Thomas J. Laramee
4229 1st Ave NW, Seattle, WA 98107
206.455.1401 (cell)

Summary
I build development organizations that empower developers to be highly efficient and productive, while building out technology infrastructure for rapid iteration and scale. This is easiest if I begin at the ground level, but I'm also able to take an organization that's performing suboptimally (and it's related technology infrastructure) and turn it into a highly performing and successful group.
Objective
Currently not seeking any opportunities. I have a project that is keeping me quite busy (and is described in more detail below).
Seeking technology leadership position in an early-stage startup to create/guide/inform/develop both the technology infrastructure itself and the culture around software development, configuration management, and release.
Education
Master of Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering (MSECE)
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
Dec, 1996
Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering (BSME)
Minor: Applied Mathematics
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
May, 1994
Skills
Languages:
C, C++/STL, Swift, Java, Javascript, PHP, SQL (some C# and UNIX shell scripting)
WWW:
Magento Enterprise, jQuery, NGINX, PHP-fastcgi, .NET Web Services, HTML/CSS
Compilers:
Visual Studio .NET, Visual Studio, JDK, gcc (linux)
Systems:
Win32, iOS, Linux (RHEL, CentOS, Debian)
Misc:
APC, mongodb, redis, memcached, Nagios, iptables, MySQL, MSSQL Server, Google Maps API, Adobe Photoshop Plugins, svn/git admin, Chrome plug-ins, iOS App development
Experience
Foodious LLC
Seattle, WA
Creator / Software Developer
06/2014-present
I've built a data engine for ingredients, recipes, and nutrition that treats recipes and ingredients as data objects that can be queried, classified, modified, and shared.
(Think: "big data meets recipes, ingredients, and nutrition")
The system allows users to enter arbitrary recipes and ingredients, some of which are queued for review and normalization, and to see how the different ingredients, measures, and quantities affect the nutrition and allergens of the meal.
The front-end has all of the requisite meal-planning features like a calendar, a shopping list, recipes, ingredient pages, and a user profile. There are charts that show the nutritional contributions of each ingredient in a recipe, plus the recipes allergens. The back-end has a set of tools to manage the data (review, normalize, map, classify, etc). The site has been optimized for mobile and is built using progressive open-source tools and technologies.
Advisor to locate.ai.
Zulily Inc.
Seattle, WA
Principal Engineer
11/2009-06/2014
Principal engineer at a new startup. Launched the initial version of the site in the original unmanaged hosting environment. Provided technology services, site architecture & development, operations, and back-office development for zulily.com through the site's initial period of rapid growth. This included software development for the website, internal tools, backoffice, automation, and fulfillment along with operational support for the NOC and zulilys RDBMS. Oversaw the migration to a managed hosting environment, along with migration from four servers to thirty, plus initial integration with a fulfillment provider. Wrote many key site features and all backoffice automation for our fulfillment provider, along with providing senior technical leadership to the engineering team. Wrote most of the tools we use to release code, audit servers, and integrated these tools with our revision control system.
Dec. 2009: Zulily Raises $4.6M
Jan. 2010: Site launch
Aug. 2010: Zulily Raises $6M
Aug. 2011: Zulily Raises $43M
Sep. 2011: #28: The World's Most Valuable Startups
Nov. 2011: zulily.com ranked #478 most visited web site in the US (via alexa).
Mar. 2012: zulily.com ranked #365 most visited web site in the US (via alexa).
Dec. 2012: zulily.com ranked #278 most visited web site in the US (via alexa).
Nov 2012: Zulily Raises $85M
Jan 2013: Zulily: Fresh, Fast, and Worth $1 Billion
Nov 2013: Zulily IPO
Newsvine (acquired by MSNBC.com, Oct 2007)
Seattle, WA
Senior Software Developer
03/2006-11/2009
Did a security audit on head-ends and implemented a number of new security policies. Stabilized Apache/PHP problems. Analyized some SQL deadlocking problems, load balancing stability, and site performance problems. Wrote a couple of front-facing features, including the Newsvine Leaderboard and a daily site history page. Developed an internal reporting system that aggregates site usage data in real time and rolls up hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly reports. Developed a set of internal tools for managing code across multiple head-ends.
