University of Guelph

Athabasca University

Principal Software Engineer at Apply Digital

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Apply Digital

Principal Software Engineer

- Provide full stack code implementation, peer review, software architecture recommendations and UX expertise in the context of a variety of development projects
-  Prepare and deliver technical architecture proposal presentations and lead implementation strategy discussions
-  Contribute feature code on both the front and back end in a variety of development languages including Ruby on Rails, C#, MySql and Sql
-  Deliver product demonstrations to clients and project stakeholders
-  Participate in routine agile (Scrum) events such as daily stand up, sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospectives
-  Deliver websites using headless CMS development platforms such as Kentico 12

Senior Software Engineer

- Provide full stack code implementation, peer review, software architecture recommendations and UX expertise in the context of a variety of development projects
-  Prepare and deliver technical architecture proposal presentations and lead implementation strategy discussions
-  Contribute feature code on both the front and back end in a variety of development languages including rails, JavaScript, PHP, MySql, and PostgresQL
-  Integrate external APIs for payment (e.g. GoCardless, VoPay, Plaid) and other services into sites and applications
-  Deliver product demonstrations to clients and project stakeholders
-  Participate in routine agile (Scrum) events such as daily stand up, sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospectives

Tag Digital Studios Inc.

Senior Development and UX Consultant

- Arranged and led routine agile (Kan Ban) meetings  (e.g. daily stand ups, retrospectives, backlog grooming, readiness replenishment etc)
-  Participated in interviewing process for multiple roles, including screening resumes for interviewing, preparing interview packages (with both technical and non-technical questions), leading phone and in-person interviews and giving final candidate evaluation
-  Co-ordinated developer co-op students, including the complete interview process, on-boarding of students, managing day-to-day duties and tasks, providing work feedback and evaluation, supporting personal and professional learning during the semester, and working with the University of Guelph to advocate for career preparedness amongst computer science students
-  Managed software developers, designers and usability professionals across multiple squads, including meeting for routine one-on-one’s, supporting employee growth, resolving concerns, providing feedback, creating professional development plans, preparing for salary/compensation negotiations etc…
-  Acted as agile coach, observing workflow practices, recommending process improvements, researching best practices for agile workplaces, and encouraging an agile mindset amongst developers
-  Wrote multiple company policies, such as the remote work policy, end user engagement process, and accessibility compliance
-  Advised upper management on issues of company organization, employee motivation, inter-departmental relations, workplace efficiency and corporate values
-  Acquired Microsoft Gold Certification in Data Solutions to better support company goals

Camis Inc

Software Engineering and UX Manager

- Organized routine design meetings and stand ups to discuss design issues such as upcoming/current UX research, metrics and KPIs, company design standards, user feedback, accessibility compliance, design initiatives, current progress on projects etc...
-  Delivered several presentations exploring analytics, metrics and KPI’s of internal interest which, due to interest, grew from small seminars to company-wide presentations
-  Co-ordinated online accessibility compliance, including researching appropriate audit tools, participating in the audit, documenting audit findings, recommending solutions and both co-ordinating, participating in solution implementation and on-going verification audits
-  Orchestrated several user research initiatives (i.e. surveys, field research, user studies in house etc) including planning of events, arranging for participants as needed, leading research, organizing and analyzing results, presenting findings, recommending an action plan and participating in solution implementation
-  Supported career growth of team members and peers through both organizing internal opportunities (i.e. offering seminars on usability topics such as analytics, accessibility, company design standards, user research etc…) and facilitating external opportunities (i.e. workshops, training courses, books/resources, conferences)
-  Advocated for greater inclusivity of designers and UX professionals in agile practises leading to greater visibility of and attention paid to user-centered problems

UX Team Lead

- Developed and implemented designs using WPF and Telerik
-  Developed solutions using C# and SQL
-  Worked regularly with tools such as Visual Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, Bit Bucket and Git Kraken
-  Participated in routine agile (Kan Ban) events such as daily stand up, readiness replenishment, backlog grooming, and retrospectives
-  Worked with product owners, designers, quality assurance professionals and other developers to evaluate coded solutions (both mine and others') at solution reviews
-  Reviewed from other developers code to ensure company standards and coding practices were adhered to as well as to suggest alternative coding approaches to problems
-  Contributed to several feature squad goals including developing features, fixing bugs, assessing potential solutions before implementation and planning feature commitment timelines
-  Evaluated usability of features being implemented using strategies such as heuristic evaluation and A/B testing
-  Implemented an analytics system for recording clicks and pages viewed both for our website and stand alone platform

