Jack Alves
(expanded version available here)
 510.604.3609
 jack.alves@gmail.com
 www.tigerlight.com/jack
 478 Vermont Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94707 
 
EXPERIENCE
 
My experience includes 16 years as a manager and director of groups related to software and website development. I managed major releases and process enhancements for all aspects of software life cycles. I contributed to projects at every phase from product definition through implementation, test, and post-release evaluation. At two different companies I built teams from scratch to over 25 people.
 
I've had responsibility for:
 

I have excellent judgment with respect to the balance of business and technical issues. I motivate people. I drive innovation. I solve problems. I prevent problems.

Metaweb Technologies and Applied Minds, Inc
2002 - 2007

Director of Engineering and Product Development (Metaweb, 2005-2007)
Producer / Project Manager  (Applied Minds, 2002-2005)
 
Metaweb builds technology for next-generation web infrastructure which includes storage and interaction with massive, structured datasets. Core technology includes a proprietary graph database and a new structured query language (MQL). At Metaweb I managed development and launch of freebase.com which is a Web 2.0 site for collaborative creation of data and data structure. Metaweb is a venture capital funded spin-off of Applied Minds, Inc. In 2005, I transitioned from Producer / Project Manager with Applied Minds to Director of Product Development at Metaweb. A few months after spinning off I became Director of Engineering.
 
Applied Minds invents, designs, and prototypes all kinds of things (including robots, vehicles, workspaces, and software). I worked with a small software group focused on interfaces for data input, query and organization using large graph data structures. We produced designs and built prototype software for things like topic attributes (people, places, things), crisis management, decision management, and hypothesis assessment. Most prototypes were delivered as software for trials by end users. Several projects were over a million dollars, no project was smaller than $300k. We also did business development, research, and prototyping related to Metaweb.
 
Consulting, short-term positions, and hiatus
1998 - 2002
 
Quality Assurance Specialist (Teleias, 2001-2002)
Project Manager (GarmentTrade.com, 2000-2001)
Business Management Consultant (Circle24.com, 2000)
Project Manager (DoughNET.com, 1999)
 
During this period I took one full year off then did short-term work on a variety of projects at dot com startups and a systems configuration management company.

Scopus Technology and Viewstar
1989 - 1997

Director of Engineering Services and Quality Assurance (Scopus, 1995-1997)
Director of Engineering Services and Quality Assurance (Viewstar, 1989-1995
 
Scopus primarily built customer support software. I grew a group of 3 quality assurance engineers to a Release Engineering group of 26 staff including four managers and two temps. I directed creation of processes for bug tracking, building software, packaging, testing, tracking product releases, customer support team interactions, and requesting purchases. During this period I managed 8 major and over 20 minor software releases.
 
ViewStar built workflow software for scanning and processing documents. I formed the quality assurance group starting with no staff and grew the group to 21 staff including two managers and six temps. At Viewstar I also  engineered processes for all aspects of the product life cycle and cross department interactions. During this period I managed at least 5 major product releases concurrent with quarterly minor releases.
 
I reinvigorated a previously troubled IT group during a period when the company relocated 200 employees. The relocation project included redesign of the corporate network, hardware and software modifications to every computer (300+) in the span of a weekend with a handful of technical staff. We were 100% operational by Monday morning.
 
I joined ViewStar as a software engineer; I was promoted 3 times: to supervisor, to manager, then to director; at each stage I accumulated responsibility for new groups; I was voted MVP of 1994 by employees and received several other awards during my six year tenure
 
Technical Background and Environments
 
I have a B.A. in Computer Science from New York University. I worked 5 years as a software engineer programming with C, Fortran, Basic on PC, Macintosh, and VAX computers. I worked as an engineer 1 year at ViewStar writing image display software, 1 year at BioRad writing software to control scientific instruments, 3 years at Columbia University biology research lab writing software to drive scientific instruments and video image processors. I also built a small network and supported hardware and software systems

Environments I've worked in included, HTML, CSS, XML, Javascript (with Ajax techniques), Java, C/C++, relational databases, Windows, Macintosh, Linux and other flavors of UNIX.