Will James   

SUMMARY

I want to solve hard problems that will improve people’s lives. While consulting has been great for learning (and I have learned a ton since starting at ThoughtWorks), I want to bring my engineering skills to bear on more challenging problems and have more ownership in the outcome. I’m incredibly interested in deep learning, serverless computing, crypto-technology such as blockchain, and automation. If there are hard problems, where solutions will have lasting impact, I’m interested.

EXPERIENCE

Senior Developer Consultant, ThoughtWorks

Melbourne, Australia / Austin, TX Feb 2015 to Present

• Authored code across front and back end systems with multiple languages and technologies including iOS, Android, React, ES6, Java Spring Boot and others.
• Leveraged cloud technologies such as AWS Lambda, CloudFormation and DynamoDB to bring scalable solutions to production rapidly.
• Successfully delivered multiple software projects on time and on-budget as a part of cross-functional agile development teams focusing on customer value.
• Facilitated architectural decisions for clients weighing short term value gains with long term maintainability and scalability.
• Delivered a data strategy to CIO of large Australian retailer ($5.2 bil revenue per year) as part of three person team working with business SMEs.
• Continuously learning and improving, and helping others learn and improve.
• Lead teams of developers in the mobile space, running workshops on iOS development for clients.
• Worked closely with user researchers and designers to deliver rich experiences with quality, tested code that anticipated customer desires and drove business value for clients.
• Managed stakeholder expectations by communicating technical problems in plain English.
• Improved developer work flow and productivity by setting up continuous integration and deployment pipelines on Jenkins that repeatably test and deploy production ready code.

Core Developer, Storj Labs

https://storj.io May 2014 to Feb 2015

• Wrote code along with a remote team of developers, building the first decentralized storage network based around bitcoin blockchain technology connecting unused hard drive space to cloud storage consumers, improving security, reliability, and cost of cloud storage.
• Implemented two proof of storage schemes for auditing remote file existence based on academic literature in the area of provably secure storage.
• Developed prototypes/proofs of concept for exploring network architecture and design, including automated provisioning of nodes and optimization of data throughput.

Senior Research & Project Engineer, CAMotion

Atlanta, GA August 2011 to May 2014

• Automated warehouse cranes with unique sway control technology and other safety and efficiency improvement features such as collision avoidance, automatic positioning and side load detection and prevention.
• Developed and contributed to core research resulting in a prototype real-time three-dimensional collision avoidance system for warehouse stacker cranes.
• Led multiple crane automation projects from start to completion providing safety and process improvements to manufacturing and primary materials clients.
• Authored real-time process control code integrating distance sensors, machine vision cameras, and handheld operator HMIs to automate and improve safety of high duty warehouse cranes.
• Experience in machine vision including research and development of a dynamic feedback system for crane hook position control leveraging off the shelf vision technology.
• Designed electrical panels for automation systems, selecting components based on requirements and then worked in the field during commissioning, interacting with customers, troubleshooting problems, and installing hardware.

Graduate Researcher, EMRL

Atlanta, GA August 2009 to August 2011

• Developed a sub-micron scale heat transport model to predict peak temperatures in Gallium Nitride amplifiers. This model was the first of its kind in GaN to account for phonon dispersion physics.
• Built a coupled thermal-mechanical device simulation in COMSOL to predict peak thermal stresses during device operation.
• Laid the foundation for further research in GaN multi-band phonon transport; the developed code was used in another student’s PhD dissertation research.
• Collaborated with a research group at Purdue University to include advances made in Silicon modeling to GaN based devices.

Consultant, Risknology

Houston, TX May 2008 to August 2009

• Provided health and safety risk assessment for energy companies to decrease risk exposure.
• Performed consequence analysis of oil and gas releases, fires, blasts, and other major accident events as a part of a small consulting team for a diverse collection of energy companies.
• Focused on running simulations in NISTs Fire Dynamics Simulator to determine consequences of major accident events, including dynamic spill and fire simulations.
• Wrote high performance processing tools for handling and processing large datasets from output of the NIST FDS simulator.

EDUCATION

MS, Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Atlanta, GA August 2009 to August 2011

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Computational Science and Engineering, GPR 4.0 out of 4.0

BS, Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University

College Station, TX August 2004 to May 2008

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with Honors (Cum Laude)

SKILLS

Programming Languages

Javascript (ES6), Swift, Python, C, C++, C#, Objective-C, Java, R

Frameworks and Tools

Git, Docker, AWS (ECS, EC2, Lambda, CloudFormation, Kinesis, S3, Route53, CloudFront), Spring Boot, Google Cloud (Firebase, Google Cloud Functions), React, Redux, Webpack, Jenkins, Go, Lambci, Matlab

PUBLICATIONS

• Electro-thermo-mechanical modeling of GaN HFETS and MOSHFETs 2011 WT James, Master’s Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Electro-thermo-mechanical modeling of GaN-based HFETS and MOSHFETs 2011 A Venkatachalam, WT James, S Graham, Semiconductor Science and Technology
• Lattice boltzmann and discrete ordinates methods for phonon transport modeling: A comparative study 2011 FN Donmezer, D Singh, W James, A Christensen, S Graham, JY Murthy, ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Conference and Exposition
• The thermal response of gallium nitride HFET devices grown on silicon and SiC substrates 2011 FN Donmezer, W James, S Graham, ECS Transactions
• Steady State and Pulsed Thermal Simulation of Gateless AlGaN/GaN Heterostructures 2010 WT James, A Venkatachalam, S Graham, 14th International Heat Transfer Conference

AWARDS AND CERTIFICATIONS

• Top 4 Finalist Poster, Materials Research Society 2011
• All-American, Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association 2008
• 2 year Academic All-American, Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association 2007-2008
• Most Valuable Player, Lone Star Alliance Lacrosse Conference 2008
• L1 Trainer, CrossFit 2014
• Coaching Certification, Georgia High School Association 2014

VOLUNTEER AND SERVICE

• Assistant Lacrosse Coach, North Atlanta HS, Atlanta, GA 2012-2014
• Volunteer Bartender, Monday Night Brewing, Atlanta, GA 2013-2014
• President, Texas A&M Lacrosse Team, College Station, TX 2007-2008
• Youth Leader, Christ the King Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX Summer 2006
• Tournament Director, Texas A&M Lacrosse Team, College Station, TX 2005-2007
• Camp Counselor, Alpine Camp for Boys, Mentone, AL Summer 2005