ZebraBlinds.com & ZebraBlinds.ca : 2017 - 2023

Location: US & Canada

Full Stack Developer & Cloud DevOps Engineer
May 2018 - Apr 2023

  • Oversaw transition and migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2, including developing an inhouse migration and upgrade process with minimal RTO and RPO during migration, and implementation of Amazon Aurora for our database resulting in a 99.999% uptime and auto scaling
  • Automated build and deployments using Jenkins, reducing 80% of manual work related to compiling & deploying Magento 2
  • Refactored code for the frontend and backend to eliminate delays and freezes on large products and customization selections which provided a more fluent user experience
  • Reduced site load time to approx 2.2 seconds over a 5 mbps connection through a mix of software and infrastructure optimizations resulting in a 22% increase in conversions
  • Experimented with changes to UI using tools such as HotJar to gather data on consumer usage and sentiment
  • Worked on containerizing Magento 2 using Docker for easier development and deployment; further bolstering availability and uptime
  • Implemented an in house WAF using varnish to protect against common attack vectors and block zero day attacks while patches are being created and applied
  • Led initiative to tackle Magento 2 scaling issues, leading to a unique backend initiative featuring backwards compatibility with the existing database using Go/Golang and a frontend in React with significant performance improvements expected
  • Lead and managed the application development and infrastructure teams using Scrum and Agile project management methodologies

Part Time Customer Service, Operations Manager & Smart Home Lead
May 2018 - Apr 2023

  • Connected with ZebraBlinds customers through email, phone, live chat and web forums to provide a positive and engaging customer service and troubleshooting experience
  • Helped customers integrate our products through various home automations systems including a mix of writing code specific for that situation or collaborating with the makers of the home automation hub or specific component to create integration and/or patches for issues
  • Troubleshooted customer problems and aggregated a monthly list of common issues which would be evaluated and addressed via additional help documentation or escalated for further consideration in instances of potential issues with products
  • Implemented a ticketing system for increased efficiency and accountability within all customer facing teams
  • Created cohesion between suppliers and internal customer service and shipping teams resulting in a 60% decrease in time to resolution for customer tickets
  • Spearheaded a successful push into the smart home space in 2017 with fully automated products with wide compatibility using the z-wave wireless home automation protocol and direct customer outreach via home automation forums; this directly lead to just over 200% increase in revenue in the same fiscal year

Cloud Migration Consultant
Jan 2017 - May 2018

  • Worked on migrating infrastructure from a dedicated host (SimpleHelix) to AWS for high availability, reliability and durability reducing infrastructure costs by over 65%
  • Designed a highly available and durable infrastructure using Auto-scaling EC2 fleets for the web app, Multi-AZ RDS with read replicas for the database, Redis for session storage and Varnish for faster TTFB for Magento 1 on the infrastructure level
  • Created and Implemented data migration, data backup and data retention policies