SUMMARY

I have a rare mix of technical skills, people skills, business acumen, and the drive to execute. My gift is judgment to bridge business objectives and technical requirements. I typically manage as a kind of servant leader combining tenacity, humor, diplomacy, and adapting structure to fit a culture.

I’ve held positions at software startups as Project Manager, Director of Engineering, and Director of QA. I developed teams from scratch to over 25 staff. I am always the person directing traffic to drive completion of objectives.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Software development for my own projects include: wiggleback.com (JavaScript, React, HTML, CSS, PHP), Wordpress websites for my real estate businesses, and real estate data related projects (Python).

EDUCATION

Computer Science, B.A., New York University

EXPERIENCE (For chronological, detailed descriptions of experience see, www.linkedin.com/in/jackalves)

Management

Director of Engineering, Metaweb Technologies (acquired by Google)

Founding member of a startup that developed advanced structured search technology. We created a new kind of database that supported dynamic schema (NOSQL) supporting instantaneous transactions on millions of records.

• Drove the initial launch by negotiating the convergence of concepts, features, design, and development.
• Led an elite team of 14 and hired 9 additional staff within a very low-friction Agile framework.
• Directed automation development to reduce build/test cycle from multi-day to continuous process.
• Weekly product updates were made possible with an Agile framework that supported self-directed front end, middle-tier and backend groups pulling from a backlog of high-level feature requests.

Director of Quality Assurance and Engineering Services, Scopus Technology / ViewStar

At two hyper-growth startups, I created quality assurance and development services teams.

• Hired and managed more than 20 staff at each company.
• Created processes that reduced release cycles by weeks while delivering higher quality.
• Directed automation development to reduce build/test cycle from multi-day to daily process.
• Restored dysfunctional IT group to eliminate unscheduled downtime and created helpdesk processes.
• Entrusted with responsibility for end of cycle feature triage decisions.

Project Management

I managed a variety of projects for various organizations, as an employee or consultant. Highlights included:

R2 / Rogatio.io

Led a multi-million dollar project with a seasoned team developing compliance software for a Fortune 50 client.  Managed pivot to a startup..

• Managed 14 person team including designer, developers, and quality assurance staff.
• Mentored a project manager working with a related team.
• Wrote and managed requirements as Product Owner for 9 releases delivered to the client.
• Transitioned from Scrum sprints to fluid Kanban development based around team milestones using Jira.

Applied Minds, Inc

The projects focused on inventing and prototyping user interfaces for government and large corporate clients. I worked as an employee for 3 years before our team spun-off to form Metaweb Technologies (see above). 

• Managed projects totaling $5 million.
• Managed a team of 12 developers, designers, data scientists, and qa staff in an Agile environment.
• Managed more than 6 projects that literally had no tolerance for late or over budget delivery.
• Core responsibilities included requirements setting, budgeting, scheduling, and reporting. I also wrote proposals, created user documentation, tested, and contributed to design.

Star Wide Web / Applied Minds, Inc

Hired by former employer to turn around a lagging project related to comprehensive data about celebrity relationships. The ultimate goal was to spin-off a startup company.

• Evaluated the original development team and quickly replaced them by contracting with another team.
• Oversaw application development to produce a prototype within 1 month.
• Developed software scripts and technical guides for developers.
• Participated in presentations to venture capital firms.

Other Projects

• Led a launch in 3 months for a finance related web startup. Development was restarted when I joined after 9 months without launching. Hired 5+ staff, matrix managed 10+ developers, and formed a qa team.
• Formed a quality assurance team for an IT product startup and created a test strategy.
• Wrote management plans for a $2 million proposal which was funded for a UC Berkeley Math professor. Provided project strategy, planning, and management for projects related to large bibliographic datasets. Wrote open source software (Python) for collection and display of bibliographic information.

Real Estate

Residential Broker/Agent

I initially associated with large brokerages (Keller Williams, Shorewest), then formed my own brokerage, JackRabbit Realty. I managed 54 transactions valued over $9 million. For several transactions I recommended and supervised repair work. I created marketing campaigns. I aggregated data and wrote software to target marketing.

Residential Redevelopment (Flipping)

I formed LLCs to purchase 3 distressed single-family homes, managed renovations, and earned a profit reselling each. I conducted detailed evaluations of necessary repairs and analysis of profit potential. I specified detailed renovation plans, managed 4 contractors and budgets which totaled over $240,000. I wrote software to map crime data to visualize pockets with little crime within high crime areas.

Personal

I go through phases with different interests. For instance, I create art and I wrote a screenplay.