JOHN C. SIRACUSA

hypercritical.co

B.S., Computer Engineering (Cum Laude), May 1997, Boston University, Boston, MA

Twenty-five years experience building database-backed web applications.
Twenty years experience as a freelance writer for the web and print.
Eleven years experience as a tech podcaster.
Extensive experience with relational database schema design, SQL, query optimization, and procedural languages using MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Informix, and Oracle,
Thorough understanding of web standards, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, and XML.
Excellent knowledge of website architecture and web usability issues.
Comprehensive knowledge of modern, object-oriented Perl programming.
Experience with Node.js, AWS, and many flavors of Unix.

Hypercritical LLC
January 2011 - present

Podcast Host: Accidental Tech Podcast
February 2013 - present; Reconcilable Differences
June 2015 - present; Robot or Not
May 2015 - present; Neutral
January 2013 - November 2013; Hypercritical
January 2011 - December 2012

Software Developer

Athenahealth - Architect
May 2009 - March 2022

Designed and implemented FileCloud, a storage system for healthcare records that scaled from 150 million files to 25 billion files and 7 petabytes of data over the course of 12 years.
Created a web application framework which was then used to build multiple new customer-facing healthcare products.
Spearheaded the company’s move to the public cloud (AWS), authoring the company-wide deployment architecture standards and leading the team that built tooling to aid compliance with the standards.
Served on the Virtual Architecture Team since its inception, reviewing the technical design of projects across the company.

Ars Technica - Columnist
October 1999 - April 2014

Software Group Manager - November 2007 - May 2009
Senior Software Engineer - June 2004 - November 2007

Led a team of five engineers in the server-side development group, responsible for the design and implementation of web applications and services with a significant database back-end component.
Reimplemented the company’s affiliate program using modern web development practices and technologies.
Created an MVC web application framework, including a general-purpose object-relational mapper, HTML forms library, and localization support.
Developed a generic configuration management system for server-side components which was used for new projects and retrofitted to existing components.
Created web-based and offline marketing tools for automating the segmentation, emailing, and tracking of customers.
Designed and implemented the database schema, stored procedures, and web-based administration tools for several major features of the company’s flagship product.
Developed a generic Perl RPC library which replaced the existing SOAP implementation, yielding a 3x average performance improvement.

Palm Digital Media - Senior Web Developer
June 2002 - June 2004

Designed and implemented the flagship ecommerce website which sells direct-download, DRM-enabled electronic books and other software.
Created internal web-based tools for ebook production, customer service, sales and royalty report generation, and web store management.
Developed a modular web application construction framework based on HTML::Mason. This framework allowed the rapid development and evolution of the ecommerce website and internal tools.
Created the database schema, triggers, and stored procedures for the back-end accounting system.
Imported historical data from the legacy MySQL database to the new PostgreSQL RDBMS.

Northern Light - Senior Software Engineer
January 2001 - June 2002

Developed and deployed Northern Light’s web-based content integration and search service, SinglePoint, for enterprise customers using mod_perl, Mason, DBI, and Apache.
Primary author of department-wide Perl coding standards.
Redesigned and re-implemented the SinglePoint enterprise portal using object-oriented Perl, increasing scalability and decreasing maintenance and customization overhead.
Created a suite of Perl modules to facilitate code reuse within the company by providing a uniform, high-level interface to Northern Light’s core search technologies, a generalized Perl-based build/configuration management system, and a standardized Perl object model.

Public Interactive - Senior Developer
April 1996 - January 2001

Developed a public broadcasting web network that supported more than 100 member stations. Features included an arts and entertainment site, online chat, and a news portal that supported web-based publishing of local content from member stations, automated national/worldwide news feeds, user-contributed content, and both centralized and local editorial control.
Authored company-wide code and content creation guidelines.
Created internal development tools and general-purpose web applications such as search engines, content management systems, and web bulletin boards that were used across multiple websites.
Installed and maintained database servers, web servers, and other essential software on several flavors of Unix (AIX, Solaris, Linux).

Creator of the Rose web application framework, distributed world-wide via the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN)
Member of the MacTech 25: The Mac technical community’s 25 most influential people, 2006, 2007, 2010.
P.T. Hsu Memorial Award Winner for the Most Outstanding Senior Design Project in Electrical and Computer Engineering - Local Area Paging System and Software, Boston University graduating class of 1997.
National Merit Scholar (1993)
AP Scholar with Distinction (1993)