smokeclouds

smokeclouds

smokeclouds

Consultancy/Contract

Role

Principal Engineer/Engineering Manager

Timeframe

08/2022 to date

Role

Principal Engineer/Engineering Manager

Timeframe

08/2022 to date

Role

Principal Engineer/Engineering Manager

Timeframe

08/2022 to date

smokeclouds

Consultancy/Contract

Role

Principal Engineer/Engineering Manager

Timeframe

08/2022 to date

smokeclouds is a boutique engineering agency created to build innovative, exciting sites and applications for our clients. We’ve worked for a variety of companies and start-ups, delivering projects from prototype to contributing to major live platforms. Our work has been both as an individual contributor (usually in a Principal/Architect role) or as a manager and leader supporting both engineering teams and business stakeholders. 

smokeclouds is a boutique engineering agency created to build innovative, exciting sites and applications for our clients. We’ve worked for a variety of companies and start-ups, delivering projects from prototype to contributing to major live platforms. Our work has been both as an individual contributor (usually in a Principal/Architect role) or as a manager and leader supporting both engineering teams and business stakeholders. 

smokeclouds is a boutique engineering agency created to build innovative, exciting sites and applications for our clients. We’ve worked for a variety of companies and start-ups, delivering projects from prototype to contributing to major live platforms. Our work has been both as an individual contributor (usually in a Principal/Architect role) or as a manager and leader supporting both engineering teams and business stakeholders. 

smokeclouds is a boutique engineering agency created to build innovative, exciting sites and applications for our clients. We’ve worked for a variety of companies and start-ups, delivering projects from prototype to contributing to major live platforms. Our work has been both as an individual contributor (usually in a Principal/Architect role) or as a manager and leader supporting both engineering teams and business stakeholders. 

Key Accomplishments

  • Brought into a critical internal project at PwC to lead a dysfunctional team. Rapidly assessed the deficits and came up with a cross functional plan to deliver sustainable progress via a document -> discovery -> act flow, providing support and much needed breathing space to delivery their work. Followed this up by identifying a core DevEx killer in PR review dwell time, replacing a broken pipeline with efficient GitHub actions, which replaced an at-best 20% pipeline completion rate/15-30 minute run time with consistent test result feedback within 30 seconds of git push.

  • For this internal PwC project, I also spearheaded many critical architectural decisions, helping reset the team into established MicroService design patterns and delivering efficiencies along the way. I led the effort to break up a single “MonoDatabase” into per-service micro databases, Handling the prep/planning, managing execution and delivery steps, alongside regular feature increments.


  • Joined a healthcare project team initially to augment development, however quickly identified a lack of technical leadership and team crisis. I offered (and was accepted) to step up into a leadership role. In 4 weeks, I reset the 20-person engineering team, handling team dynamics, concerns and fears quickly and efficiently. Simultaneously, I worked with all relevant stakeholders to quickly identify problematic items and high value bugs/features. Then I quickly prioritized, managed and ultimately delivered the items on time as promised, helping to repair a critical relationship with one of their primary clients. 


  • Supported a unicorn sized startup in their mission to migrate from Rails 5 to Rails 6. The app had a significant amount of built-at-home functionality that needed to be carefully disconnected and then migrated to the Rails 6 API, which I was able to reduce by 50% in the first six weeks. This work progressed all while the dozens of teams continued to build and deliver the features they were tasked to, without interruption. 


  • A leading e-commerce design-to-consumer site (monolith, built in Rails) had a lopsided database, with most tables in the mid 8 figure row count, but two tables were in the billions, causing challenges in appropriately sizing and resourcing the data store. In 8 weeks, I developed a series of queries to convert the vertical semi-relational data into a de-normalized form on the parent record, reducing storage by 40% (50GB), and creating an overall significantly smaller memory footprint. 


  • A large online direct to consumer e-com with an $100M ARR identified an existential risk to their business, and had started to address the threat. I was brought on to support the VPE and the primary Dir. Eng. to perform an outside-in analysis of the situation, Within 4 weeks, I compiled a detailed report and deck to present to the leadership team and board, explaining and identifying the exact shape of the problem. I then worked with the VPE to build out action plans for resourcing, budget and development cycles to deliver a replacement architecture which eradicates the risk from the business. 


