Chris Baxter

Qualifications Profile

Talented and accomplished Technical Team Lead, Senior Developer and Application Architect with eleven years of experience in the IT industry, specializing in development of rich .NET web based solutions.

• Skilled mentor, project leader and trainer able to direct multiple tasks effectively and master innovative software and tools.
• Demonstrated expertise in SOLID object-oriented design and data modeling techniques.
• Successful history of designing and implementing solutions to drive functionality and process improvement to enable clients to perform faster and more efficiently.
• Excellent background in the complete Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) including requirements determination, design, coding, testing, debugging, and maintenance.

Expertise

Education and Professional Development

• Bachelor of Science Degree with Distinction - University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB (2003).
• Applying OOA&D to .NET Development - Quadrus Development Inc., Calgary, AB (2006).
• Programming in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database - Quadrus Development Inc., Calgary, AB (2006).
• Certified Scrum Master [CSM] - Quadrus Development Inc., Calgary, AB (2011).

Quadrus Development Inc. - Calgary, Alberta

Senior Technical Consultant

Acting as an application architect and technical team lead, led the successful delivery of multiple small and large scale projects while providing guidance on requirements gathering, system architecture and technical coding best practices.

Westnet Travel, WestJet Airlines Ltd

• Mentored development team on development and coding best practices to improve readability and maintainability of the Westnet Travel code base.
• Recommended and implemented user interface enhancements to improve the usability and overall client experience of the Westnet Travel site.

Hydrocarbon Vapor Control System, Altus Environmental Engineering Ltd

• Re-architected existing internal application to be externally available on time and under budget while reducing the code base by 50% and greatly enhancing system functionality and maintainability.
• Collaborated with Altus to enhance existing interview process to include screening interviews, in person code reviews and a stronger technical focus that carried over to engineering hiring practices.

Online Customer Service, The City of Calgary

• Optimized web services and underlying Oracle database to reduce response times by more than 95% through the application of advanced ADO.NET and Oracle indexing techniques.
• Designed and implemented a multi-threaded stress test client for ArcGIS Silverlight map control to assess GIS server performance and recommend optimizations to improve system response times.

Business Registration, The City of Calgary

• Technical team lead responsible for guiding key architectural decisions, mentoring and coordinating development across three teams consisting of 12 analyst, developer and quality assurance resources.
• Streamlined team task breakouts and task management to reduce administrative overhead by 60% allowing the team to focus more on core development activities.

Aria Solutions Inc. - Calgary, Alberta

Senior .NET Developer / Technical Team Lead

As a technical lead for a team of four developers working on enterprise web and desktop applications, worked with fellow senior developers to architect CTI applications based on the Genesys Platform SDK. Responsible for mentoring team on OOD and coding best practices, as well as developing Agile and TDD processes.

• Designed and implemented an event driven JavaScript based agent desktop for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM that cut screen pop rendering time by up to 66% over comparable products.
• Responsible for coordinating the server-side Java port of an existing .NET agent desktop to fully share all user interface components, as well as client-side functional tests, across both projects.
• Improved upon the existing continuous integration processes to fully automate all aspects of a product release, completely removing developer involvement in release preparation and distribution.

Colt Engineering (Worley Parsons) - Calgary, Alberta

Senior Developer / Application Architect

Worked in conjunction with business analysts and fellow team members to design, develop and document new and existing engineering business applications. Acted as a technical lead, working on internal smart-client and web applications, focused on streamlining current business processes and overall application performance.

• Defined and executed department level development standards to increase code quality and reliability by introducing continuous integration, unit testing, code coverage analysis, as well as applying departmental coding standards.
• Designed and implemented a robust application development framework to greatly reduce the development time required to implement new business applications.
• Rapidly integrated into an existing project team to resolve over 100 bugs within two weeks.

ATB Financial - Calgary, Alberta

Senior Programmer Analyst

Acted as a technical subject matter expert with regard to programming, system design and development related activities. Collaborated with business analysts, project managers, solution architects, quality assurance as well as other developers to design, develop and document new and existing financial business applications.

• Defined and executed enterprise level authentication and authorization standards for all Java and .NET applications developed by the IT Solutions & Delivery department.
• Designed and implemented a robust error and event framework to facilitate detailed bug tracking and resolution.
• Mentored and guided intermediate and junior developers on technology and development best practices.

Emerging Information Systems Inc. (Zywave) - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Intermediate Client/Server Developer

Managed a diverse set of projects for the Client/Server Development department after promotion to Intermediate Developer within one year of employment. Analyzed, designed, implemented, tested, and maintained all database and software aspects of each system. Consulted with clients to determine and refine system requirements. Mentored and developed skills of junior employees.

• Optimized department applications development by designing architecture for all projects and by standardizing testing to improve reliability and performance. Achieved 40% reduction in department development time.
• Enhanced company automation to meet critical business needs by successfully designing and implementing more than a dozen systems throughout various internal departments.
• Proposed complex security solutions to executive team and spearheaded initiatives to eliminate piracy of core software product.
• Achieved 30% reduction in external authorization requests to Customer Service department by designing and implementing secure automated authorization Web services.
• Created and executed new departmental processes to optimize Oracle database performance. Successfully improved query response times and reduced application lag from database interactions.

Additional Experience

Gibsons Energy - Calgary, Alberta

Designed and implemented two dozen SSRS reports to track product transportation and distribution.

Online Business Systems - Calgary, Alberta

Designed and implemented new applications for internal process improvement.

University of Manitoba - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Instructed classes of 20-30 students in 5 weekly labs to assist students in learning course material.

Fusion Web Design - Winter Park, Florida

Co-owned a web site design consulting firm that created leading-edge web pages for a variety of clients.