Engineering Fellow,
Sep, 2020 - Jun, 20219 months
Background
About
About
Software Developer with experience spanning the full stack: front end, back end, test, dev ops/infrastructure. I am always excited to explore different technologies in order to deliver applications that solve business problems.
I love to steer a project through its full life cycle, transforming an initial idea into reality. While I rely on good documentation and best practices, I also value "thinking outside of the box" - I enjoy exploring clever and unorthodox ways to achieve our business goals.
Some technologies I love: Ruby on Rails, Elixir, PostgreSQL, Linux, Docker, Javascript, Redis, AWS, ReactJS, and many more.
When I’m not getting paid to code, I'm outdoors. I love playing soccer, fishing, and hiking with my wife and three dogs.
Work Experience
Work Experience
Lead Software Engineer,
Nov, 2016 - Jul, 20214 years 8 months
Lead Backend Developer,
Dec, 2014 - Feb, 20161 year 1 month
Primary Backend developer for brand new startup's main customer-facing Ruby on Rails application. For every requested feature, I mapped user experience to business need, projected costs, trimmed scope, and constantly delivered and refined implementations.
Built end-to-end data pipelines to gather, clean, deduplicate, and consume existing data in a data-fragmented market (RV travel). Administered production PostgreSQL database.
Student Developer,
Apr, 2014 - Nov, 20147 months
Education - I assist incoming students with their pre-work and help to refine and improve upon the existing coursework. In addition I help with regular classes in creating/updating the curriculum.
Admissions - I perform technical interviews for prospective students as well as help with moving applicants through the admissions pipeline.
MakerSquare is a program that provides individuals with training in software engineering and web development through in person classes. We take professionals with limited experience as a developer and give them the opportunity and skills they need to transform their career into software and web development. Our graduates take positions at a range of companies including PayPal, IBM, Spredfast, and Spiceworks.
We focus on providing an exceptional educational experience and teaching the necessary fundamentals. Our graduates go on to work as full-time developers using Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Sass, Backbone.js, Ember.js, Angular.js, Python, Django, PhP, Git, C-Sharp (C#), and/or other web/software technologies.
Financial Analyst,
Oct, 2011 - Jan, 20142 years 3 months
Skills
Skills
- Web Development
- JavaScript
- Test Driven Development
- Relational Databases
- Git
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Ruby on Rails
- PostgreSQL
- React.js
- Object Oriented Design
- APIs
- Linux
- SQL
- Docker
Education
Education
Web Development, , Hack Reactor
Dec, 2014 - Dec, 2014
Finance, Bachelor's of Business Administration, University of Houston-Downtown
Sep, 2009 - May, 2013
Volunteer Work
Volunteer Work
Software Consultant, Colorado Village Collaborative
Aug, 2019 - Jan, 2020
The Colorado Village Collaborative exists to bridge the gap between the streets and stable housing by creating and operating transformational housing communities in partnership with people experiencing homelessness.
Working with the founder, I designed and built Interaction Trackers enabling CVC staff to record data on community engagement in a central location in an easily accessible, mobile-first process. Additionally, I also worked with the village community coordinator to digitize village intake forms.
Technologies: Google API, Google Forms/Sheets, Google AppsScript, Javascript
Software Consultant, Houston Food Bank
May, 2017 - Jul, 2017
Houston Food Bank's event, "Houston Restaurant Weeks," needed a mobile app to reach a younger audience in the Houston community. Utilizing React Native, a custom solution was built and released to iOS and Android stores for distribution. Users can find restaurants nearby them anywhere in Houston utilizing geolocation and a google maps integration. They can also bookmark restaurants that are added to their favorites list for quick reference.
The mobile apps were downloaded over 5,000 times and helped contribute to raising millions of dollars to benefit the Houston Food Bank.
Technologies: React Native, Javascript, Xcode, Android Studio
Volunteer Software Developer, Bernie Sanders For President
Feb, 2016 - May, 2016
https://coders.forsanders.com/projects/field-the-bern/
"Field The Bern App" was a gamified mobile canvassing app to augment door-to-door canvassing efforts of the 2016 presidential campaign.The project was conceived, implemented, and operated entirely by volunteers, who self-organized through social media channels like reddit, slack, and coders.forsanders.com. I primarily wrote implementation specs for API features under development and contributed to server-side test coverage of critical components.
Technologies: iOS (swift) UI talking to a Ruby on Rails API, infrastructure on AWS, several custom integrations with campaign-provided data endpoints.
References
References
- Jimmy Pocock
Ben Poon is someone I would want on every development team I'm on. Whether we're developing a search algorithm with ActiveRecord and Rails, which he did at RoverPass, or coming up with the best way to migrate massive amounts of data and build abstract data structures for storage in PostgreSQL, which he also did at RoverPass, I can rely on him. With every line of code he maintains testability and legibility. He knows how to talk and walk through complex situations, technical or business, and I know he would be a great asset on any development team.
- Gregory Cosgrove
Ben is an awesome developer capable of taking on extremely complex projects. He also has an innate ability to understand and explain very complex topics like data structures and algorithms. He's extremely hard working and dedicated. His apps are very creative and well-designed. Ben would be a great asset to any team.