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Jason Esser
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Overview
I specialize in solving a wide variety of business needs by working with stakeholders
to design and then implement innovative, cost-effective, solutions.
I've designed and programmed systems ranging from retail CD-ROM products to high
transaction online billing systems for Fortune 500 companies.
I have been programming and developing systems for large corporations as well as
small businesses since 1995.
Skills
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Technologies
Languages
Database/Script/Markup
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Server Platforms
Toolsets
Methodologies
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Employment History
Manager, Performance and Scalability
Lead a diverse team tasked with improving web site performance for the largest
U.S.-based provider of loyalty travel service programs. Primary
responsibilities are planning for business growth, improving both software and
infrastructure reliability, as well as overall systems performance improvement.
CLTS is part of Affinion Group.
- Improved measurement:
- Identified and implemented new measurement tools and techniques aimed at proactively identifying performance issues during all phases of development and operations.
- Continual Improvement:
- Work directly with third party vendors and internal customers to identify, remediate, and prevent performance issues.
Skills and technologies used: WCF, .NET Framework, ASP.NET, SQL Server,
TFS, Code Profiling, Load Testing
Lead Developer
Worked as the Lead Developer for a company specializing in cloud-based secure messaging
solutions. Solutions are marketed in both a SaaS model as well as on-premise
solutions. SaaS solutions are hosted in a SAS70 Level 2 environment. Prior
to October 2008 DataMotion was named CertifiedMail.com, Inc.
- Solutions delivery:
- Worked directly with stakeholders to define and estimate all engineering projects.
- Advised executive-level management on technology strategies and tactics to increase market share.
- Led effort to redesign and rebuild core codebase.
- Designed and implemented new payment processing and subscription management system.
- Designed and implemented new 3rd party provisioning API.
- Designed and implemented mobile version of SecureMail product.
- Team leadership:
- Collated ten years of systems documentation and fourteen years of systems development into a two day training course suitable for use outside of Engineering.
- Mentored developers via pair programming as well as via code reviews.
- Implemented a set of best practices around team development processes and solutions delivery.
- Improved measurement:
- Designed and implemented a significantly improved message auditing framework.
- Designed and implemented application usage measurement methodology.
- Continual Improvement:
- Initiated and led several efforts to increase system performance and reliability of legacy code base.
- Initiated and led several efforts to identify and eliminate obsolete features and dead code.
Skills and technologies used: C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, ASP.NET
MVC, jQuery Mobile, SQL Server, Authorize.net, TFS
Software Engineer
Worked in a research and development capacity to develop new functionalities for
new and existing enterprise planning software. This included analyzing, specifying
and programming new functionalities. ILOG has since been purchased by
IBM.
- Worked primarily on web-based supply chain analysis and optimization product ILOG Inventory and Product Flow Analyst.
- Developed significant new functionality that automated and streamlined much of the user input, reporting, and supply chain optimization process. The tool was essentially a wizard that walked a user through the analysis and optimization process. With this enhancement users needed 70% less training. Likewise, this tool reduced user data input requirements by 75%.
- Led effort to improve architecture and performance of several elements of the supply chain analysis application and several of its supporting technologies.
- Served as lead developer for innovative reporting solutions utilizing Tableau.
Skills and technologies used: C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, ASP.NET
AJAX, SQL Server, WinForms
Systems Developer
Worked in a consulting role with a variety of companies to build custom applications
to meet a variety of needs. Typical roles included supplemental staffing (application
analysis, design, and programming), technical project leadership, and mentoring.
- Built ASPXAuth authentication and authorization application for IIS-based web sites. This application enabled web sites to easily set up and manage user access to their content based on roles and/or user authorization. I built this application for ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0 using both VB.NET and C#. This application used SQL Server 2000 or 2005 for data storage and also made extensive use of custom HTTP Modules, HTTP Handlers, .NET custom controls and Cryptography.
