Joao Prado Maia

Software Engineer, Author

6 Hermit Thrush Place
The Woodlands, TX 77382
resume@pessoal.org - http://pessoal.org

Skill Areas
PHP: 11 years developing web-based applications for personal use and 10 years
implementing enterprise level applications
Web 2.0: Strong hands-on experience in developing Web 2.0 applications through the
use of JavaScript and AJAX. Very experienced with Prototype and script.aculo.us libraries.
WWW: Very strong experience developing web-based applications with PHP, JavaScript,
HTML/XHTML/XML/CSS.
iPhone: Experienced with Objective-C and the iPhone SDK framework.
Usability: Focused on providing the best user experience to users by designing simple
and beautiful interfaces.
SQL: 10 years experience utilizing SQL for software development using MySQL. Also
experienced with PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle.
Unix: 13 years of personal use (mainly Linux), installing and maintaining systems and 10
years using various flavors of Unix for job related tasks.
Python: 4 years of experience developing applications with several versions of Python
(1.5.2 up to 2.2).
Other languages: varying degrees of familiarity with Java, Perl, TCL and C/C++. Not an
advanced level, but enough to be familiar quickly if required.

Experience

Alert Logic, Inc., January 2006 - present

UI Team Lead; Lead Software Developer; Usability Architect

Managed all of the daily tasks of this group, such as managing projects in Agile
methodology (Scrum) and mentoring junior developers. Interfaced with senior
management when gathering requirements from users to build technical specifications
for upcoming projects.
Led a team of software engineers in re-writing the company's flagship Invision Security
product from Perl into PHP. We delivered this project in record time, and still using the
latest technologies such as PHP5, Smarty, XHTML/CSS and AJAX.
Projects ranged from implementing a new reporting system from scratch with features to
export reports in Excel and PDF formats, as well as to schedule re-occuring reports. Re-
architected areas of the product to make use of Gearman, pushing a few long running
processes to be executed in asynchronous mode. Also pushed to apply the well known
YSlow performance rules, as well as use Memcached where possible.
Managed entire user experience design by pushing developers to build user interfaces
that are simple, easy to use and innovative.
 Implemented a pragmatic approach to software development by applying a consistent
set of coding standards and other practices such as unit testing, phpDoc documentation
of the code, and automated builds through the use of CruiseControl / phpUnderControl.
Applied a complete workflow from dealing with Subversion to handle new branches for
upcoming product releases, to integrating with Trac (bug tracking system) when fixes
are finished. Implemented a custom code review system to ensure quality through code
inspection by the developer's peers.

Impleo Software, January 2005 - present

Principal

Developed multiple iPhone applications now being sold through the App Store.
Functionality range from downloading XML data from the network, to parsing web
service results in JSON format, to displaying PDF content inline within the application.
Worked as a consultant to several companies implementing both iPhone and web based
applications. A few examples include:
HAR.com: currently working in the iPhone application for the Houston
Association of Realtors. This is a very high profile application for the local
Houston real estate market.
Placebeat.com: implemented the public facing web site from scratch, including
integration with YouTube and Amazon S3. Also implemented the Facebook
application of the same name, providing deep integration of the web site
features from within Facebook.
Insightory.com: implemented the complete web site from scratch, with
features such as converting uploaded business documents to a format
acessible via the Web.

MySQL AB, August 2003 - January 2006

Senior Software Engineer

Led the development of all MySQL Network related tools:

Advisor system - an alert system that sends out email/SMS/pager notifications
to paid customers about new MySQL product releases, bug announcements
and security advisories.
Knowledge base - a full blown revision-control system that allows MySQL staff
to write new articles, perform technical and editorial reviews and publish
content. This system also allows paid customers to full-text search on
existing content, suggest new article topics and rate content.
Certified software and Update server - server-side authentication routines
that tie the Update server with MySQL's proprietary customer database.
Dynamically generating download pages for 20+ different product distribution
types, across a set of 10+ platforms.
Reporting tools - full set of reports for all types of parameters, such as
popular knowledge base articles, groups of articles (topics), level of
participation by MySQL staff and even business metrics related to paid
customers.

