Zscaler

DevOps Architect

Bluebeam, Inc.

Software Architect

Recharge Payments

-   Participated in the Architecture Board, which governed best practices, cross-cutting concerns, and technical proposals
-   Introduced a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to address quality issues and reduce production incidents by 90%+
-   Led the organization of the first Architecture Summit to discuss high-level concerns and processes
-   Increased batch job processing throughput by 4x through hands-on troubleshooting and developer coaching
-   Designed API throughput performance improvements for a 10-15x reduction in deployment resources and related costs
-   Mentored engineers by sponsoring technical designs, offering career guidance, and enhancing technical skills
-   Promoted methodologies for performance testing and data-driven decision making
-   Developed strategies and systems for decomposing a monolith into microservices
-   Collaborated with the event bus team on designs for eventing and serverless functions
-   Improved testing frameworks and guided developers on Test Driven Development (TDD)
-   Worked with the Security Team to address security concerns and implement secure coding practices
-   Utilized Python, Google Cloud Platform/Functions, API First designs, Microservices, Dapr, Redis, Docker/container images, Kubernetes, MySQL, and ElasticSearch

Principal Engineer/Software Architect

Pulse Secure

- Served on the Architecture Board, responsible for determining overall software architecture and development practices
- Architected and led a team for the development of a Zero Trust microservice platform
- Coordinated security hardening, evaluation, and best practices for most Python-based software
- Designed and led the development of the Python framework at the core of most of the company's Python software
- Designed various features, including authentication token management, multi-tenancy, WebSockets, event messaging, RBAC, user management, certificate management/PKI, OpenAPI adoption, Docker image builds, Postgres migrations, async function queues, and inter-service APIs
- Advocated for Python Best Practices, API design, Test Driven Development, Continuous Integration, and Continuous Delivery
- Maintained several open-source projects core to the company's Python frameworks
- Coordinated Python 2 to Python 3 conversion of many microservices
- Utilized Python, Azure, AWS, Kafka, Redis, Kubernetes, Docker/containers, Postgres, MySQL, Nginx (Lua), OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, Terraform, MongoDB, and ElasticSearch

Principal Engineer/Architect

- Leader of team that converted newly acquired MobileSpaces's Mobile Device Management (MDM) software to Pulse Workspace
- Architect for Pulse One, a VPN server manager and orchestrator that is Docker based, SaaS and On-premise
- Team lead for conversion of Pulse One from a SaaS solution to a cluster-able, on-premise solution within 6 months. Its Docker based architecture can be installed on custom VPN hardware or ran in VMware

Senior Staff Engineer/Server Architect

Various startups and consulting roles

Through many years of software engineering, I gained a broad range of experience from various startups, consulting companies, and open-source projects. I've deployed to every major cloud hosting provider. I've been hands-on with every major programming language. I have developed SaaS, on-premise, desktop, and mobile applications. Some notable highlights include:

-   Co-founding a software contracting agency called Massive Forge, where we developed multiple applications using Python and Javascript. A client acquired the company.
-   Software Architect Consultant for several Hong Kong-based startups, including Libbler and Pingspot, where I developed applications using Python, Javascript, MongoDB, Redis, AWS, and iOS.
-   MapMyFitness (acquired by Under Armour), a fitness tracking SaaS and mobile app, where I primarily developed with Python and Django. I also worked with Hadoop, Cassandra, and Java for analytics.
-   Zenoss, IT monitoring software, where I designed a new event processing and service monitoring suite as part of a project to convert the software from Python to Java.
-   A fintech startup called Bancvue Interactive (now known as Kasasa), where I developed SaaS products for community banks and credit unions.

Additional Software Engineer Experience

Pingspot

Pingspot (http://pingspot.com/) was "A fun, new way to record and recommend your favorite businesses.". It's an iOS application with a Python backend. For Pingspot I developed the mobile application as well as designed and developed the backend. The app graphics were designed and created by Catchlight Productions (http://www.catchlight.com/).

Technologies used: Python with Flask and Celery, MongoDB, Redis, Foursquare API, Facebook API, iOS SDK, Heroku, Cloudinary

Software Architect Consultant

Libbler

Libbler (http://libbler.com/) is "The ultimate career launchpad for entry level professionals. Features include: resume builder and guide, comprehensive employer database for graduate, internship, entry level opportunities and practical industry advice to help develop career skills.". 

