MICHAEL SMEARER

michael@smearer.net | 510-207-8448

I am looking for a new opportunity to fully engage my technical expertise, intellectual curiosity, and passion for software of the highest quality.  I’ve not only designed and built dozens of enterprise applications, but have also been an effective leader, mentor, and project manager.  With a thorough knowledge of the Microsoft stack, a lightning-quick ability to understand new business domains, and the ability to manage obstacles, I become the “go-to guy” for any software project.  I get an immense amount of satisfaction from talking to users and stakeholders after the software is released.  Hearing that a solution I’ve created has solved real business problems, makes users happy and productive, and helps to make a business more successful is music to my ears.

If I’m not hard at work on a project, reading an interview with Anders Hejlsberg, or digesting the latest Entity Framework features, I’m training for my next Alcatraz swim, building a piece of furniture in my garage woodshop, or playing either the guitar or piano.  I have never tried all three activities at the same time, but one day, I just might.

Experience

BitSpark Consulting - Founder and Chief Architect

Oakland, CA (3/2005 - Present)

Running BitSpark is a fantastic and exciting challenge.  I truly enjoy meeting customers from such a variety of businesses and discussing the ways in which I can help solve problems.  As I become more experienced, I take my technical expertise as almost a given and instead focus on the intangibles that make a project run smooth - critical thinking, creative problem solving, strategic decisions, foresight, diplomacy, effective communication, maintaining a solid development infrastructure, and organization.  I have an uncanny ability to identify the key issues of a project early and rapidly prototype solutions.  Below is a partial list of the successes I’ve had at BitSpark.

Genentech

I was the analyst, architect and lead developer on a critical operations application for a world-class pharmaceutical company.  By identifying and focusing on a communication gap between scientists, the manufacturing floor, and SAP, I was able to provide a system that reduced the amount of time it took to collect, organize, and communicate clinical process data from 5.5 to 2.5 months, saving the company millions of dollars.  I was able to not just navigate the rigid Validation and GMP requirements of the industry, but offer meaningful suggestions for automating tasks in that area.  Plans are now in motion to expand and deploy this application to a number of plants and subsidiaries worldwide.  ASP.Net 3.5, SQL Server 2008, WCF, jQuery

Fitness Anywhere, Inc.

I helped a local fitness equipment company manage their rapid growth by designing and building a full-featured and unified business service layer.  This includes a single sign-on service for all applications, aggregation of data from a variety of sources (eBay, SalesForce.com, Amazon, etc.), and other processes for day-to-day operations.  I was asked back for a second customer-facing project that provided add-on expert value for customers with a focus on social networking.  This web site, built on top of the service layer, required heavy SEO, a very slick interface, and a very quick performance.  ASP.Net 4.0, SQL Server 2008, WCF, jQuery

Sequoia Retail Systems

I was the architect and lead developer on a large web exchange built for university bookstores.  This successful application helps everyone save money - the university, the student, and third party book sellers.  The application provides a smooth workflow and performs automated business heuristics on large amount of data.  I had the idea to perform large spreadsheet uploads with a small Silverlight component - why make the user upload 10MB, only to find out there’s an issue with the data when you can just do it immediate validation on the client?  ASP.Net 3.5, SQL Server 2008, Web Services, ASP.Net Ajax, Silverlight 3.0

Working with Sequoia again, I was an architect on a multi-tenant student debit card system.  Think on-line banking for students.  This application has a very high user base (~800,000 in the first month).  I was able to successfully navigate on-demand tenant creation, customizations, ad-hoc reporting for students (and curious parents), and used a provider model to integrate with a variety of campus back-end systems.  ASP.Net 3.5, SQL Server 2008, SSRS, jQuery

VinTrust

I provided architectural consulting on a large, multi-application SaaS project in the wine industry.  Not satisfied with just releasing documents and code samples to the off-shore team, I traveled to India to meet developers and provide hands-on mentoring.  This was a large, complex platform that supported a large, rapidly growing business.  ASP.Net 3.5 (web forms), WinForms, SQL Server 2008, integration with WebSphere and NetSuite

Peoplechart

I served as architect and lead developer on a large multi-tenant SaaS application in the medical industry.  I led a team of developers in converting an ASP Classic application to a full-featured, well-built .Net platform of several web applications, numerous windows services, various WinForm administrative tools, and exposed services.  This platform is at the core of a growing company providing personal health record management and is going strong today.  I also served as architect and developer on several later enhancements, including integration with SureScripts to provide an electronic prescription platform.  ASP.Net 2.0, WinForms 2.0, SQL Server 2005, then upgraded to .Net 3.5 and SQL Server 2008

Xyka Software

I provided architectural and pragmatic refactoring guidance to a software company that has a large SaaS travel search engine (airfare, car, hotel). I quickly learned the large code base and was able to come up with discreet high and low-level recommendations. I was also tasked with designing a high-performance search engine that interacts with a number of the travel GDS’s that could return results asynchronously to a browser.  ASP.Net 3.5, SQL Server 2008

DLA Piper

I was hired to provide technical and application assessment to one of the largest law firms in the country. This included performing rigid performance and scalability testing for existing applications and services, helping in architecture and design ideas for future projects, and providing some vendor diplomacy.  Later, I was asked back to build a number of marketing web sites.  .Net 2.0, ACT, WAST, SQL Server 2005

Cogent Software

I led a local mortgage data quality software company through the construction of the new generation of their product suite. I provided architectural and best practices advice, a great deal of code and components, evangelized .Net, and implemented lifecycle management practices.  WinForms 2.0, SQL Server 2005

Alliance Consulting - Lead Developer

San Francisco, CA (7/2004 - 3/2005)

I was lead developer on a small, highly skilled team that created a system to deliver renewal information to 30,000 “small group” customers of Blue Shield.  I built a robust ETL engine, advanced data auditing capabilities, and automated PDF statements.  I managed to strategically control the flow of data from a large, scheduled-access data warehouse.

Loansoft, Inc. - Developer, Senior Developer, CTO, Chief Architect

Berkeley, CA (7/1998 - 2/2004)

I started at Loansoft as employee 9 as an inexperienced junior programmer with an art degree.  Within 3 years, I was CTO at a successful, rapidly growing company of 30 people, with a team of 8 developers.  During that time, my focus was on evangelizing and moving the company to the new .Net platform, building a lasting architecture, and taking advantage of the web.  After being CTO for a year, I decided to step into the Chief Architect role to better manage the vast and still growing enterprise systems.  Many of the unique solutions I developed at this time were to become industry standards in the following years, such as asynchronous JavaScript and XML (in 2001!), a custom-built HTTP-based source control system, and code generation tools.  Aside from the rigorous technical work, I wrote articles, spoke at company conferences, supported sales, and contributed to the overall business strategy.  With 50 employees and a customer list that included 4 of the top 10 banks in the U.S., Loansoft was acquired by GHR Systems in 2003.

Education

State University of New York at Buffalo - Bachelor of Fine Arts: Painting, Magna cum Laude

Buffalo, NY (1992 - 1996)

I completed a comprehensive program in the visual arts, including art history, contemporary theory, and visual techniques.