brian raines

Distinguished Software Engineer

profile

my personal info

Demonstrated achiever with exceptional knowledge of design, development, and deployment of web-based applications. Skilled at learning new concepts quickly, working well under pressure, and communicating ideas clearly and effectively.

personal info
my story

I am a software engineer and architect living in the Plano TX area. I began my career in graphics-arts, then became a frontend-engineer during the DHTML days. PHP then became me development language of choice for 18 years as a full-stack developer. These days I write in Java as a backend-developer working on AWS services.

At heart, I really love to build things, whether it's patio furniture and pergolas or transaction systems that talk to machines, I really enjoy projects that go outside the boundaries of "typical".

Brian Raines
my hobbies
work hard, play harder
  • family

    Saying hi to the penguins

  • making

    Making pens on a lathe

  • carpentry

    A pergola that I built

  • 3D printing

    3D printing with my kids

  • travel

    Can't get enough of the beach

  • mancation

    Camping in Colorado

resume

know who i am

Results-driven Software Engineer with a unique understanding of the full development lifecycle as well as the experience and judgment to plan, lead and accomplish all objectives under tight deadlines.

education
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration
  • the university of texas at dallas
  • Richardson, Texas

The Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) at Naveen Jindal School of Management is a 120 semester credit hour degree program that prepares you for an exciting career in business. The degree program provides you with highly specific skills across functional areas of business and a wide range of student-centered engagement activities that encourage students to apply knowledge and practice skills.

experience
Distinguished Software Engineer
  • TurnItIn
  • Dallas, Texas

TurnItIn is a diverse, passionate group of people who have served the global education community since 1998. Our technology promotes honesty, consistency, and fairness across all areas of education and academic research.

Principal Software Engineer
  • TurnItIn
  • Dallas, Texas

TurnItIn is a diverse, passionate group of people who have served the global education community since 1998. Our technology promotes honesty, consistency, and fairness across all areas of education and academic research.

Software Engineer IV
  • ExamSoft
  • Dallas, Texas

ExamSoft provides scalable and flexible intelligent assessment solutions that give educators actionable outcomes data and insights to help every student. Its software puts the data back in the hands of faculty and enables institutions to more efficiently and practically administer direct assessments and analyze resulting data to improve curricular design, test design, and accreditation compliance.

Lead Software Developer
  • Innovar Solutions
  • McKinney, Texas

As a lead software developer in an independent contractor capacity, I have been responsible for architecting and developing a new application to function as a suite and migrate in all existing outdated software that the company currently supports. The first application to get reversed engineered was the company’s primary product “Ad Copy Wizard”. This development task consists of two efforts, a Symfony driven restful API backend, and a Bootstrap with VueJS driven Single-Page-Application (SPA) frontend. The primary role of the application is to pull data from various 3rd party systems, allow the user to make modifications and then send the modified data to other 3rd party systems.

My responsibilities also include mentoring a team of junior developers by helping them design stable solutions, clear technical road-blocks and overcome learning-curve when onboarding them to the use of modern frameworks and technology.

Application Architect
  • Speed Commerce
  • Dallas, Texas

Fulfillment
Solely responsible for architecting, developing, deploying and maintaining PHP applications to facilitate all order fulfillment and warehouse control systems powering multiple distribution centers across the United States of America ranging in size from 500 thousand to 1 million square feet.

The PHP-driven suite of applications are responsible for supporting many hundreds of users concurrently and deliver a wide array of transactions and interfaces including Websites, RESTful API's, Command Line Interfaces (CLI) and Socket Servers. These applications also communicate with hardware PLC's such as automated baggers, conveyor systems, inline scales, sortation machinery and wearable computers.

Of the user-interface driven applications the XLIFF interchange format is used to allow localized data to support many different languages such as English, Spanish, Polish, French and Somali.

eCommerce
Work with a small group of developers to design and develop a PHP-driven Order Management System (OMS) that is comprised of many applications including administrative websites, custom middle-ware applications, various API’s and back-end command line driven applications that use scheduled commands and message queueing across Redis to stay connected and in-sync. This suite of applications is also compliant for integrations with U.S. government agencies such the Navy, Army and Air Force eCommerce exchanges.

Senior PHP Developer
  • Stone Eagle
  • Richardson, Texas

Responsibilities included designing, developing, implementing, and supporting internal and external web applications. Played lead role in developing new product offerings to include reporting, client management and system monitoring applications. Also facilitated a sales engineer role within the sales cycle.

senior PHP developer
  • Credit Solutions
  • Richardson, Texas

Managed and oversaw all PHP development for a team of developers. Participated in extreme programming to design and develop the company’s client portal and dynamic contact management system which utilized the Cisco Phone Services API for direct integration from the internal website to the sales agents phone.

