Background

I am a software engineer with more than eight years of experience building systems from the ground up. I've established myself as a technical leader and senior individual contributor while growing engineering teams from three to twenty people.

Mission

I aspire to discover and build new technologies that augment the journalistic process in pursuit of a more informed and just society. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration, I believe we can enhance our understanding of the truth and communicate it more effectively. Working with engineers, designers, editors, and journalists, I apply my hands on experience developing technology, passion for solving problems, and background as a team builder to pioneer new tools for journalism.

Backend Java Spring ∙ Node ∙ Micronaut ∙ Grails

Frontend   React ∙ Backbone ∙ D3∙ Vue

Languages   Java ∙ JavaScript ∙ Groovy ∙ Python

Technology    Elasticsearch ∙ Kafka ∙ Lucene ∙ Splunk

Databases    MongoDB ∙ OrientDB ∙ SQL ∙ Prometheus

DevOps  Kubernetes ∙ Docker ∙ AWS ECS ∙ Jenkins

Security    SSO ∙ SAML ∙ LDAP ∙ SSL ∙ PGP

Compliance  HIPPA ∙ FDA 212 CFR Part 11 ∙ HITECH

Platforms    AWS ∙ iOS ∙ Microsoft Azure ∙ Linux ∙ Android

EXPERIENCE

The Washington Post — Senior Software Engineer | August 2020 - Preset

  • Senior technical contributor building the system that delivers The Washington Post’s newsletters and alerts. In 2020, we reached millions of readers with billions of individual sends. We work closely with the newsroom to ensure our readers receive breaking news alerts, daily Coronavirus briefings, and election results.

Genospace — Principal Software Engineer | July 2014 - August 2020

  • Managed technology roadmap for a cancer research data analytics platform. In 2020, the platform was used to accomplish two major milestones for the organization: modeling our first infectious disease population (HCA Healthcare’s COVID-19 registry) and modeling our first patient study with whole-genome sequencing.

  • Defined process for software design, development, documentation, and automated testing. This led to our first Food and Drug Administration (FDA) software validation certification, allowing us to submit real world evidence (RWE) for drug development.

  • Developed an extract, transform, load (ETL) pipeline of microservices (using micronaut and Kafka) to replace a monolithic web app. Reduced month-long data loads to a single day while reducing AWS infrastructure cost by 25%.

  • Lead architect directing and reviewing the work of a twenty person engineering department. Coached team members, set goals, and conducted performance reviews. In 2019, three of the engineers I mentored were promoted to tech leads on their respective teams.

Genospace — Senior Software Engineer

  • Researched and developed a near-real-time search and analytics platform (using Elasticsearch) to support more than 2 million unique patients with over 8 billion documents. In one year, this became primary research for all data analysts and biostatisticians at the organization.

  • Prototyped an iOS app (wrote 100% of code) that allowed physicians to quickly review clinical trial matches for their patients. Delivered app to production in two months, leading to its acquisition by HCA Healthcare.

  • Managed interview process and trained peers to grow the engineering department from seven to twenty people in three years. Currently, 66% of the team has been with the organization for more than two years.

Genospace — Product Engineer

  • Full-stack developer of a web app (Backbone/Grails/Spring/MonogDB) that generates reports recommending treatments for cancer patients. Built a suggestions algorithm in collaboration with molecular biologists to automate report generation leading to a two fold increase in report generation.

  • Tech lead for a cross-functional Scrum team, managing the delivery of multiple web apps. Created technical designs; broke down, planned and delegated tasks; and peer-reviewing others' work. While leading the team, our product was the primary source of revenue for the organization.

Reactor Labs — iOS Developer | April 2013 - May 2014

  • Lead iOS developer of the iPhone app Winston; a speech-enabled conversational assistant that summarized its users’ social feeds and news interests. App received a 4+ star rated app with 74,000 downloads, was featured on the main page of the App Store under ‘Bite-Sized News’ during the week of Feb. 7, 2014.

Institute For Telecommunication Sciences — Electronics Technician | June 2012 - March 2013

  • Built an open-source web app with a cross-disciplinary team of visual/sound engineers and psychologists. The app performed subjective Quality of Experience testing on the effects of degradation in video and sound quality on comprehension. Findings were used to set industry standards for streaming media on the web.

PATENTS & PUBLICATIONS

Genospace Trial Match Patent | February 2020

  • O’Connor, Niall, Mickey Alan Correll, Kathryn Hopkins, McGill, Luke Connors and Daniel Schlauch. Data Integration Using Graph Structures. U.S. Patent Application 16/298,748, filed Mar. 11, 2019, issued Feb. 18, 2020

Web-Enabled Subjective Test Research Tools | April 2014

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Boston Pride Guide — Associate Editor (Volunteer) | December 2019 - June 2020

  • Associate editor for the 2020 Boston Pride Guide, the official annual publication of Boston Pride. Responsible for recruiting contributors, selecting pieces for the publication, and editing articles.

Boston Pride Committee — Festival Chair (Volunteer) | October 2017 - June 2020

  • Led a team of more than 70 volunteers to produce the Festival, New England’s largest LGBTQ Festival. In 2019, the event was attended by over 150k community members and hosted over 120 exhibitors that provide health, growth, education, and diversity services to the LGBTQ+ community.

Freedom for All Massachusetts: Yes on 3 Campaign — Volunteer Lead | June - November 2018

  • Organized and trained volunteers in voter retention canvasing. In 2018, Massachusetts voters faced the first-ever statewide popular vote on protections for transgender people from discrimination. With our help, voters in Massachusetts upheld the existing nondiscrimination law.

EDUCATION

University of Colorado, College of Engineering — Boulder, CO | May 2014
B.S. Computer Science, Emphasis in Software Engineering

  • Dean’s List College of Engineering: Spring 2014, Fall 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2012, Spring 2012, Fall 2010 - Spring 2014