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.