Worked closely with upper management and business analysts to translate business needs into IT solutions by developing internal and external web applications.

senior PHP developer
  • New Media Gateway
  • Dallas, Texas

Led a team of PHP Developers to build custom sales and marketing applications written in PHP utilizing AJAX, XML, Flash, and PDF Lib Blocks. Designed, developed and oversaw the coordination of products throughout their lifecycle. Co-designed the system and information architecture of the company’s core product, the Digital Marketing Center. Developed and maintained a fully customizable survey system that integrated with a contact management system and was used by clients such as Sprint, Harrah’s, and ING. Oversaw quality assurance, application maintenance, and customer support using Mantis Bug Tracker and WebRT (ticket support application). Worked closely with sales engineers to translate customer/client needs into IT solutions by developing internal and external web applications.

Partner / PHP Developer
  • Crosswerk, Inc.
  • New York, New York

Organized Crosswerk, Inc. sub-contractors throughout the phases of projects. Worked with Sales Team to contact and interact with clients including the creation of visual presentations and written proposals. Handled administrative duties such as invoicing, time-tracking, sub-contractor organization, client relations, and web development. Executed the development of websites built by Crosswerk, Inc, including such clients as Rockport, Rockport Kids, PointRoll, GoSmile and US Ergo.

Director of Front-End Engineering
  • Oven Digital
  • New York, New York

Managed and worked with a team of front-end developers. Assisted Sales Executives with new projects and interactions with potential clients. Coded HTML, JavaScript driven DHTML, and CSS to integrate front-end pages with dynamic back-end code written in ASP and JSP. Executed the complete front-end development of websites built by Oven Digital, including such clients as Tiffany, DotLove, WinFirst, Monroe College, eCountries and Consumer Reports.

Intranet Site Coordinator / Graphics Specialist
  • Garden.com
  • Austin, Texas

Worked with the managers of each department to coordinate the creation of the Garden.com Intranet. Helped to develop a maintenance system for the Garden.com Intranet that would allow future updates to be as streamlined and automatic as possible. Maintained the Garden.com product image server of over 20,000 product images. Responsible for scanning, color correcting, and uploading all product photos. Helped implement a photo library of all Garden.com images.

skills

what i know

Over the coarse of my career I have found that there is a fine balance in software development between the needs of a business and the capabilities of technology. Often this translates to finding the right tool for the job.

This has driven me down many avenues to prototype new solutions in development, testing and deployment, which has allowed me to pick up many skills along the way.

  • Java
  • PHP
  • Python
  • JavaScript
  • Ruby
  • SQL
  • Twig
  • HTML
  • CSS / LESS
  • XML / XSLT / XSD / XLIFF
  • JSON
  • YAML
  • AWS Lambda
  • Simple Notification Service
  • Simple Queue Service
  • Simple Email Service
  • EventBridge
  • Amazon Kinesis
  • S3
  • DynamoDB
  • MongoDB
  • RDS (PostgreSQL / MySQL)
  • Redshift
  • ElastiCache
  • Amazon Cloudwatch
  • Cognito
  • CloudFormation
  • API Gateway (HTTP / WebSocket
  • SAM Templates
  • QuickSight
  • Symfony
  • Laraval
  • CakePHP
  • RubyOnRails
  • JQuery
  • Bootstrap
  • Vue.js
  • Node.js
  • PHPUnit & Lime (Testing Framework)
  • SVN & GIT (Version Control)
  • Hudson/Jenkins/Bitbucket Pipelines (Automated Deployment)
  • Atlassian Bamboo (Continuous Integration)
  • Atlassian Service Desk & Jira (Project / Ticket Management)
  • VirtualBox/Vagrant/Docker (VM Development Environment)
  • Phinx/Doctrine/Flyway (Database Migration)
  • Graphite/Grafana/QuickSight (System Monitoring)
  • Graylog/Logstash/Splunk/CloudWatch (Centralized Logging)
  • PDFlib Block (PDF Developer Toolbox)
  • Active Directory/LDAP/Saml/Cognito (User Authentication)
  • eCommerce
  • Intranet
  • Small Business
  • Brochure / Micro
  • System Administration
  • Reporting
  • Kiosk
  • Portal
  • RESTful API
  • Command Line Interface
  • Socket Server & Client
  • Terminal / Wearable
  • Dematic Conveyor PLC (Socket Server)
  • EuroSort Bomb-bay Sorter (XML Files)
  • Accutech Automated Bagger (Socket Server & FTP Flat Files)
  • Manhattan Associates PkMS (PHP RESTful Web Services)
  • Zebra Thermal Printers (Java Applet)
  • Toshiba Fiscal Printers (.Net Web Services)
  • Motorola Wearable Computer (Motorola RhoElements)
  • Shipping API's (XML / SOAP Web Services)
  • UPS, FedEx, Stamps.com, MetaPack
  • Google Search Appliance (XML Feed)
  • Google Products (XML Feed)
  • Amazon S3/SES/SNS (AWS)
  • Zend Framework
  • Apigility
  • ExtJs Library
  • MSSQL
  • SQLite
  • AS400 (iSeries)
  • .Net
  • JSP
  • Flash
work process
how i like to work a project
1
concept
2
whiteboard
3
code
4
test
5
launch
6
maintain