I designed and developed the original libbler.com from top to bottom -- except for the graphic design.

Technologies used: Python with Flask and Celery, Spine.js, Coffeescript, MongoDB, Redis, Oneall single-sign-on, Heroku and AWS

Massive Forge

A software contracting agency that I started with my business partners. We developed several applications, primarily with Python and Javascript. The company was acqui-hired by a client.

Co-Founder/CTO

MapMyFitness

- Maintained and developed new features for primary website platform using Python/Django and MySQL
- Developed new API platform using Python and Flask while utilizing Django ORM
- Developed new live race tracking platform using Flask and integrated with remote tracking services using Python and RabbitMQ
- Created APIs for mobile developers to integrate with race tracking
- Maintained fitness statistics reporting engine using Hadoop, Cassandra, and Java
- Created and maintained new unit test infrastructure using py.test
- Developed continuos build solution for development virtual boxes using VirtualBox, Vagrant, and Python

Senior Software Engineer

Zenoss, Inc.

Zenoss provides dynamic system monitoring for IT services across physical, virtual, and hybrid cloud infrastructures. The core of Zenoss is open source and built on Zope/Python, Ext JS, and MySQL.

- Helped wrap up development of UI refresh for 3.0 release
- Developed Dynamic Service View using Flex and yfiles
- Use Agile methodologies for software development
- Design new event processing and service monitoring suite which uses Java, RabbitMQ, SOLR/Lucene, and Neo4j.

🔸Unpacking Software Architecture

I help people deploy more value with less code.

Mike Thornton

PA Consulting

Senior Consultant

Ivanti

Staff Software Engineer

Pulse Secure wanted vADC (rebranded as Virtual Traffic Manager) to be the the ingress controller for the cloud based SaaS controller of their new Zero Trust Access product, and I moved to the new Platform Infrastructure Foundation team, which I became the Scrum Master for.

Ivanti acquired Pulse in December 2020, and the product is now Ivanti Neurons for Zero Trust Access

The ZTA controller platform uses Azure Kubernetes Service. Work included security review for the platform as a whole, deployment of Azure PostgreSQL server with Azure private link using Terraform, use of pgBouncer within the cluster for connection pooling, tooling to provide per-microservice credentials with design and testing of associated disaster recovery procedures and assisting the micro-service teams with their use, design of tenant separation defence in depth features, a Golang Kubernetes controller to run per-tenant schema creation jobs (with proof of concept migration to using Argo Workflow), work on the Jenkins Continuous Integration pipeline and GitOps based Continuous Delivery system, investigative work on use of distributed databases and service mesh and Kubernetes network policies, and assorted related support work (such as updating Terraform provider use to support the breaking changes from 0.12 to 0.13).

Pulse were acquired by Ivanti
https://www.ivanti.co.uk/company/press-releases/2020/ivanti-acquires-mobileiron-and-pulse-secure

Software Engineer

Brocade

Brocade sold the business to Pulse Secure when Brocade were acquired by Broadcom.
https://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsysm/brocade-sells-vadc-to-pulse-secure-vyatta-to-att.html

Riverbed Technology

Working on the Application Delivery Controller, initially on the Aptimizer (Web Content Optimizer) team, later on the Performance and Security Team. Work included updating the codebase to C++11, profiling memory usage, updating supported TLS versions, Kerberos Constrained Delegation, update of PKCS#11 HSM support, responding to security vulnerabilities, and various build system improvements such as making the cache of 3rd party packages safe for access by concurrent builds and removing some of the layers of recursive make.

I also played a major part in converting an in-house build and test system tied to Perforce to a Jenkins based one when we migrated to git. This included parallelising the existing test system, adding coverage instrumented builds, and builds using cppcheck and clang in parallel with the main gcc build for additional checks and warnings.

Also helped with organising recruitment fairs and hackathons.

Riverbed sold the ADC business to Broadcom in 2015. In 2017 Brocade were bought by Broadcom and committed to divesting the IP Networking business unit because other parts of it competed with some Broadcom customers. The ADC product was formerly Zeus Extensible Traffic Manager, branded by Riverbed as Stingray and then SteelApp, and Brocade as vADC.