Full Stack Developer

Graduate Teaching Assistant

- Systems and CMS development in Java, JQuery, and Javascript.
-  Version control experience with HG workbench and Tortoise
-  Developed an exporter to export database rows to an excel table using optional, dynamically generated row-based filters.
-  Developed a templated email system for sending automated emails when a webform is submitted by a user.
-  Developed accordion list for use in modular website deployment, including alternate displays, drag and drop panel sorting and other wysiswyg functionality.
-  Created an invitation widget allowing invitees to be invited and uninvited both by individual and by group without adding duplicate invitees. The email was generated based on a database-populated, customizable invitation template.
-  Updated course manager based on client-specific requirements for viewing, editing and deleting courses and their attributes at various permission levels.

Sandbox Software Solutions

Part Time Software Developer

- E-commerce development using PHP, JavaScript, JQuery, and HTML. Tasks included integration with databases, cart manipulation, checkout processing, displaying products, member authentication, asset management, and content management
-  Independently implemented custom internal solutions as well as integrated external SDKs for using APIs such as Canada Post, Stripe and Commerce Tools to extend functionality of an existing e-commerce platform.
-  Enthusiastically researched and  implemented PHP and JavaScript libraries such as pagination and pdf manipulation libraries to more rapidly solve programming problems.
-  Accurately and efficiently converted visual designs to websites using HTML, CSS, bootstrap, PHP and JQuery. Effectively optimized these pages for mobile and desktop simultaneously by using current responsive design techniques.
-  Actively oversaw the planning and development of small to mid-sized projects with turnaround times ranging from one to six weeks, including meeting with stakeholders, determining requirements, evaluating potential solutions, identifying milestone deliverables and dates, delegation of tasks, coding and quality assurance.
-  Implemented e-commerce platform in Wordpress, including custom administration backend with full CRUD functionality for products, members, and orders, as well as a warehouse with Canada Post integration for shipping orders.
-  Took active responsibility for version control by introducing git into the office workflow, teaching new developers how to use git effectively and enacting both technical and administrative solutions for ensuring commit integrity.
-  Carefully and thoroughly prepared testing plans including assessment of edge cases, listing of test cases, test flow and bug reports.
-  Enthusiastically corrected bugs uncovered in testing and reported by users. Employed a variety of debugging methods to track down and correct programming errors.
-  Monitored and maintained external reporting and e-commerce analytics.

47 Oak

Web Developer (Ecommerce)

- Actively worked as the School of Computer Science academic integrity officer, giving presentations on the subject of academic integrity, using moss to review assignments, investigating suspicious cases and writing up academic misconduct reports
-  Well-versed in academic standards and what does and does not constitute academic misconduct. Proficient in the academic integrity expectations of the School of Computer Science and how to identify misconduct in code.
-  Practised at identifying misconduct in a variety of code languages, with an attentive eye for detail when reading code submissions, recording evidence of misconduct and organizing it so it can be effectively communicated.
-  Proficient with command line navigation. Used the command line regularly to navigate and prepare moss directories, run moss comparisons on student submissions, and post moss output to a secure online website
-  Filled out academic integrity reports requiring strong persuasive writing skills to accurately convey evidence of misconduct and support allegations. Strong communication skills were a particular asset since once a case was escalated most readers were not from the department and likely to be unfamiliar with coding practices and terminology.

Academic Integrity Officer

- Worked 9 graduate teaching assistant positions in four different courses: CIS 4300, Human Computer Interaction, CIS 2050, Computers and Society, CIS 1910, Discrete Mathematics, and CIS 1500, Introduction to Programming.
-  Enthusiastically took on responsibilities of a CIS 2050DE TA, including participating in and answering questions on forums and assessing blogs related to current issues in society related to technology.
-  Effectively engaged in full responsibilities of a TA for CIS 1500, including grading assignments, preparing and delivering help sessions, supervising and assisting students in labs, invigilating a written exam and conducting oral interview-style grading sessions. Scheduled extra help sessions, one-on-one tutoring and additional interview grading times outside of regularly required TA hours in order to accommodate students.
-  Enthusiastically took on responsibilities of a CIS 4300 TA twice, including preparing interactive lab activities related to heuristics, usability testing, interface evaluation and design principles, as well as including responsibilities such as grading usability assignments and presentations, and supervising quizzes.
-  Actively participated in the responsibilities of a CIS 1910 TA, including preparing technical lab material every week requiring high attention to detail, holding regular office hours, and responding to student queries over email.
-  Strong experience communicating technical content to students, received high commendation from many students in offerings of CIS 1500 and CIS 1910 for excellent analogies and explanations of core course concepts.