Coco Corp.
Seattle, WA
Software Developer - Protocol Team
06/2004-02/2006
Worked on Coco core technology (wireless mesh networking) to implement new features, profile/analyze existing code, and write unit tests. Wrote a functional test framework for the protocol that allows rich network topographies to be created and then measured for avg packet latency and packet loss percentage (etc).
(Independent Consultant)
04/2002-02/2006
Blindsight Corporation - Software Developer
Cambridge, MA
Developed a commercial software application in C++ that uses digital image processing techniques to discover digits in a typical LED display and then reads them out over an audio speaker.
Original Artists - Software Developer
New York, NY
Developed an Adobe Photoshop plugin to perform custom image-processing on digital images for a commercial product. The filter generates Postscript output as well as operating on the source image in situ.
Coastal Environmental Systems - Systems Analyst
Seattle, WA
Hired to review and advise Coastal as they develop a proposal for a distributed architecture to allow multiple remote sensor sites to communicate with one another in a WAN. Also hired to perform an analysis of a software system that uses a set of sensors to send weather data serially to a central server.
Encoding.com
Seattle,WA
System Architect / Senior Software Developer - Digital Media Services
09/1999-04/2002
Managed a team of seven developers and testers to provide architectural, systems integration, database/schema design, implementation, and performance analysis for all of Encoding.com's DMS systems. Responsible for designing and implementing many of the components of the DMS (Digital Media Services) software systems. Restructured the way that source code, builds, releases, and component documentation is managed into a flexible, integrated system that allowed for integrated publishing to the Intranet.
Starwave/Infoseek Corp.
Seattle,WA
Software Developer - Publishing Systems, Commerce
10/1997-09/1999
Developed a cross-platform (NT/SOLARIS) Web Authentication module in C++ that can be plugged into IIS/Netscape Enterprise Server using NSAPI/ISAPI to gate user access to website content. Stabilized, re-architected, and then optimized the various components of the Polling System used on all sites produced by Starwave. The polling system is a set of ISAPI DLLs, Active Server Pages, and Java applications running with an MS SQL server to collect votes and generate poll results GIFs in near real time. Worked on preliminary standards for user identification, access gating, and session management for Infoseeks new portal site (GO.com).
Cambridge Interactive
Cambridge, MA
Development Lead / Software Developer
01/1997-10/1997
Part of a development team (technical lead) focused on delivering complex Web applications to Web-enable the enterprise. Worked mostly with Java and C++ to develop on Windows NT for Microsoft SQL Server. Developed and deployed GigaWeb.com, including the SmartSearch interface, plus extensive enhancements to GigaWebs dynamic content generation environment.
Microsoft Corp.
Redmond, WA
Internet Systems Business Unit (intern)
Summer, 1996
Developed "Active Personalization" prototype product using IPS components, server side scripting, and custom OLE controls. Coded (C++) a dual-interface OLE automation web logging object for use in server side scripts to facilitate property analysis.
Interests
Technical writing (I have done technical writing previously), teaching (at UMass during both as an undergrad and in graduate school), motorcycle rider/enthusiast, guitar playing, automotive mechanic, soccer player, recreational software development (Winslam, LocalWebLog, IREdit, etc).
Publications
(Javaworld, Nov. 2002)
(Java Developer's Journal, Nov. 2002)
(Wedelmusic Conference, Sept. 2003
(JavaSPEKTRUM, Mar. 2004)
Honors and
Activities
Recipient of a College of Engineering 2013 Outstanding Junior Alumni Award from UMass Amherst.
Unaffiliated technology mentor for local internet startups.
Started the Al Russell Memorial Scholarship Fund at UMass, Amherst.
Member of Adobe Developers Network.
Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society / Golden Key National Honors Society.
Volunteer at Swedish Hospital, Ballard in the NICU.