Resume of Mike Brittain

Senior Web Architect

LAMP and Open Source technologies

351 E. 84th St. Apt 30A
New York, NY 10028

Profile

Results-oriented lead architect with a focus on delivering high-quality code and products in high traffic environments. Enthusiastic about mobile products and development. Proven leadership ability; capable of keeping a team focused on the tasks and deadlines at hand. Solves immediate crises with solutions that will fit for the long-term.

Twelve years of experience in the Internet industry, specialized in LAMP technologies and mobile applications. Experienced in all points of application development processes, including: database design, user interface, e-commerce, security, web services, server administration, and quality assurance.

Technical Skills

PHP, MySQL, Apache, Linux, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, mobile web applications, Perl, SQL, XHTML, XML, XML-RPC, REST, Ajax, Amazon Web Services (EC2, S3, SQS), Puppet, Subversion (SVN), CVS, mod_rewrite, regular expressions, memcached, load testing tools, Bugzilla, Smarty templates, CDNs and reverse proxies, SEO, web analytics.

Prior experience with C, C++, Flash, ActionScript, XSLT, Oracle, Access, and ColdFusion.

Professional Experience

February 2010-Present
Senior Software Engineer
Etsy, Brooklyn, New York

Just starting out on the engineering team here...

January 2008-Present
Founder and Developer
One tsp., New York, New York

Building an early-stage recipe organizer that is available via web and mobile phones.

Hands-on development in PHP, MySQL, HTML, JavaScript (jQuery), and CSS.
Manage testing within various mobile phone browsers, including Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Palm WebOS, and Symbian.

July 2008-February 2010
Engineering Architect
CafeMom, New York, New York

Manage architecture and application development for a social network of 1.5 million unique visitors per month. Aid developers in all points of front-end and back-end development.

Built an image hosting service on Amazon's EC2 and S3, and migrating 4 million images from legacy image servers.
Wrote custom tools for automated code deployment.
Migrated to a new CDN vendor, including vendor selection and contract negotiation.
Refactored CSS across entire site improving page render speed by 30%.
Administered 10 Apache servers (physical and cloud-based).
Administered Subversion server for 15 users.
Wrote SQS class which is now distributed in PEAR (Services_Amazon_SQS).

August 2006-June 2008
Architect, Engineering (Sept 2007-June 2008)
Director of Engineering (Aug 2006-Sept 2007)
Heavy.com, New York, New York

Ensured availability for web servers handling over 6 million pages and 1.5 million unique visitors per day, and over 400+ TB of traffic per month. Maintained vendor relationships and identified new technology partners. Responsibilities included a mixture of hands-on development and team management with 10 direct reports.

Hands-on development of Heavy's video entertainment and advertising platform, using PHP, MySQL, XML-RPC, REST, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Ajax.
Built hosting infrastructure on Amazon's EC2 for running Husky Media (http://www.huskymedia.com/)
Migrated video and web content to Amazon's S3, cutting delivery and storage costs by 75%.
Implemented multiple levels of data and page caching using Akamai's Site Accelerator (reverse proxy), memcached, and file caching.
Designed hot failover between managed hosting, EC2, and local office servers.
Performed load testing with tools like HTTP_Load and AB (Apache Bench).
Made extensive use of RSS syndication and sitemaps for video to aid SEO initiatives.
Cut CPU utilization on web servers by adding class autoloading within existing code.
Increased speed of front-end applications by adding messaging services/queuing.
Participated in company's senior management team.
Negotiated web hosting and content delivery network contracts.
Identified strategies for scaling applications based on hardware needs, caching schemes, database expansion and optimization, and application tuning.
Redesigned site architecture and URL schema changes responsible for increasing Google search index penetration from 25 pages to over 98,000.
Developed tracking systems for affiliate marketing programs.
Implemented custom site analytics with Nielsen//NetRatings and Omniture services.
Introduced strict compliance with Web Standards (XHTML and CSS).
Refactored large portions of legacy code.

August 2004-August 2006
Director of Technology (Apr 2005-Aug 2006)
Senior Application Developer (Aug 2004-Apr 2005)
ID Society, New York, New York

Managed development team, hired contractors, and planned for staffing requirements. Determined technology direction for company and worked with systems administrator to manage internal infrastructure. Hands-on development of web applications and e-commerce sites within a Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP environment.