work

full stack projects

Throughout my career, my drive for solutions to complicated problems has led to some really interesting clients and captivating projects as a developer. Below are some examples of full stack projects that I have under taken in the past.

Jake Lowe Photography
web design
Raines Realty
web design
EUROSORT BOMB-BAY SORTER
fulfillment
Pick Ticket Administration
fulfillment
Raines Realty Luxury
web design
Accutech Automated Bagger
fulfillment
Pick Ticket API & Commands
fulfillment
Warehouse Operations Administration
fulfillment
Warehouse Operations Kiosk
fulfillment
Speed Pack
fulfillment
RF Scanner
fulfillment
Store Portal
fulfillment
Store Portal Administration
fulfillment
Spinks Neurosurgery
web design
Polish My Paper
web design

Brian is an exceptional Software Engineer. A team player that works well alongside every business unit in the organization. His ability to develop top quality products that exceed expectations is second to none. He encourages his peers to step outside the box, and develop innovative products that help move the business forward. Brian has my full recommendation and I'd be happy to discuss further if needed.

#
Max Gonzalez
Vice President Engineering - TurnItIn

Brian is a highly talented developer in a technical sense; however, it is Brian's other key skills which make him exceptional. Brian takes a wholistic system engineering approach to design in an intense effort to strike the optimal trade-off between performance, reliability, and functionality. Because of this approach, Brian's work product keenly satisfies both stated and implied design requirements. Additionally, Brian's project completion dates experience much less volatility than others, a welcome respite in an industry where on-time delivery is the exception, rather than the rule.

On complex development projects, Brian is globally focused. Brian drives to ensure disparate functional components come together successfully at project launch even though many of these functional pieces reside in code repos for which he is not personally responsible. This global “big picture” focus is just another example of Brian's leadership qualities as he strives to improve both the software delivery process as well as the end product.

Overall, Brian is a rock-solid technical performer that delivers an end-to-end working solution, on time, with remarkable consistency. Brian also exhibits all of the key signposts that identify him for leadership roles in any software development organization, making Brian a requisite team lead for any mission critical project.

#
Blake Huber
AWS Leader, Developer, and DevOps Professional at AWS

Brian was wonderful to manage. I could provide a short brief of a project and he'd take it to the finish line. When clarification was needed he came forward with clear and concise questions or concerns. Brian was also very willing to help others. I will try and work with Brian again.

#
Ben Lake
Software Engineer Team Lead at SoftLayer Technologies, Inc. an IBM Company

I have had the opportunity to work with Brian at three different companies. Each time Brian showed the leadership and technical knowledge to carry each product from conception to production. Brian not only has the technical knowledge but is acutely aware of the needs of the business and understands the importance of delivering a product that is easy to use and in a timely manner.

When working with Brian at StoneEagle I saw him take charge of existing projects that StoneEagle had previously been unable to complete. He not only completed them but was able to introduce the company to modern and more efficient ways of managing development and technical resources.

I would recommend Brian without hesitation and would gladly work with him on future projects.

#
Jason Bradley
Senior Web Developer at Innovar Solutions

In my 10 years of development experience, I haven't met a lead developer who I've enjoyed working with more. He anchored the development team at Credit Solutions with leadership skills and programming smarts rarely found in one developer simultaneously. In truth, when I see Brian in a new position, there's always a thought in the back of my head: "Are they hiring?" Also, he has great communication skills, and interfaces with management well.

In total, I don't think I could recommend Brian more highly.

#
Paul Bruno
Lead Software Engineer at Slync.io

Brian and I worked together for several months on a custom CRM system. I was extremely impressed with all aspects of his work. His PHP design and implementation were excellent and any issues we had between the UI and database layers were quickly resolved. His excellent communication skills helped make my introduction into the existing team very productive. I would love the chance to work with him on any project in any capacity.

#
Jason Catlett
Senior Data Architect at CallRail

contact

get in touch with me

If you would like to reach out to me, please send an email to:

brian@raines.io