Armando D. Alvarado

Software Developer, Full Stack Dev, Cloud

First in a large family to graduate from college. I obtained a degree in Computer Science from the University of Iowa. I got interested in computers in early high school when I saw a classmate write some code to help him do his keyboarding assignment. After that I started tinkering with computers and learning about software. My first computer was a IBM386 running DOS. I had no idea was DOS was at the time. When the time came to attend college, I first attended a small community college in the southside of San Antonio. After my struggles with math there, I transferred to the University of Iowa to continue my education. After graduation, I had plans to move to Chicago but somehow ended back in my home town of San Antonio. My entrance into my professional career was at The University of Texas Health Science Center. I did some awesome research for the department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. After that I got contacted by Rackspace and was offered a position to help build their next generation cloud platform. Now ten years later I am blessed to be a Software Developer at LiquidWeb. I have two boys and one girl with my lovely wife, soon to be three boys. Love my kids and spending time with them. My family and I love to travel and explore new places. Giving back to the community and being involved is something that my wife and I both do. I have been a member of our HOA for three years now. I coach my younger son’s soccer team for SAYSAT, and do volunteer work with the church I attend and also with the church my youngest goes to school at. Whenever I find free time I love to learn new technologies and work on personal projects. Lately I have been exploring AWS tools and hope to take the AWS Solutions Architect test by the start of the year. I am amazed at how much you can do with some silicon and time. My wish is to continue to grow in the tech industry for years to come.

My Skills

Java

2008-Present

Python

2017-Present

Golang

2018-Present

JavaScript

2013-2016

SQL

2009-Present

Docker

2016-Present

Kubernetes

2018-Present

PHP

2017-2017

C#

2008-2009

Wordpress

2017-Present

Spring

2013-Present

Hibernate

2013-Present

AngularJs

2015-2016

jQuery

2008-Present

Hadoop

2008-Present

Bigcommerce

2008-Present

Education and Certification

Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, Liberal Arts and Sciences

University of Iowa

Attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Majored in Computer Science with a strong emphasis in Math, Software project design, Algorithms, and Security.

Aug 2005 - Dec 2007

Pursuing a Bachelors of Arts in Computer Science, Liberal Arts and Sciences

Palo Alto College

Started working my Computer Science degree at Palo Alto College, mainly getting minor math classes out of the way so that I can focus on core classes at Iowa.

Aug 2003 - May 2005

Current Activity

Working on AWS Solutions Architect Certification

Currently getting my hand dirty with lambda functions and other services like api-gateway and cloud front.

current

Other Hobbies

Learning about big data.

current

Experience

Liquid Web

San Antonio Tx.

Senior Software Engineer - Sept 2016 – Present (3 Years)

In this role, all that comes along with being a developer. Develop new features, bug fixes, consult, translate product's vision into technical stories and requirements, documentation, root cause analysis. This was all done in most of LW's eCommerce platform and also Cloud Sites which was purchased from Rackspace. Besides that as a senior developer one need to champion new products and features, here are some : A rewrite of the SSL certificate manager. Integration of iThemes hosting to use CS as a PaaS for deploying Wordpress. Taking ownership of reducing cost of using AWS. Building a new modern real time usage collection system for billing.

Skills: Java, Spring, PostgreSQL, Hibernate, Redis, Salt, RabbitMQ, TestNG, Python, JS, Golang, AWS

Rackspace

San Antonio Tx.

Software Developer III - Sept 2014 – Sept 2016 (2 years)

Continued to work on the same product's back-end, but responsibilities increased. Lead in laying foundation and processes of software development. Example was lead in building out a CICD (continuous integration and continuous delivery) process. Lead research into development of new front-end redo of our Control Panel. Lead documentation of new processes and practices. Mentor of interns and junior developers.

Skills: Java, Spring, PostgreSQL, Hibernate, Redis, Salt, RabbitMQ, TestNG, Postman, Draw.io, AWS

Software Developer II - May 2012 – Sept 2014 (2 years 4 months)

Moved to a back-end role on a Rackspace product called Cloud Sites. Worked with team working on building an API for the PaaS product. API build was a new RESTful API that replaced the old SOAP API the product had. We also implemented an Orchestration layer to auto deploy complex applictions on the PaaS. Such application included many eCommerce sites and CMS like WordPress and Drupal.

Skills: Java, Spring, PostgreSQL, Hibernate, Redis, Salt, RabbitMQ, TestNG, SOAPUI

Software Developer I - Jan 2011 – May 2012 (1 year 5 months)

Junior developer working on integrating cloud products on to Rackspace's Cloud Control Panel. Integration included DaaS (database as a service) and LbaaS (load balancers as a service). This was a front-end heavy position and mostly worked in JavaScript and the google web tool kit.

Skills: HTML/CSS, GWT, JS, JAVA, AJAX

University of Texas Health Science Center

San Antonio Tx. USA

Software Engineer - July 2009 – Dec 2010 (1 years 6 months)

Worked in the department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics developing web applications to support medical research work. Most work was done around the study of Psychology and Mental Health.

Skills: HTML/CSS, Java, JSTL, Apache, PostgreSQL

Programmer Analyist I - Jan 2008 – July 2009 (1 years 6 months)

First project was working to build an application platform for doctors to exchange kidneys for transplant. I work mainly in VB.net and C# building both a web application and a desktop application to integrate with the kidney pumps.

Skills: HTML/CSS, VB.net, C#, MsSQL, Serialization, IIS

University of Iowa

Iowa City, IA. USA

Software Developer (Intern) - Aug 2007 – Dec 2007 (5 months)

Obtained an internship my senior year working on project MAUI. I worked with a mentor and developed front end application pages using Java and JSP's.

Skills: HTML/CSS, Ajax, JAVA, JSP, Hibernate, Jira, Confluence

Current Volunteer

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Currently volunteer as a primary teacher on Sundays.

SAYSAT

Head Coach of the U5 Avengers soccer team. We hold practices twice a week and games are on Saturdays.

St. Margarets Episcopal Church

My wife and I volunteer for school activities and are part of the PTA.

Other

Trip to Hawaii

Awesome trip to Hawaii this summer and our adventures. Coming soon....

Python Vs Golang

I really like Golang, I guess because it reminds me a bit of Java. Yet python is easy to pick up. I did some examples of comparison.

Exploring Kafka

As we get inundated with data we need a way to store, stream, analyze, sort. I look into how Kafka works and how I can use it for building a real time bandwidth meter.