Ryan Parman's Resume (Last updated May 3rd 2009)

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Ryan Parman

CA United States


http://ryanparman.com

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Summary 

Technologist and Entrepreneur. Founder and visionary behind SimplePie and Tarzan, co-founder of WarpShare, and member of the RSS Advisory Board. Recognized leader in syndication and cloud computing software, open source evangelist, and passionate usability advocate.

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Technical Skills 

Highly Proficient

  • HTML, XHTML, XML and CSS
  • JavaScript: DOM, Events, JSON, AJAX, classes; YUI 2.x, jQuery, Prototype, MooTools
  • PHP 5.x (notably, object-oriented programming)
  • REST-based services with XML/JSON responses
  • Model-View-Controller design pattern
  • Front-end performance tuning
  • RSS and Atom content syndication
  • Mac and Windows environments
  • Amazon Web Services
  • Writing good code documentation

Proficient
  • Linux command line
  • MySQL
  • Ruby on Rails
  • CodeIgniter (MVC framework)
  • Subversion and Git
  • Photoshop and Fireworks
  • Organic search engine optimization (SEO)
  • WCAG and Section 508 web accessibility

Limited Experience
  • Apache configuration

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Strengths 

  • I work well on my own, or alongside other people.
  • I speak clearly, write clearly, and try to ensure that everybody is on the same page whenever possible.
  • I'm curious; I like to do research, figure out how things work then provide my opinion or results to the team.
  • I'm friendly and I like to help people whenever I'm able.
  • I'm a fast learner, my technical skills are near-entirely self-taught, and I'm passionate about the latest web standards, innovations, techniques, and technology trends.
  • I'm good at managing my time and responsibilities, and communicating potential issues ahead of time.
  • I balance my natural tendency toward perfectionism against deadlines and priorities.

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Education 

Bachelor of Arts

2001 - 2003

Western Career College (nee Silicon Valley College), San Jose, CA
Design and Visualization
3.84 Grade Point Average

 

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Work Experience 

Creator and Co-Developer

http://simplepie.org

SimplePie (Open Source Project)

July 2004 - Present


  • SimplePie is an API library written in PHP that enables web developers to simply and easily integrate RSS and Atom syndication feeds (from blogs, news sites, etc.) into their websites and web applications.
  • Spent much time looking for pain points involved in working with feeds, and removed those impediments from the developer's workflow, enabling a more efficient experience.
  • Engineered the entire user experience: design, code, usability, copywriting, support, evangelism, managing customer feedback, maintaining the ongoing vision for the project, etc.

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Creator and Developer

http://tarzan-aws.com

Tarzan (Open-Source Project)

July 2007 - Present


  • Tarzan is a fast, powerful PHP toolkit for building web applications with Amazon Web Services.
  • Supports Amazon S3 (storage), CloudFront (content delivery network), EC2 (cloud computing), SQS (messaging), AAWS (e-commerce data), and SimpleDB (schema-less database).
  • Design decisions are made in the best interests of performance, ease of use, and overall usability.
  • Goals are to provide a high-performance developer toolkit for leveraging Amazon's cloud infrastructure, to grow the community and, and to build useful user-centric apps based on the toolkit.

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Consulting and development services for hire

Freelance Web Developer

2007 - Present


  • Leveraging a deep understanding of best practices in front-end development, layout and design, information architecture, usability, accessibility, and web culture to provide value to clients.
  • Providing guidance to people and teams about how to maintain best practices after the project ends.
  • Technology: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, RSS, and Amazon Web Services.
  • Clients: Synonym, Red Giant Software, ShoeDazzle, New Beginnings Church, individual developers.

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Senior User Experience Developer

Foster City, CA

Rearden Commerce

July 2008 - Present


  • Built and documented a number of JavaScript-based UI components for the Rearden Personal Assistant.
  • Lead the research phase of a project to extract a UI toolkit from existing app code, document the visual + interaction pieces, and get all of UE on the same page.
  • Heavily involved in the initiative to document the engineering build process for UE Development.
  • Involved in the startup of the Web Accessibility Initiative as a subject matter expert.

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Co-Founder, Chief Information Officer, Board Member

Morgan Hill, CA

Foleeo

September 2006 - Present


  • Co-founded Foleeo, a company focused on online music and video, to answer the question: "How do you make money when copies are free?" Focused on the ethics, legality, sustainability, and scalability of such a model.
  • Developed through a variety of ideas, building and scrapping several prototypes.
  • Launched the Foleeo Media Widget, then pulled the plug as soon as we realized it was a failure.
  • Developed an internal PHP toolkit for building our app layer around Amazon Web Services, then cleaned it up for public consumption and open-sourced it as Tarzan.
  • Worked alongside a variety of people across the technical and media industries to refine the idea and begin pitching to the venture capital crowd.
  • Lead the development and refinement of our intended launch architecture, and acted as liaison to external development teams to help us get us a VC-facing demo.

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Front-end Engineer for Y! Messenger

Sunnyvale, CA

Yahoo!

November 2007 - January 2008


  • Lead the front-end development of the Spring 2008 re-launch of the Yahoo! Messenger website.
  • Collaborated with a core team to provide increased usability, accessibility, organic search engine optimization (SEO), and simplified maintenance, resulting in exceptionally tuned performance for 29 locales.
  • Involved in tuning the front-end stack for performance, where we employed semantically valid HTML/CSS, server and client-side caching, gzipping, image spriting, code minification, and reduced HTTP requests, resulting in exceptional load times for A-grade desktop web browsers.
  • Involved in upgrading and porting the existing site over to a pure PHP5-based MVC framework.

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User Interface Developer

San Jose, CA

Stryker Endoscopy

May 2005 - September 2006


  • Authored functional specs and collaborated on technical specs for our Oracle Portal implementation.
  • Conducted usability testing sessions as part of our "User-Centered Design Initiative."
  • Developed UI, front-end development guidelines, and AJAX-based portlets compatible with Oracle Portal.
  • Collaborated with development teams to ensure that new web applications adhered to UI guidelines.
  • Collaborated with the eBusiness team to improve maintenance and development for the UI of the worldwide GlobalSource project.
  • Re-engineered the public website to follow modern web standards, and built a PHP-based templating system that significantly sped up website development.
  • Maintained multiple internal websites and web applications.
  • Entrusted with additional project management responsibilities during the last 6 months of the project.

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Production Specialist

San Mateo, CA

Acxiom Digital (nee Digital Impact)

March 2004 - April 2005


  • Coordinated campaign integration, change requests, and ensured content consistency.
  • Performed the quality tracking and reporting of campaign integration-related metrics.
  • HTML and email package expert for client and team.
  • Worked with client-provided HTML templates and provided simple HTML design and image editing.
  • Developed HTML code guidelines and processes for design optimization.
  • Participated in periodic reviews and provided suggestions for strategic and process improvements.
  • Acted as syndication expert for internal RSS development team.
  • Clients: Banana Republic, SBC, Hewlett Packard, Sony Style, Lexus, MAC Cosmetics.

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Clubs and Organizations 

* Member, RSS Advisory Board (December 2008 - Present)
* Participant, RSS Advisory Board discussion group (September 2007 - Present)
* Participant, Media RSS discussion group (September 2007 - Present)
* Former Invited Expert, W3C HTML5 working group (December 2007 - August 2008)
* Former Participant, Data Portability discussion group (February 2008 - August 2008)
* Former Participant, Microformats discussion group (February 2008 - July 2008)

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