1. Casey West
218 Dell Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15216
USA
Mobile Phone: +1.724.681.2000
Email: casey@geeknest.com
URL: http://caseywest.com
URL: http://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywest
AIM: caseyrwest
Professional Summary
Lead developer specializing in high-availability, free software systems. I'm an expert on LAMP-style web applications
with a decade of hands-on, customer-facing experience.
Employment History
Independent Software Consultant
March 2009 – Present
Projects:
• Solpath Assumed maintainence and continued development of Grantsfire. Developed in Perl and JavaScript using
Catalyst, jQuery, XSLT, Microformats, OpenID, and MySQL. Improved performance; added data and administrative
tools, feed validation services, OpenID integration; and performed sysadmin duties. Wrote the hGrant Microformat
Specification based on existing work, implementations, and documentation.
• The Energy Foundation Built hGrant feed for display, filtering, and syndication in PHP using Symfony. Developed
new Grants Management software to facilitate the grant making workflow in the organization. Developed in Ruby and
JavaScript with Ruby on Rails and jQuery. Built interactive, immersive dashboard interface from client mockups with
heavy use of Photoshop, CSS, jQuery, XHTML, and modern web design techniques.
• Wikimedia Foundation Built volunteer submission system to give thousands the opportunity to participate in
Wikimedia's strategic planning. Developed in Python and JavaScript using Django and jQuery. The application is
internationalized (I18N) and localized (L10N) using Django, with additional custom languages added according to
client needs. Performed system administration, including detailed Nagios service monitors. Application integrates with
MediaWiki using its web service API.
Lead Software Engineer, Infrastructure & Architecture
CombineNet
February 2008 – March 2009
Projects:
• Infrastructure Upgrade (Code Name "Loveboat") Served as developer and project manager for sweeping upgrades to
the flagship product and dependent products. Coordinated the migration of the product across three technical teams
and several hundred thousand lines of code. Communicated constantly with IS, QA, Product Management, and two
Engineering teams to ensure timely delivery and lightning fast response times during testing and deployment.
• Unit Testing Framework Using autoconf, automake, and Perl testing libraries, a unit testing framework was grafted onto
an eight-year-old, actively developed, organically grown application. Unit test coverage was expanded from 0% to 10%
in just a few months.
Achievements
• Advanced unit testing among product engineers.
• Improved UX through RTE integration and Spreadsheet data validation.
• Managed engineering effort through a comprehensive, 10-month infrastructure upgrade.
Lead Developer & VP Engineering
Socialtext
August 2005 – February 2008
Projects:
• R&D, New Products Initiated early prototypes and concepts for people oriented collaboration tools. Worked closely
with CEO and CTO on design and requirements.
• Lead Developer, UI Team Planned and executed architecture changes to decouple the UI from the application for more
agile development and easier customization; led a team of four. Led effort to clean up UI including HTML, CSS, and
Casey West - Résumé - page 1

2. assets. Contributed to first in-product release of Wikiwyg, the first wysiwyg editor that converts rich text into wikitext
for storage.
• Interim VP Engineering Selected by developers to join executive team as VP Engineering. Split time between active
development, team management, and defining company strategy. Worked closely with every department to ensure
engineering was positioned for success.
Achievements
• Wikiwyg released on time, by Web 2.0 Conference, 2005.
• Collaborated on OSI Compliant Software Licence for SaaS, CPAL.
• Completed redesign of software which aided in funding.
• Hired five senior software developers; managed twelve.
Software Developer
pair Networks
July 2003 – July 2005
Senior Systems Developer
DynDNS.org
August 2002 – July 2003
Senior Software Engineer
Aaronsen Group
August 2001 – August 2002
Software Engineer
Agnew Moyer Smith Inc
February 2000 – August 2001
Community Involvement
Co-organizer
Yet Another Perl Conference
One of four organizers for this annual conference. Designed and implemented website, delivered keynotes, and organized
social events. 10th Anniversary.
Co-organizer
Pittsburgh Perl Workshop
One of four organizers for this annual conference. Designed and implemented websites for each year, managed sponsors,
delivered keynotes, and organized social events.
CPAN Author
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
Dozens of software libraries released as open source.
Community Achievements
• Shortest Wiki Contest Winner, Shortest Wiki Contest on Ward Cunningham's Wiki
• First Mobile Wireless Network, HighWLAN
• Participant, Friends of O'Reilly (FOO) Camp 2004
Speaking Engagements & Publications
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Software Development Experience Word Soup
Languages
• JavaScript
• Python
• Ruby
• Perl
• Haskell
• C
• PHP
Operating Systems
• FreeBSD
• Linux (Fedora, Ubuntu)
• Mac OS X
• Windows
Software & Libraries
• jQuery
• nginx/Apache 2
• MySQL/PostgreSQL
• memcached
• Django
• Ruby on Rails
• Catalyst
Standards
• Email Protocols
• I18N
• L10N
• HTTP (REST)
• CSS
• LDAP
Process
• Architecture and Design
• Team Leadership
• Agile Development
• Build Systems
• Scalability
• Plugins and Extensibility
Web Tools
• XHTML
• XML
• CSS
• XPath
• XSL
Casey West - Résumé - page 3