selling firm. Test-drove JavaScript object design for successful reuse in many localities and pages with varying business rules. -
Senior Consultant
Obtiva
(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)
November 2006 — May 2009 (2 years 7 months)
Delivered websites using Ruby on Rails with a wide range of surrounding technologies.
Led development on a social networking website for a national entertainment brand. In addition to core development tasks, provided advice and solutions for preparing a high-traffic launch. Client expressed delight with results.
A few technologies used heavily: JRuby, Ajax, Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, Apache, and Capistrano.
Many of the projects were high-profile, receiving attention from top executives at the respective clients. -
Consultant (via Obtiva)
Sears
(Public Company; SHLD; Retail industry)
February 2008 — October 2008 (9 months)
Developed principles and recommendations for a first-of-its-kind integration of a popular dynamic-language technology into a Java-stack app.
Provided expert guidance on many novel design, implementation, and agile methodology aspects arising from the effort.
Evangelized practices to help this energetic, skilled team keep improving its quality and consistency. Recommended specific process changes that had immediate positive effect on team deliveries. -
Consultant (via Obtiva)
Stark Investments
(Privately Held; Investment Management industry)
March 2007 — January 2008 (11 months)
Provided strategic and development assistance on a new effort to create internal tools rapidly using Ruby on Rails backed by Oracle databases.
Maintained a Rails plugin to provide a common authentication and authorization scheme. Designed and developed a single sign-on integration with the Windows domain.
Delivered three separate Rails apps for three different types of audiences and usage patterns within the firm, two of them with top executives as stakeholders. -
Consultant (via Obtiva)
NASA Langley Research Center
(Government Agency; Aviation & Aerospace industry)
November 2007 — November 2007 (1 month)
Short but intense visit helping aerodynamicists, well-versed in Ruby, create their first Ruby on Rails project for sharing re-entry air stream data with each other.
It was fascinating because it was the reverse of many Rails situations: the Ruby part was old hat, but SQL, UI programming, and layered architecture were new.
That and the whole spaceship angle. -
Senior Application Developer
SubscriberMail
(Computer Software industry)
July 2005 — November 2006 (1 year 5 months)
Opt-in email marketing provider for Fortune 500 companies.
Provided new perspectives and evangelized good practices for a team struggling with a codebase that had begun years ago as a prototype.
Created an elegant Ruby + XML tool for specifying and rendering email designs that removed a major pain point.
Proposed, initiated, and guided an effort to migrate backend code to Java from ColdFusion. -
Consultant
Site9
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)
February 2005 — May 2005 (4 months)
Developed features for Java WebObjects applications.
Integrated JUnit into the XCode build process and evangelized and demonstrated its use. -
Consultant
Institute in Basic Life Principles
(Non-Profit; 201-500 employees; Internet industry)
January 2005 — February 2005 (2 months)
Ruby pioneer Nathaniel Talbott and his team had brought Ruby in to implement a registration app at this organization before Rails existed. I worked with John Long and his team to integrate the not-yet-released Rails framework with their existing model code.
I later had the opportunity to share an experience report with Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson, who was intrigued that an existing (non-ActiveRecord) Ruby model layer could integrate with Rails so smoothly. -
Principal Consultant
NIKA Consulting
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
February 2003 — September 2004 (1 year 8 months)
A wide range of development and Linux administration tasks.
Prototyped a GUI medical-records application using Ruby.
Helped an ISP organize and standardize its Apache shared-hosting environment. -
Software Developer
Mainstay Church Resources
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Publishing industry)
June 2000 — December 2002 (2 years 7 months)
Hired as an audio tech, I also immediately put my graphic design and temporal composition skills to use in video post-production in Adobe After Effects.
I then moved across the street to become a web developer, beginning my software career in earnest. I taught myself object-oriented design, test-driven development, and Extreme Programming practices while on that project. -
Lead Designer
Harbor.com, Inc.
(Internet industry)
April 2000 — June 2000 (3 months)
Implemented a ritzy graphic system to help a dot-com startup sell to venture capitalists. Also conducted some market research and strategy planning.
I was the sole employee, and was laid off when venture capital ran dry. -
Web Developer, Application Developer
Taylor University
(Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Higher Education industry)
January 2000 — March 2000 (3 months)
Initial assignment was maintenance of content on online course catalog. Upon observing the hodgepodge of spreadsheets being used to manage the course development process, suggested and delivered a Microsoft Access-based application that has seen long use.
Additional Information
Ryan Platte’s Websites:
Ryan Platte’s Groups:
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Ruby on Rails -
Test Driven Development
Ryan Platte’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- consulting offers
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
