Jack Alves

Experience

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  Scopus Technology

  Jan 1995 - Jan 1997

  Director, Quality Assurance

  Scopus, a 60 person startup, built customer relationship management (CRM) software. The development environment included C++, Java, TCL, and SQL for all Windows and UNIX platforms.Director of Engineering Services and Quality Assurance- Transformed group of three testers to a Release Engineering group of 26 staff including four managers and two temps. Hired 20 staff in two years. - Increased engineering group efficiency which facilitated shorter, high quality release cycles. Re-engineered processes for all aspects of the development lifecycle. The multi-platform software build process was reduced from several days to twice per day.- Introduced test automation using WinRunner, custom built test harnesses, and a patch regression test system that enabled shorter release cycles.- Led eight major and over 20 minor software releases. Owned end of cycle feature triage decisions. - Created first staff performance evaluation template for the company. Show less

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  Self - Employed

  Jul 1997 - Jun 2002

  Project Management Consulting

  I managed a variety of projects for various organizations, mostly as a self-employed consultant. Highlights included:Quality Assurance Specialist at TeleiasA pre-launch startup of about 15 people including 10 developers. The product was a system for IT organizations to continuously capture operating system state on desktop workstations. Technology was built with Java and Python. - Built quality assurance team, designed test strategy, and developed test systems.- Hired two engineers to configure systems and to write unit and integration test software.- Matrix managed 10 developers. - Conducted product demonstrations.Project Manager at GarmentTrade.com, A business-to-business e-commerce pre-launch startup with five people including a business strategist, a garment industry expert, a CTO, and a developer.- Negotiated requirements with the industry expert. - Hired contract staff for quality assurance and development.Business Management Consultant at Circle24.comA consulting company with a contract to build a website for a client that hosted business exhibitions/conventions.- Managed three developers in India.- Worked with the CEO to create business plan for the startup.Project Manager at DoughNET.comA 20 person startup when I joined. The live 24x7 e-commerce website gave parents the ability to teach financial management and monitor online purchases for their children.- Turned around team and led successful launch in three months. Before I joined, the project had been in progress for nine months without launching and was restarting the design from scratch. - Managed 10 staff, including HTML and Java developers, and quality assurance engineers. Technology was build with Java, JSP, and HTML. - Hired three developers and two quality assurance staff. - Led coordination of all groups including content, business, and support. Show less

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  Applied Minds

  Jun 2002 - Jul 2005

  Project Manager

  Applied Minds was the brainchild of Danny Hillis, the inventor of parallel computing. Funded by consulting contracts with large corporate and government clients, it invented and prototyped ideas, and spun-off companies.- Matrix managed a project team of 12 developers, designers, scientists, and quality assurance staff using Agile Development processes. - Managed projects totaling $5M for clients that included government intelligence agencies and large corporations. The work focused on inventing and building user interfaces for very large graph databases. Technology included Java, Flash, Javascript, HTML, and CSS. Deliverables included software source, user documentation, formal reports, and on-site presentations. - Projects literally had no tolerance for late or over budget delivery. A key to our success was my ability to prioritize development based on client expectations, and my tenacious, cajoling, diplomatic, task-master techniques. My core responsibilities included requirements setting, budgeting, scheduling, and reporting. I contributed to writing proposals, user documentation, testing, and design. Show less

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  Metaweb Technologies

  Aug 2005 - Jun 2007

  Director of Engineering

  Metaweb (acquired by Google) was spun-off from Applied Minds with 10 staff and venture funding to develop technology for the next generation of the web (Web 3.0, Semantic Web). I transitioned from Project Manager with Applied Minds to Director of Engineering at Metaweb.- Led the initial launch of freebase.com, a huge technology advance for the web. This was not an ordinary web project. Managing this elite team required a special finesse to drive convergence on concepts, designs and development. The live 24x7 site includes a new kind of database that supports dynamic schema and an unlimited volume of data with unlimited transactions. The NOSQL database was open for the general public to contribute schema and data via the website or an API. There were millions of structured topics in freebase.- Managed 14 people split into four groups (back, middle, front, QA). Technology includes proprietary graph database (C++/Python), API (Python/Javascript), and freebase.com website (AJAX). Used Selenium and Python for automated testing, SVN source control, and Bugzilla.- Weekly product updates were made possible with an Agile framework that supported self-directed groups pulling from a backlog of high level feature requests.- Recruited and hired nine staff. Initiated outsourcing for manual testers.- Established hourly build process. Pitched-in to help with other builds, data loads, and testing. - Founding member of startup and deeply involved in early stage business strategy, design, and IT. Show less

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  Self-Employed

  Jul 2008 - Oct 2011

  Project Manager

  I managed a variety of projects for various organizations as a self-employed consultant. Highlights included:CosmicubeProject manager for development of a phone app, sfheroes.com, built for the city of San Francisco to promote preparation for emergencies like an earthquake. The app was a gamification of learning with tests, event check-in, mapping, and social media integration. My role was tracking feature development, build/test, and general technical advice for the company.Math Department, UC BerkeleyWork for a Professor of Mathematics and Statistics included, - Wrote small applications (Javascript, HTML, CSS) and scripts (Python) for collection and display of bibliographic information.- Remotely managed development of contract and student developers.- Provided project strategy and planning on projects related to large bibliographic datasets.- Wrote project management plans for a $2 million proposal which was subsequently granted to developed the Bibliographic Knowledge Network (BKN).Star Wide Web / Applied Minds, Inc - Produced alpha site in a month with minimal funding. Popstra.com was the front end to a large graph database of celebrity relationships. Components included an embeddable Flash application, a Facebook quiz app, integration with a graph database, and a website built on Wordpress.- Hired as a "turnaround" specialist by my former employer (Applied Minds) to get the troubled project on track and prepare company to spin-off.- Refocused original team to finish deliverables and hired new team to produce final deliverable in a month. The team included the CEO and three developers in different locations.- Worked very closely with the CEO on business strategy and planning. Participated in presentations to venture capital firms.- Created and managed budgets, schedules, and functional specifications; wrote Javascript applications for data exploration; performed data grooming and testing. Show less

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  Self-employed

  Jan 2014 - Mar 2022

  Residential Redevelopment (Flipping)I formed LLCs to purchased 3 distressed single-family homes, managed renovations, and resold each with a profit. - Conducted detailed evaluations of necessary repairs and analysis of profit potential.- Specified detailed renovation plans, managed 4 contractors and budgets which totaled over $240,000.- Wrote software and complex spreadsheets to: highlight price differentials for similar homes in selected neighborhoods, analyze local sales metrics, map city-owned homes, and map crime data to visualize pockets with little crime within high crime areas.Residential Broker/AgentInitially an agent associated with brokerages (Keller Williams, Shorewest), then as a broker I started my own brokerage, JackRabbit Realty. - Managed 48 transactions valued over $9 million for investors and retail clients. - Recommended and supervised repair work. - Created and managed marketing campaigns.- Wrote software and complex spreadsheets to target marketing and aggregated data such as per block owner-occupancy ratios and previously expired listings. Show less

  • Software Project Management

    Mar 2021 - Mar 2022

  • Real Estate Owner/Broker/Developer

    Jan 2014 - Mar 2021
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  Self employed

  Sept 2020 - now

  Software Product Consultant

  Consulting part-time for a former colleague who is seeking funding for an innovative software startup. My work includes developing business strategies, market research, product vision, and product definition.