  • An established consumer focused publishing company needed help optimizing their node/react app to improve their ability to scale quickly, and reduce their overall infrastructure costs. I spent 3 weeks investigating their product and infrastructure, quickly identifying areas of potential focus for improvement. Working with their in-house engineering teams, we created a plan of action, and was able to deliver significant improvements which enabled a 20% reduction in on-going costs, as well as a pathway to faster build and deployment times. 

  • Brought into a critical internal project at PwC to lead a dysfunctional team. Rapidly assessed the deficits and came up with a cross functional plan to deliver sustainable progress via a document -> discovery -> act flow, providing support and much needed breathing space to delivery their work. Followed this up by identifying a core DevEx killer in PR review dwell time, replacing a broken pipeline with efficient GitHub actions, which replaced an at-best 20% pipeline completion rate/15-30 minute run time with consistent test result feedback within 30 seconds of git push.

  • For this internal PwC project, I also spearheaded many critical architectural decisions, helping reset the team into established MicroService design patterns and delivering efficiencies along the way. I led the effort to break up a single “MonoDatabase” into per-service micro databases, Handling the prep/planning, managing execution and delivery steps, alongside regular feature increments.


  • Joined a healthcare project team initially to augment development, however quickly identified a lack of technical leadership and team crisis. I offered (and was accepted) to step up into a leadership role. In 4 weeks, I reset the 20-person engineering team, handling team dynamics, concerns and fears quickly and efficiently. Simultaneously, I worked with all relevant stakeholders to quickly identify problematic items and high value bugs/features. Then I quickly prioritized, managed and ultimately delivered the items on time as promised, helping to repair a critical relationship with one of their primary clients. 


  • Supported a unicorn sized startup in their mission to migrate from Rails 5 to Rails 6. The app had a significant amount of built-at-home functionality that needed to be carefully disconnected and then migrated to the Rails 6 API, which I was able to reduce by 50% in the first six weeks. This work progressed all while the dozens of teams continued to build and deliver the features they were tasked to, without interruption. 


  • A leading e-commerce design-to-consumer site (monolith, built in Rails) had a lopsided database, with most tables in the mid 8 figure row count, but two tables were in the billions, causing challenges in appropriately sizing and resourcing the data store. In 8 weeks, I developed a series of queries to convert the vertical semi-relational data into a de-normalized form on the parent record, reducing storage by 40% (50GB), and creating an overall significantly smaller memory footprint. 


  • A large online direct to consumer e-com with an $100M ARR identified an existential risk to their business, and had started to address the threat. I was brought on to support the VPE and the primary Dir. Eng. to perform an outside-in analysis of the situation, Within 4 weeks, I compiled a detailed report and deck to present to the leadership team and board, explaining and identifying the exact shape of the problem. I then worked with the VPE to build out action plans for resourcing, budget and development cycles to deliver a replacement architecture which eradicates the risk from the business. 


  • An established consumer focused publishing company needed help optimizing their node/react app to improve their ability to scale quickly, and reduce their overall infrastructure costs. I spent 3 weeks investigating their product and infrastructure, quickly identifying areas of potential focus for improvement. Working with their in-house engineering teams, we created a plan of action, and was able to deliver significant improvements which enabled a 20% reduction in on-going costs, as well as a pathway to faster build and deployment times. 

  • Brought into a critical internal project at PwC to lead a dysfunctional team. Rapidly assessed the deficits and came up with a cross functional plan to deliver sustainable progress via a document -> discovery -> act flow, providing support and much needed breathing space to delivery their work. Followed this up by identifying a core DevEx killer in PR review dwell time, replacing a broken pipeline with efficient GitHub actions, which replaced an at-best 20% pipeline completion rate/15-30 minute run time with consistent test result feedback within 30 seconds of git push.

  • For this internal PwC project, I also spearheaded many critical architectural decisions, helping reset the team into established MicroService design patterns and delivering efficiencies along the way. I led the effort to break up a single “MonoDatabase” into per-service micro databases, Handling the prep/planning, managing execution and delivery steps, alongside regular feature increments.


  • Joined a healthcare project team initially to augment development, however quickly identified a lack of technical leadership and team crisis. I offered (and was accepted) to step up into a leadership role. In 4 weeks, I reset the 20-person engineering team, handling team dynamics, concerns and fears quickly and efficiently. Simultaneously, I worked with all relevant stakeholders to quickly identify problematic items and high value bugs/features. Then I quickly prioritized, managed and ultimately delivered the items on time as promised, helping to repair a critical relationship with one of their primary clients. 


