Resume

Aaron Sherman

Senior Systems Engineer and Tool Developer

89 Prospect St

Somerville, MA 02143

Email: ajs_ajs_com

WWW: http://web.ajs.com/

Status

Recruiter contact not solicited.

Areas of Expertise

Roles

  • High level language programming and toolsmithing
  • Revision control / release management
  • Production Internet infrastructure management
  • Manager of small teams of systems administrators/DBAs
  • Security/capacity/contingency planning
  • Web/database application performance analysis

Key Technologies

Languages:

Perl (v3-5, library/module design, Perl 6 development), Python (including sqlalchemy, django), Java, HTML and HTTP including RESTful APIs, XML, C, C++, SQL, Shell scripting

Systems Admin / Security:

Linux (RedHat/SuSE/Slackware), Android, MacOS and various flavors of UNIX

Applications Administration:

Subversion, git, Perforce, Bugzilla, Puppet, Apache and Nginx Web servers, Security/firewall tools including Linux iptables. Databases including Oracle, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite.

Extensive use and modification of: MediaWiki

Publications

  • Contributor: "Web, Graphics & Perl/Tk: Best of the Perl Journal", ISBN 0-596-00311-0
  • Author: Perl Journal article, "Image Manipulation with Perl and The GIMP"
  • Contributor: "Perl Resource Kit: UNIX Edition", ISBN 1-56592-370-7
  • Contributor: "Perl Resource Kit: Win32 Edition", ISBN 1-56592-409-6
  • Contributor: "Programming Perl: 2nd Edition" ("The Camel Book"), ISBN 1-56592-149-6
  • Author: Daemon News articles:
    • The Very Long Night of FreeBSD (archived: The Very Long Night of FreeBSD) and
    • The Penguin's Council (archived: The Penguin's Council)
  • Author and/or Contributor:
    • Modules included in the core Perl distribution
    • Plug-ins (e.g. glowing steel, among others) included in the core Gimp distribution.
    • Early work on Perl 6 Synopsis 29: Builtin Functions specification

Work History

Tech Undebt Consulting

Founder/Consultant

Ongoing

Personal consulting business, focused on technical debt elimination, especially with respect to legacy Perl and Python systems.

Cogo Labs

Senior Software Engineer

Mar 2012 - Aug 2018

Software toolsmith, focused on writing reporting-oriented tools for a user-base of Web analytics-focused internal users. Some git management duties coupled with Python-based UI and back-end design. Most work done using Linux and MacOS.

Transitioned to subsidiary startup, EverQuote.com, maintaining and expanding the reporting system that I had designed for them.

AJS.COM Consulting

Software Engineering Consultant

Oct 2011 - Mar 2012

A combination programmer, release engineer and source code control manager for a small team focused on rapid development of Web-based, open source CRM application customization. My duties focused on producing tools for managing unit tests as well as deployment and training of git, Review Board, MediaWiki and a number of other helpful development tools. I was also tasked with writing the process and documentation for new developers on the team and routine administration of the above.

Freelance Android App Developer

May 2011 - Sept 2011

Authoring and designing revenue models for self-developed Android handheld-device applications.

  • A browser app for WikiMedia Commons Features Images and other media.

VMware, Inc.

Member of Technical Staff

May 2008 - April 2011

Member of the SCM team with responsibilities including

  • infrastructure and tool development
  • in-house application maintenance
  • Perforce administration
  • build infrastructure modularization
  • C/C++ code component build analysis

Member of the build team with responsibilities including

  • infrastructure tool development
  • ongoing support
  • reporting
  • support of geographically diverse developer build environments

ITA Software, Inc.

Senior Systems Engineer / Toolsmith

April 2001 - May 2008

One of a team of systems engineers. ITA was a small startup when I arrived and has grown into a thriving medium-sized company. My day-to-day duities include:

  • Toolsmithing in Perl, C++ and shell scripts (including monitoring, control programs, QA support software, etc)
  • Linux systems and network administration
  • Rotating on-call duties
  • Systems security
  • Internal application support including Big Brother and Bugzilla extensions
  • Customer and vendor support

HighWired.com

Systems Architect

July 1999 - Feb 2001

A key role managing the production infrastructure team for a high-volume web site which included:

  • Capacity planning
  • Security and recovery planning.
  • Database and content management performance analysis.
  • Planning and deployment of systems infrastructure elements such as:
    • load-balancing hardware, static-content Web servers,
    • dynamic-content Web servers, firewalls, mass storage systems, etc.

Previous programming-oriented role in the company included:

  • Wrote monitoring utilities.
  • Implemented HTML-based spell-checking, 3D logo rendering, personalized mailing automation and partner content generation.
  • Helped to estabish a development process.
  • Mentored junior members of the development team.
  • Extended/maintained Web applications.

Safety Net Solutions, Inc.

Senior Architect / Analyst

April 1997 - May 1999

Contract programming assignments.

Bank Boston (Now Bank of America)

UNIX Security Administrator

November 1996 - March 1997

Security administration as well as maintenance of the 3rd party security software. Wrote reporting scripts in perl for auditors; Provided technical input on the establishment of UNIX security standards; specified and evaluated network security products; managed change control process.

Independent Work

I also do a fair amount of programming on my own time. I am the author of a number of tools including plug-ins for The GIMP, modules in the core Perl distribution and a reporting system for the economy in the video game, Path of Exile (https://github.com/ajs/poefixer)

References

Provided upon request.

Copyright

This resume is copyright 2018 by Aaron Sherman.