Implemented e-commerce systems including shopping cart applications in PHP and MySQL, integrated payment gateways such as Authorize.net, setup data interchange with fulfillment vendors, performed security audits, and insured CPI/CISP compliance.
Managed the migration of entire corporate network and collocated web hosting environment from FreeBSD to RedHat (CentOS) over 12 months.
Administered Apache web servers, MySQL databases, mail, DNS, ProFTPd, and CVS.
Scaled web hosting capabilities by leveraging third-party content delivery networks, including Speedera, Akamai, and Limelight Networks.
Reduced failures in live applications by implementing new development and staging environments and setting policies for scheduled deployments.
Developed rich-media applications using Flash, ActionScript, and AJAX.
Introduced MVC-style development and other best practices, including separation of database objects, business logic, and presentation layers.
Developed applications for mobile devices using PHP, Procmail, XHTML, and CSS.
Performed browser testing, security audits, and stress tests.
Maintained web analytics, conversion reporting, and log analysis tools, including AWStats, Analog, Google Analytics, Urchin, and NetRatings Site Census.
Consolidated multiple data-exchange processes into a single task-based application using OO PHP, XML, PGP encryption, FTP, and Cron.
Developed technique for making Flash-heavy web sites accessible to search engines and mobile devices using JavaScript, PHP, and XHTML.

June 1999-July 2004
Independent Contractor
Denver and Frisco, Colorado

Developed web sites and database applications. Designed and optimized relational databases. Managed search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and link building campaigns. Wrote proposals, functional specifications, and cost estimates. Managed contractors and vendors in designing and building web sites.

Architected a content management system in PHP and MySQL that has been in daily use for over 5 years and drives content to web sites, kiosks, and third-party systems.
Designed and developed kiosks in Flash and integrated data feeds with XML.
Built an automated, location-based news distribution system using Perl, PHP, MySQL, SMTP, and Cron, and by integrating various third-party databases.
Developed a location-based coupon marketing tool using PHP and Oracle.
Administered Apache web servers and MySQL databases.
Wrote web pages and templates using W3C web standards (XHTML and CSS).
Implemented AJAX search forms and auto-complete fields for intranet applications.
Wrote command-line utilities and scheduled tasks using Perl and Cron.
Developed an online business directory site using ColdFusion and Access.
Improved search rankings for web sites using semantic XHTML and link campaigns.

January 2001-March 2004
Adjunct Professor
University of Denver, Denver, Colorado

Taught web programming classes using JavaScript and ActionScript.

March 2001-March 2003
Technical Reviewer
Freelance

Reviewed the following titles:

Inside JavaScript (New Riders, 2002)
Fundamental Web Design and Development Skills (Glasshaus)
Practical XML for the Web (Glasshaus, 2002)
Flash Games Studio (Friends of ED, 2001)

October 1998-June 1999
Associate Webmaster, College Division
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts

Developed intranet applications and web pages. Wrote technical specifications, functional specifications, and end-user documentation.

Developed a database management tool using Perl, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Participated in the Technical Architecture Team for the division.

Education

M.A. Digital Media Studies
2000-2004, University of Denver

Invited to work on the Computer Science Internet Privacy Research Group.
Published in Communications of the ACM

B.A. Chemistry
1994-1998, Lafayette College

Personal Projects

One tsp. - Online personal recipe manager.
Mobile Translator - Word and phrase translation tool available for iPhones, BlackBerries, Opera Mini, and other mobile browsers.
Simple-AWS - PHP classes for managing Amazon Web Services.

Speaking

Velocity Conference, "Getting to Second Base with Your CDN", June 2009.

Published Works

Brittain, "Making Compact Forms More Accessible", A List Apart, http://www.alistapart.com/articles/makingcompactformsmoreaccessible/, December 2006.
Brittain, "Developing PHP the AJAX Way, Part 2: Back, Forward, Reload," IBM DeveloperWorks, http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-php-rad2/, May 2006.
Brittain, "Paint 3-D Images with PHP," IBM DeveloperWorks, http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/edu/os-dw-os-php-3d.html, April 2006.
Brittain, Fetch, et. al., "Beyond the Welcome Mat: Privacy Practices of Web Browser Extensions", Communications of the ACM, February 2001.