- Worked as a contract programmer for CenterPoint Energy. I was directly responsible for first stabilizing their online customer account management web site and then re-writing it from the ground up. This system enables their three million customers to manage their account and pay their bills over the Internet. The system itself was built using ASP, MQSeries, DB2, Oracle, and a Novell eDirectory (LDAP) server. I was the primary programmer for the web server code, the interfaces into MQSeries, the queries into Oracle, and the user authorization against eDirectory. This system can be seen at CenterPoint Energy My Account Online.
- Mentored and trained the development staff of CenterPoint Energy to support and utilize Internet technologies. This knowledge transfer enabled the company to have a more robust infrastructure while becoming less dependent on outside resources.
- Built reddiggulo.us. This site took the most popular news from social bookmarking sites, identified unique stories, and ranked them against each other using a proprietary popularity algorithm. I built this site with C#, ASP.NET, and SQL Server 2005.
- Built a custom ordering website for the wholesale business and a CD-ROM version of their wholesale catalog which has enabled customers to cut down on paper as well as get pictures of the various products and plants while in the field.
- Worked with a Corporate Payments division in US Bank to translate a set of EDI standards to XML.
Shopforschool.com June through December 1999
Manager of Information Systems
Responsible for building applications that were highly scalable with a low cost
of ownership for a high traffic web site during the dotcom boom.
- Worked extensively with external partners and performance-based affiliate programs. I designed and programmed several proprietary tools and services that identified and linked individual shopping transactions across multiple web sites using ASP, SQL Server 7, Site Server, and COM components written in Visual Basic.
- Led a team that developed a low-cost payment service which cut checks to schools based on their share of affiliate revenues.
Vida Healthcare September 1998 through June 1999
Senior Developer
Worked within small team to develop healthcare data collection and records management
tools using Visual Basic and SQL Server. Vida Healthcare was a spin-off of
UnitedHealthcare.
- Conducted extensive review of infrastructure, application, database, and development environments. Based on those findings, provided strategic direction for development and infrastructure efforts going forward.
- Automated application installation procedures which improved customer service significantly.
Rainier Technology April 1997 through August 1998
Solutions Developer
Worked as a consultant to develop enterprise solutions for a wide range of clients.
Rainier Technology has since been purchased by Compaq and then merged into
Hewlett-Packard.
- Developed sales force automation system for General Mills using Dynamic HTML, ASP, ActiveX components, and SQL Server. I wrote most of the DHTML and ASP front end. This application increased sales force accountability as well as sales forecasting accuracy. Application was demonstrated by Microsoft at the Internet Explorer 4 launch event. Wrote an article for MIND magazine detailing some of the technology used (see below).
- Developed and coded several corporate Intranet sites for General Mills including an interface to Cyberdocs written in ASP.
- Built searchable trial exhibit web site for Minnesota vs. Philip Morris, et. al trial using ASP and Index Server. This site indexed new trial exhibits on a nightly basis for Internet users. This was one of the first big tobacco lawsuits to go to trial and the site saw significant traffic.
- Worked closely with Rainier Sales department to make sales calls and develop proposals. Was able to increase sales into each account I serviced.
IVI Publishing January 1995 through April 1997
Engineer
Worked as a programmer with a wide range of clients and projects. IVI Publishing
developed CD-ROM multimedia health and educational titles for OEM and retail channels
and then branched into online publishing. IVI Publishing has since been purchased
by WebMD.
- Worked with the Mayo Clinic, Hazelden, and the New England Journal of Medicine to publish their content both online and on CD-ROM products.
- I wrote a feature called HealthWatch Server which linked updated online content directly to static CD-ROM content. I wrote this application in PERL and used Verity as its primary data source. This product was embedded in the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book CD-ROM which sold over one million copies.
Certifications
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Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD)
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Microsoft Certified Professional + Site Building
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Writing Experience
Microsoft Interactive Developer (MIND) magazine
Do Real World Data Analysis With Internet Explorer 4.0 Data Binding
Article covered advanced Data Binding technologies found in Internet Explorer 4.
Microsoft Interactive Developer changed its name to Microsoft Internet
Developer in January 1999 and then merged with Microsoft Systems Journal
(MSJ) in March 2000 to form
MSDN Magazine.