  • Supported a unicorn sized startup in their mission to migrate from Rails 5 to Rails 6. The app had a significant amount of built-at-home functionality that needed to be carefully disconnected and then migrated to the Rails 6 API, which I was able to reduce by 50% in the first six weeks. This work progressed all while the dozens of teams continued to build and deliver the features they were tasked to, without interruption. 


  • A leading e-commerce design-to-consumer site (monolith, built in Rails) had a lopsided database, with most tables in the mid 8 figure row count, but two tables were in the billions, causing challenges in appropriately sizing and resourcing the data store. In 8 weeks, I developed a series of queries to convert the vertical semi-relational data into a de-normalized form on the parent record, reducing storage by 40% (50GB), and creating an overall significantly smaller memory footprint. 


  • A large online direct to consumer e-com with an $100M ARR identified an existential risk to their business, and had started to address the threat. I was brought on to support the VPE and the primary Dir. Eng. to perform an outside-in analysis of the situation, Within 4 weeks, I compiled a detailed report and deck to present to the leadership team and board, explaining and identifying the exact shape of the problem. I then worked with the VPE to build out action plans for resourcing, budget and development cycles to deliver a replacement architecture which eradicates the risk from the business. 


  • An established consumer focused publishing company needed help optimizing their node/react app to improve their ability to scale quickly, and reduce their overall infrastructure costs. I spent 3 weeks investigating their product and infrastructure, quickly identifying areas of potential focus for improvement. Working with their in-house engineering teams, we created a plan of action, and was able to deliver significant improvements which enabled a 20% reduction in on-going costs, as well as a pathway to faster build and deployment times. 

  • Brought into a critical internal project at PwC to lead a dysfunctional team. Rapidly assessed the deficits and came up with a cross functional plan to deliver sustainable progress via a document -> discovery -> act flow, providing support and much needed breathing space to delivery their work. Followed this up by identifying a core DevEx killer in PR review dwell time, replacing a broken pipeline with efficient GitHub actions, which replaced an at-best 20% pipeline completion rate/15-30 minute run time with consistent test result feedback within 30 seconds of git push.

  • For this internal PwC project, I also spearheaded many critical architectural decisions, helping reset the team into established MicroService design patterns and delivering efficiencies along the way. I led the effort to break up a single “MonoDatabase” into per-service micro databases, Handling the prep/planning, managing execution and delivery steps, alongside regular feature increments.


  • Joined a healthcare project team initially to augment development, however quickly identified a lack of technical leadership and team crisis. I offered (and was accepted) to step up into a leadership role. In 4 weeks, I reset the 20-person engineering team, handling team dynamics, concerns and fears quickly and efficiently. Simultaneously, I worked with all relevant stakeholders to quickly identify problematic items and high value bugs/features. Then I quickly prioritized, managed and ultimately delivered the items on time as promised, helping to repair a critical relationship with one of their primary clients. 


  • Supported a unicorn sized startup in their mission to migrate from Rails 5 to Rails 6. The app had a significant amount of built-at-home functionality that needed to be carefully disconnected and then migrated to the Rails 6 API, which I was able to reduce by 50% in the first six weeks. This work progressed all while the dozens of teams continued to build and deliver the features they were tasked to, without interruption. 


  • A leading e-commerce design-to-consumer site (monolith, built in Rails) had a lopsided database, with most tables in the mid 8 figure row count, but two tables were in the billions, causing challenges in appropriately sizing and resourcing the data store. In 8 weeks, I developed a series of queries to convert the vertical semi-relational data into a de-normalized form on the parent record, reducing storage by 40% (50GB), and creating an overall significantly smaller memory footprint. 


  • A large online direct to consumer e-com with an $100M ARR identified an existential risk to their business, and had started to address the threat. I was brought on to support the VPE and the primary Dir. Eng. to perform an outside-in analysis of the situation, Within 4 weeks, I compiled a detailed report and deck to present to the leadership team and board, explaining and identifying the exact shape of the problem. I then worked with the VPE to build out action plans for resourcing, budget and development cycles to deliver a replacement architecture which eradicates the risk from the business. 


  • An established consumer focused publishing company needed help optimizing their node/react app to improve their ability to scale quickly, and reduce their overall infrastructure costs. I spent 3 weeks investigating their product and infrastructure, quickly identifying areas of potential focus for improvement. Working with their in-house engineering teams, we created a plan of action, and was able to deliver significant improvements which enabled a 20% reduction in on-going costs, as well as a pathway to faster build and deployment times.