My Now page contains what I am up to right now.
I operate as Kary Software LLC, a remote-working contract and consultant software development business building custom software for clients in biomedical research, higher education and over-the-road trucking.
Previously I worked in Kansas City, MO as a software engineer in the biomedical research field. An internal team built software used by the organization's many scientists and staff to facilitate ground-breaking original research into the causes, treatment and prevention of gene-based diseases. Over 1,000,000 lines of code, 20+ custom modules, JavaScript frontend, PHP/Symfony backend.
The primary application was a web application using the ExtJS JavaScript framework on the frontend and making calls to its HTTP API built with PHP, Symfony2 framework and many custom components developed in-house.
When not working I have several Projects and am heavily involved in local user groups:
I have also been invited to speak at national software development conferences and many local user group. More info on my Talks page.
In my personal time I play basketball, softball and pool, and enjoy cooking new recipes, slow travel and sampling coffee from everywhere.
Before becoming a full-time contractor, I worked at the University of Kansas (within IT) as the team's Technical Lead Programmer. I pushed the team and my co-workers to adopt modern development practices. Our team was the central web development group on campus, responsible for the public-facing presence http://www.ku.edu and various custom web applications used by departments all over the University.
Since 2007 I have been the lead PHP application developer for RapidHire: a truck driver recruitment management software company based in the Denver, Colorado area.
At RapidHire, I have developed a web application system allowing truck drivers to input their extensive job application data and digitally sign their job application and legal documents, all in their browser. The system generates PDFs of all documents, including digital signature on all application materials, providing a fully digital job application workflow. This system allows RapidHire's customers to instantly screen and approve driver applicants without faxing or mailing legal documents to be signed and returned by the driver.
We deploy on an IBM AS400/i5 environment using DB2 and Zend Server instead, of a traditional LAMP stack.
Web development started as a hobby in 1998 on Chris Escalante's parents' dining room table. As teenagers Chris and I founded iConcepts Web Studio and developed websites for Topeka businesses. Chris and I are still very close friends and continue to collaborate to this day.