Created, designed and implemented Eventum, an issue tracking system that was
originally intended to be commercialized. MySQL AB acquired the rights to this product,
 hired me as a full-time employee and released the software under the GNU General
Public License.
Work in developing Eventum was aimed at the needs of the Support team, a growing
group of around twenty support developers, to provide an easier and better tool to
manage incoming support tickets. Eventum replaced their legacy support system, and is
still used to track all communications between customers and support developers.
Full responsibility in gathering requirements from users and converting those into
specifications. The full life cycle of the development, such as overall software design,
database schema and code, was also a part of the job.

Lexicon Genetics, Inc., September 2001 - August 2003

Software Engineer

Employed as a software engineer in the Functional Informatics group of the Informatics

department. The main responsibility was related to the continued development of the
Lexicon's flagship LexVision software, which was licensed by several partners, including
Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech Inc. and Incyte Genomics. Our platform made use of
PHP, MySQL, Oracle, Java and CVS.
Major accomplishments include the successful design, development and deployment of
several projects, which range from integration software to the LexGene application, that
is used in the company to prioritize the research of new drugs and projects, to the
integration with Augeo, a project management software that is used across the company
to manage the existing research projects and their respective timelines.
Introduced and deployed a central issue tracking system software that is used across the
group to keep track of new projects, feature requests and bugs, with full integration
between the code releases and the source control management software (currently CVS).
Served as the group's MySQL DBA, performing related tasks such as administrating the
databases and schemas, backups and code releases that require database changes.
Implemented an issue tracking system that among other things helped keep track of all
database changes, across the several code sets.

Kefta Inc., August 2000 - May 2001

Software Engineer

Performed web development duties, which include developing and supporting a PHP-
based Kefta Referral Software with support for several modules, such as Oracle and
MySQL abstracted using a PHPLIB-like API, LDAP and others.
Also worked on a rewrite of Kefta's internal application software to port most of the PHP
code, such as APIs and other important functionality to CORBA interfaces written in
Python. The task included designing IDL files, and writing technical specifications for the
new CORBA servers and unit testing the new platform using Python with modules such
as DCOracle, MySQLdb and Pythonldap. It used omniORBpy for the CORBA interfaces.

Ready Set Net, April 2000 - August 2000

Software Team Leader / Senior Software Developer

Implemented several websites and custom software for assorted companies, such as
California Pizza Kitchen, Kurgan & Cheviot, and JustSports.
Managed a group of 6 programmers and web developers working in projects that were
developed in PHP and PostgreSQL.
 Designed the required PostgreSQL databases and oversaw the database creation of the
various programmers in the team.

UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, August 1999 - April 2000

Software Engineer / Database Administrator

Developed an Intranet Finance administration system using ASP and SQL Server 7.0 as
the back end. Every financial data can be handled in one application from anywhere on
campus through this Intranet.
Created a contact database for UFRJ's cultural museum. Some of the features include full
indexed text search, the ability to send browser based e-mail to contacts, printing
elected contacts for invitations on upcoming events and a scheduling system for local
users. It was fully developed using ASP and Microsoft SQL Server.

Publications
Co-authored Smarty PHP Template Programming and Applications - Published April
2006.
Articles:
The Dynamic Duo of PEAR::DB and Smarty - O'Reilly Network PHP DevCenter -
April 2003
Introducing Smarty: A PHP Template Engine - O'Reilly Network PHP DevCenter
- September 2002
Internationalization (I18N) with PHP's Gettext Extension - O'Reilly Network PHP
DevCenter - June 2002
7 other articles related to PHP and JavaScript published under O'Reilly
Network.

Personal Projects
Houston PHP/MySQL Users Group, main organizer - I organize the monthly meetings of
this user group by managing its schedule of presentations from members of the group,
and also by doing sessions myself when there is a need.
PHPBrasil.com, owner and maintainer - a PHP related resource site aimed at Brazilian
developers. It includes a Script repository index, Tutorials, Articles and Job Posting
features to registered members. The site is widely regarded as the primary community
site for PHP developers in Brazil.
Papercut, author and maintainer - a Python based multi-threaded Usenet server. It
implements most of the features of the NNTP protocol (RFC0977) and several of the
extensions described in RFC2980. The project primary objective was to create a custom
Usenet server to serve as a gateway to a web-based message board software, but it has
grown much since then. One of its most important features is flexibility and simplicity of
its design, allowing any user to extend its features and create a custom plug-in to it.
Papercut is released under the BSD license.