James Hart

I’m looking for a remote position on a team where I can continue to grow as an engineering lead as well as help steer the engineering team and product. I consider myself a true full-stack engineer with deep experience in both back-end optimization and building rich front-end clients. I have thirteen years experience of writing web applications with Ruby on Rails. I have deployed and configured all pieces of back-end infrastructure needed to run a scalable server-side application, however I have a strong penchance for keeping it simple. I am a voracious learner and enjoy working with like-minded people.

GitHub hjhart
LinkedIn hjameshart

Skills

Ruby
Rails, Sidekiq, RSpec, Capybara
Operations
Docker, Aptible, Heroku, Bash, Nginx, HAProxy
Data Stores / Search
PostgreSQL, Redis, Solr, Memcached, ElasticSearch
Front-End
SwiftUI, React, React Native, Webpack, Jest, Detox, Sass
Tooling
Git, Vim, VSCode, Pivotal Tracker, Github Actions, Circle CI

Experience

Brightline

Principal Engineer Jun 2020 - Present

Lead the engineering team focused on the member experience. Bootstrapped the initial architecture around a Rails app. I built and maintained the entire CI/CD pipeline, including optimizing a CI / CD build down from 75 minutes to 10 minutes. I transitioned to the iOS team writing SwiftUI and helping to launch the iOS app. Other technologies worked with were Rails, ViewComponent, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS.

Voom Flights, an Airbus Company

Principal Engineer Jul 2018 - May 2020

At Voom, I worked closely with the engineers and designers on the product team and also acted as the liason to the leadership team. I mentored engineers through pairing and helped facilitate making hard technical decisions when the team needed guidance. Often, my job was unblocking bottlenecks for the team. I took an active interest in optimizing the CI / CD process to enable us to ship code faster. I helped drive the growth of the team from 4 engineers to 14. Our team built a rails / react web app as well as a react-native app.

Wanelo

Director of Engineering Jul 2013 - Apr 2018

At Wanelo, I led the engineering team for numerous years in both application development and platform operations. Under the direction of the CEO and the product team, I advised product owners how we should engineer our numerous products. I led the team that built and maintained our marketplace for selling products through Shopify. During our growth period, I helped build scalable solutions to handle user growth by sharding postgresql for our user saves. When our user base was declining, I helped advise the company to downgrade our servers and other third-party services to go from $115k to $60k in monthly operating costs.

RPX

Senior Software Engineer Oct 2010 - Jul 2013

Became the lead engineer on our client-facing ruby on rails application. Worked at Pivotal Labs for six months working using Ruby on Rails and learning agile methods and TDD. Lead the front-end development of a single-page backbone application. Built a gem to integrate multiple of our ruby applications onto the same database. Worked on several "hackathon" projects to help improve the workflow of other teams within the company. Built an API to interface between postgres stored procedures and a rails application.

Lean Startup Productions

Freelance Software Engineer Aug 2013 - Dec 2014

Worked closely with clients to enhance Eric Ries' Conference’s website for two years. Test drove new conference software that matched attendees to their preferred mentors test-driven in pure ruby. Helped operate said software for two conferences (Lean Startup Conference 2014, QuickBooks Connect 2014). Built and maintained entrepeneurial editorial site called "The How."

Tara Mohr

Freelance Software Engineer Oct 2013 - May 2014

Built and maintained members’ only wordpress website. Coordinated with third-party software developers to improve their wordpress plugin (WooCommerce).

EggWich iPhone App

Creator and Developer Oct 2010 - Jul 2013

EggWich is an iPhone application highlighting reviews and photos of egg sandwiches and breakfast burritos in San Francisco. The app was test-driven using Jasmine. I used the Enyo.js framework (previously Palm WebOS) to generate views and handle all user events. Runs on iOS using Phonegap.

WebKey LLC

Web Developer May 2008 - Sep 2010

The owner and I worked closely with one another to deliver our clients with web design and development. I developed secure and usable web forms with PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Experience with customer service by providing clients help for their questions, performing user interviews, and recommending solutions for any bugs or errors they might have found. Clients include: Fremont Brewing Company, Washington Green Roads, Richard Conlin (Seattle City Council), Washington Green Schools, and many more.

hjhart.com

Freelance Web Design and Development Aug 2004 - Sep 2010

Started doing contract work in high school and throughout college as a outlet to learn more about software development and get early professional experience. Development occurs on a PHP/MySQL platform, with the use of standards-compliant HTML and CSS with JavaScript. Designing was always done in-house using Photoshop. With these projects, building my skill set is very important as is communicating with the client exactly what they require. Clients include: Damon Barnett, Night Owl Lounge, Carso's Pasta, Saga Beverages, WoofSites, PitchSmarter, Bainbridge Island Yacht Club, and more.

Volunteering

Beacon Hill International School PTA

Web Developer Sep 2023 - Present

Volunteered my time to make the website more accessible and easier to publish content.

Basset Hound Rescue of Southern California

Web Developer Jan 2014 - Jun 2015

Basset Hound Rescue of Southern California is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization offering sanctuary, healing and forever families to distressed, abandoned, injured or homeless hounds. I helped re-design and build their wordpress website to increase adoption rate and to help event promotion.

Golden Gate Ruby Conference

Web Developer May 2013 - Sep 2013

GoGaRuCo was a great single-track conference in San Francisco that ran for six years. I approached the co-host of the conference to help build the website. I used the middleman gem to produce static HTML, CSS3 and JavaScript hosted on github pages. We used the Foundation framework and its css and javascript to build a responsive website across browsers and devices.

Education

University of Washington

Sep 2005 - Jun 2010
Bachelor of Science - Mathematics

University of Washington

Sep 2005 - Jun 2010
Bachelor of Science - Informatics

Publications

Examining the Relationship Between Pediatric Behavioral Health and Parent Productivity Through a Parent-Reported Survey in the Time of COVID-19: Exploratory Study
JMIR Publications
2022-08-18

I built the COBI app that was used to collect data, which was then synthesized to create this publication.