Transferred to Brocade when they bought the business from Riverbed.
http://newsroom.brocade.com/press-releases/brocade-completes-the-acquisition-of-the-steelapp--nasdaq-brcd-1179466
http://www.riverbed.com/about/news-articles/press-releases/Brocade-Announces-Intent-to-Acquire-Riverbed-Technology-SteelApp-Business.html

"Member of Technical Staff" (Software Engineer)

Thales e-Security

Most recently working as lead of a small sub-team working on providing replication services for an Informix database, using C# with Mono on Linux as part of a large project to write a next generation product, which was eventually cancelled (after I had left). There was a requirement to make the database available (including write access) even when connectivity to other clusters was lost, so eventual consistency potentially required manual intervention.

I introduced use of virtual machines by the team for testing.

Before that I worked on a middleware server providing a common API for use by PKCS#11, MS-CAPI and CAPI-NG providers for the new project, including a working proof of concept based on the older HSM software.

I also provided advice and help to the team who maintained the older product, and other teams within the new project.

nCipher were acquired by Thales e-Security in 2008, and is now part of Entrust

Senior Software Engineer/Technical Lead

nCipher plc

I developed a PKCS #11 interface for nCipher HSMs, some work on an MS-CAPI provider (which became the first commercial non-Microsoft CAPI provider), and wrote the nCipher CryptoAPI NextGen provider, which was developed in time for the launch of Windows Server 2008.

PKCS #11 work has included working with customers and partners, and participating in RSA PKCS workshops.

I also worked on introducing the nForce Ultra SSL offload product (since obsoleted, but it had an interesting architecture) and on the keyAuthority key management system (including Python GUI work).

I also worked on the build system, using Cygwin to support a common environment for Windows and Unix builds.

Setanta Software

I joined Setanta Software to work on Print.Flow, a work flow monitoring product initially targeted at pre-press printing based on an object-relational active database.

The main database client was written in C with a GUI toolkit that ran on X Windows, Microsoft Windows, and MacOS, and there were additional tools written in Borland Delphi. There were also tools to export information as HTML pages, and to interface with other systems, for example taking information from a Sybase database using ODBC. I worked on all these parts of the system, as well as the source management system and development tracking system (which used the same database). Work was in a small development team with no management structure.

I was also at times webmaster for Setanta's web site (some fragments of which are in the Wayback Machine, but Setanta no longer exists).

Shape Data

I joined Shape Data as part of a team working on an object-oriented interface on top of relational databases (Oracle, Ingress, and RDB), written in C and embedded and dynamic SQL, for a product that ended up as IMAN (Information Manager) after a number of name changes, but is currently Teamcenter Engineering. Work included writing a test framework. I then moved to the N-able team, a project to explore architectures for a possible new product, working in C++ with an object-oriented database (ObjectStore).

The areas examined included reflexive data modelling, combining method dispatch with remote procedure calls, and journalling/undo/update. This job also involved some training of other team members. N-able produced some prototypes, but it was decided to divert work to the existing product, Unigraphics (now NX) and I became part of the Assemblies team. New UG code was written in C, with some work on existing Fortran.

I also helped with the introduction of a new RCS based source management system, and I learnt Lisp and did some X-windows work for emacs customisation.

I attended training courses on SQL and Relational Database Design, Object Oriented Design, Fagan Inspection, Technical Writing, Time Management, and product related courses.

[Shape's exact name changed several times when EDS bought the division of McDonnell Douglas that owned it. At the time I left it was "Shape Data, a division of EDS-Scicon Ltd.", later part of "EDS Unigraphics", then "UGS", and now part of Siemens.]

Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer

Cambridge Interactive Systems

I worked as part of the Database group on the Document Manager, Engineering Drawing Analysis, and in-house bug tracking applications, all using MDB (Medusa DataBase), a semi-relational database. Work included specification, design, coding, and the writing of the EDA User Manual (originally done as the base specification, but they were short of documenters at the time).

Most work was done in BaCIS, a high-level in-house language (an ancestor of Smallworld Magik), with some C and Fortran.

[CIS was part of Prime Computer UK when I left, after Prime bought Computervision who owned CIS.]

Experienced software engineer with a security slant and an eclectic mix of other interests.
Other social sites: https://armb.dreamwidth.org/291343.html

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Mike Thornton

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