jack_alves_prj

Tenaciously managed projects and groups for 18 years at seven software and website startups. Hands-on contributions to product development from definition, through design, implementation and test.

Led launch of freebase.com, a live 24x7, high-scale data platform and website for the next generation of the web.
Matrix managed projects totaling $5 million for government intelligence agencies.
Delivered 15 major releases of software products and over 30 minor releases.
Established lifecycle processes at every startup to dramatically increase efficiency.
Great judgment, particularly for bridging business and technical objectives.

My management style combines tenacity, humor, diplomacy, well-defined structure, and adaptability. I have a bias toward short development cycles with incremental review and revision. I have consistently succeeded because I drive extended teams to focus on core objectives, and negotiate on specific features. I am a pragmatic, resourceful, problem solver. My background managing quality assurance teams set a foundation for high standards and an understanding of how to prevent problems using communication and process. I worked 5 years as a software engineer before transitioning to management. I write software now for my own projects, like wiggleback.com, using Javascript/AJAX, HTML, CSS, PHP, and Python.

Project Management Consulting, 2007- 2009

Applied Minds, Inc / Star Wide Web

Produced alpha site in a month with minimal funding. Popstra.com was the front end to a large graph database of celebrity relationships. Components included an embeddable Flash application, a Facebook quiz application, integration with a graph database, and a website built on Wordpress.
Hired as a "turnaround" specialist by my former employer (Applied Minds) to get the troubled project on track and prepare company to spin-off.
Refocused original team to finish deliverables and hired new team to produce final deliverable in a month. The team included the CEO and three developers in different locations.
Worked very closely with the CEO on business strategy and planning. Participated in presentations to venture capital firms.
Created and managed budgets, schedules, and functional specifications; wrote Javascript applications for data exploration; performed data grooming and testing.

Institute of Mathematical Statistics and University of California at Berkeley

Provided project strategy and planing for association executive on projects related to large bibliographic datasets.
Conducted a status review of over 10 open projects at various stages of completion. Teams included full and part time resources in the Bay Area, the East Coast, the UK and Lithuania.
Created a roadmap for the executive board with specific project recommendations including staffing requirements, budgets, and time estimates.
Wrote project management plans for a $2 million proposal which was subsequently granted to build the Bibliographic Knowledge Network.

Metaweb Technologies, 2005 - 2007

Led the initial launch of freebase.com, a huge technology advance for the web. This was not an ordinary web project. Managing this elite team required a special finesse to drive convergence on concepts, designs and development. The live 24x7 site includes a new kind of database that supports dynamic schema and an unlimited volume of data with unlimited transactions. The database is open for the general public to contribute schema and data via the website or an API. There are already over 8 million structured topics in freebase.
Managed 14 people split into four groups (back, middle, front, QA). Technology includes proprietary graph database (C++/Python), API (Python/Javascript), and freebase.com website (AJAX). Used Selenium and Python for automated testing, SVN source control, and Bugzilla.
Recruited and hired nine staff. Initiated outsourcing for manual testers.
Established hourly build process. Pitched-in to help with other builds, data loads, and testing.
Founding member of startup and deeply involved in early stage business strategy, design, and IT.

Matrix managed a project team of 12 developers, designers, scientists, and quality assurance staff using Agile Development processes.
Managed projects totaling $5M for clients that included government intelligence agencies and large corporations. The work focused on inventing and building user interfaces for very large graph databases. Technology included Java, Flash, Javascript, HTML, and CSS. Deliverables included software source, user documentation, formal reports, and on-site presentations.
Projects literally had no tolerance for late or over budget delivery. A key to our success was my ability to prioritize development based on client expectations, and my tenacious, cajoling, diplomatic, task-master techniques. My core responsibilities included requirements setting, budgeting, scheduling, and reporting. I contributed to writing proposals, user documentation, testing, and design.

Quality Assurance Specialist at Teleias, a pre-launch startup of about 15 people including 10 developers. The product was a system for IT organizations to continuously capture operating system state on desktop workstations. Technology was built with Java and Python.

Built quality assurance team, designed test strategy, and developed test systems.
Hired two engineers to configure systems and to write unit and integration test software.
Matrix managed 10 developers.
Conducted product demonstrations.

Project Manager at GarmentTrade.com, a business-to-business e-commerce pre-launch startup with five people including a business strategist, a garment industry expert, a CTO, and a developer.

Negotiated requirements with the industry expert.
Hired contract staff for quality assurance and development.

Business Management Consultant at Circle24.com, a consulting company with a contract to build a website for a client that hosted business exhibitions/conventions.

Managed three developers in India.
Worked with the CEO to create business plan for the startup.

Project Manager at DoughNET.com, a 20 person startup when I joined. The live 24x7 e-commerce website gave parents the ability to teach financial management and monitor online purchases for their children.

Turned around team and led successful launch in three months. Before I joined, the project had been in progress for nine months without launching and was restarting the design from scratch.
Managed 10 staff, including HTML and Java developers, and quality assurance engineers. Technology was build with Java, JSP, and HTML.
Hired three developers and two quality assurance staff.
Led coordination of all groups including content, business, and support.

Scopus Technology, 1995 - 1997

Scopus, a 60 person startup, built customer relationship management (CRM) software. The development environment included C++, Java, TCL, and SQL for all Windows and UNIX platforms.

Director of Engineering Services and Quality Assurance

Transformed group of three testers to a Release Engineering group of 26 staff including four managers and two temps. Hired 20 staff in two years.
Increased engineering group efficiency which facilitated shorter, high quality release cycles. Re-engineered processes for all aspects of the development lifecycle. The multi-platform software build process was reduced from several days to twice per day.
Introduced test automation using WinRunner, custom built test harnesses, and a patch regression test system that enabled shorter release cycles.
Led eight major and over 20 minor software releases. Owned end of cycle feature triage decisions.
Created first staff performance evaluation template for the company.

Viewstar, 1989 - 1995

ViewStar, a 40 person startup, built workflow software for scanning and processing documents. The development environment included C, C++, Lisp, and SQL for all Windows and UNIX platforms. I was promoted three times: to supervisor, to manager, then to director. At each stage I accumulated responsibility for new groups. I was voted 1994 MVP by employees.

Director of Engineering Services and Quality Assurance

Started the quality assurance group and grew the group to 21 staff including two managers and six temps with responsibility for all Engineering Services. Minimized labor cost by hiring lower cost contractors and interns.
Created a system test lab with scan and print devices, and over 30 multi-boot machines.
Restored dysfunctional IT group to eliminate unscheduled down-time, created helpdesk process, and improved system maintenance and backup procedures.
Managed the relocation of 200 employees with 300 machine reconfigurations over a weekend to be 100% operational Monday morning.

Created the company's first development lifecyle processes.
Formed volunteer group to set first code standards and introduce a code review process.
Established cross-department processes with technical support, software packaging, and IT.
Owned end of cycle feature triage decisions for five major product releases and quarterly updates.
Introduced streamlined patch and test system to improve customer support response time.
Introduced test automation using SILK.

EDUCATION