- CIS 2050, Computers and Society, is an undergraduate course offered through distance education at the University of Guelph during the Winter and Spring semesters. It focused heavily on reading and writing as well as critical thinking.
-  Students were encouraged to explore current issues and discuss them as well as write about them in their assignments.
-  Aided in the development of students' softer skills such as written communication, critical thinking, and societal awareness by providing thoughtful comments on assignments, corresponding with students over email and forums and providing feedback on draft submissions.
-  Actively participated in the development of rubrics and grading materials both for student assessment and the training of new teaching assistants who may have been less accustomed to marking assignments focused on written communication and critical thinking instead of prgramming.
-  Enthusiastically graded blog 30 blog entries per week submitted by students on topics related to current issues society is facing due to advancements in technology, as well as reviewed blog drafts at student request, providing detailed comments.
-  Provided a sample blog for students to review and help them in the process of writing their own.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant: CIS 2050

- The Movement Dance Company is a premier dance studio located in Guelph, Ont specializing in elite dance training for the first time dancer to the aspiring professional.
-  Actively prepared and delivered dance curricula that challenge students to improve in their chosen fields of dance and give them a strong foundation for subsequent dance classes.
-  Thoughtfully selected and editted age and discipline appropriate music for dances that allowed for creative choreography and strong performances from the dancers.
-  Produced original choreography every season appropriate for the discipline, skill level and student makeup of each class.
-  Experience and background teaching tap, jazz, and ballet, musical theatre, and lyrical as well.

The Movement & Co. Dance and Performing Arts

Dance Instructor

My primary responsibility as an undergraduate research assistant was to read, organize and concisely synthesize, academic journal articles related to one of Dr. Nonnecke's area of interest, mobile phone use. Initially, I submitted my findings on a blog, then through a series of informal presentations and meetings, we arrived at the topic that I would research for my undergraduate thesis.

Undergraduate Research Assistant

- Cooperatively worked with both development and design teams to gather requirements, solve problems, and implement solutions while working as a junior developer.
-  Worked closely with User Experience Team Captain to identify usability issues in current sites' user interfaces and generate solutions with the goal of increasing intuitiveness of use.
-  Actively participated in debugging server-side code, increasing both efficiency and correctness.
-  Participated in the opening of a new revenue source by adding new word-based ad functionality to current sites, displaying relevant ads when the user hovers the mouse cursor over the word.

Tsavo Media Inc.

Developer

- Recognized at quarterly meeting for developing multi-domain support for internal content management system, allowing for a threefold increase in the number of sites able to be produced by designers in the same amount of time.
-  Independently developed a media deploy tool for internal use by the design team which removed errors in moving sites from staging to production. The project included gathering requirements from the design team, planning and coding the program, distributing it among the design team and documenting its usage.
-  Received high praise for being a vital member of the team responsible for creating and delivering a new  e-commerce platform and as a result was nominated for co-op student of the year for influence and productivity in the workplace, academic merit and excellent teamwork.
-  While working as a junior developer for a web design and development company, effectively took on responsibilities of the Team Leader and Senior Developer during absences to ensure that quality and quantity of work was maintained and deadlines were reached during their time away from the office.

- Proposed, and developed the Just Dance website, resulting in an increased rate of new student enrollment.
-  Actively prepared and delivered dance curricula that challenge students to improve in their chosen fields of dance and give them a strong foundation for subsequent dance classes.
-  Thoughtfully selected and edited age and discipline appropriate music for dances that allowed for creative choreography and strong performances from the dancers.
-  Producesd original choreography every season appropriate for the discipline, skill level and student makeup of each class.
-  Background and experience teaching tap, jazz, ballet, musical theatre, and lyrical.

Gwendolyn Witecki