James Kiesel- · @gdpelican · -
Work Experience
Freelance work (May 2018 - present)
I performed a variety of short-term freelance jobs while studying a foreign language over the summer,
including but not limited to static site customizations, tracking down memory leaks in production
applications, providing estimates and mentorship, and serving as project manager for an ongoing
community project
Primary technologies: Jekyll, CSS, Ruby on Rails, Ember, Angular, React
Loomio Co-owner / Lead Developer (Feb 2014 - May 2018)
Loomio is an open source decision-making tool being developed in Wellington, New Zealand. I began as
an open source contributor to the project 3 years ago, and from there I became the lead developer and a
co-owner of the company, which is now entering its seventh year of operation.
Primary technologies: Ruby on Rails, Angular, Docker, Postgres, CSS, Git
Discourse Contributor / Google Summer of Code Mentor (Dec 2014 - present)
I’ve been contracted by Discourse, an open source forum software, several times to build out various
features and fixes, including writing several popular plugins for the project. In 2016 I served as a mentor
for a student for Discourse in their Google Summer of Code program.
Primary technologies: Ruby on Rails, Ember, Docker, Postgres, Git
La Ruche Que Dit Oui - Software Developer (Aug 2016 - Jan 2017)
I’ve worked as a contractor for La Ruche Que Dit Oui!, a France-based tool for communal food
purchasing, to build some advanced functionality for their highly customized Discourse forum.
Primary technologies: Ruby, Ember, CSS
The Firehose Project - Mentor (Mar 2015 - Oct 2015, Feb 2017 - Oct 2017)
I served as a weekly mentor, teaching, providing resources, and pair programming with students going
through the Firehose Project coding bootcamp.
Primary technologies: Ruby on Rails, React, CSS, Postgres, Git
Circle Seven Five - Engineering Consultant (Aug 2015 - Sep 2016)
I worked as a consultant to a recent bootcamp graduate who was maintaining the codebase for his
business. Provided guidance, mentorship, encouragement, industry experience, and good vibes.
Primary technologies: Ruby on Rails, Braintree payments, jQuery, Git
SnipSnap - Lead Developer (June 2014 - Feb 2015)
I acted as lead developer for an affiliate marketing platform for a couponing startup based in Philadelphia
Primary technologies: Ruby on Rails, iOS, Postgres, Git
TabCom - Software Engineer (July 2012 - October 2013)
Worked as a software developer in a small team performing development on the front- and backend for
an eCommerce platform
Primary technologies: C#, Visual Basic, jQuery, Subversion
Accenture - Senior Programmer (Jan 2010 - July 2012)
Performed various contracts for large corporations based in the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and
energy industries across the Philadelphia area
Primary technologies: C#, Visual Basic, Java, Qlikview, Subversion
Education
Skidmore College ‘09 - Bachelor of Science, Computer Science / Theatre
Skills
Skilled backend engineer with 5+ years experience
Deep experience with Ruby on rails, and proficiency and experience with a variety of other
frameworks and languages including Elixir, Node, and .NET
Seasoned frontend experience with a variety of frameworks
Many years experience working with a wide variety of javascript frameworks; Angular and
Ember being the most used, but deep proficiency with React and Vue as well, and cursory
experience with Meteor, Riot, and various other frameworks-of-the-moment. Well versed in
HTML5 and CSS3.
DevOps familiarity
Enough hands-on dev-ops experience to not take your site down 4pm on Friday. Some
familiarity with Docker, Capistrano, and Mina, as well as deployment scripting, server
provisioning and monitoring
Agile processes
Experienced both working with teams of developers in a variety of Agile processes
Mentorship
A quality, patient educator with lots of experience working with less seasoned developers
Open source contributor
My github profile is full of enterprise and hobby open source contributions, and I’m passionate
about giving back to the communities which make our work possible.
