Postcards From My Life

Cal Evans
Nashville, TN 37013
cal@calevans.com

My goal, my love, my passion in life, is to assist companies in deploying technologies that make a difference. These differences can affect their bottom line as well as their community.

Team Management

Professional Nerd Herder, experienced in building world-class software development teams.

Community Development

Experienced in building and managing developer communities.

Web based design and development

10 years experience in building dynamic, data-driven, interactive web sites based on the LAMP stack.

System Architecture

Experienced in building web based applications from small, open source projects to multi-million dollar mission critical applications.

Writing

Published author, podcaster and journalist.

Member of the 2010 php|architect advisory board.
Spoke at International PHP Conference 2009
Spoke at ZendCon 2009
Spoke at Codeworks Tour 2009 (all 7 cities)
Spoke at php|tek 2009
Program Chairperson/Hosted 2009 Dutch PHP Conference (DPC)
Program Chairperson/Hosted 2008 Zend PHP Conference and Expo (ZendCon)
Program Chairperson/Hosted 2007 Zend PHP Conference and Expo (ZendCon)
Spoke at 2007 Dutch PHP Conference, Amsterdam
Spoke at 2007 PHPUK Conference, London
Hosted 2006 Zend PHP Conference and Expo (ZendCon)
Spoke at 2006 php|works/db|works conference
Spoke at 2006 Apple File Maker Conference, closing keynote

• PHP
  PHP is my language of choice for building web based applications. I also use PHP for command line scripts as opposed to batch files or bash.
• Zend Framework
  Many projects are small enough so that a framework is not needed. However, when a framework is called for, I use the Zend Framework. I wrote the very first book on Zend Framework, I have been working with it on different projects since 0.2 and it is my tool of choice.
• MySQL
  After using everything from Sybase to MSSQL to Oracle, I find that I like the freedom that MySQL gives me.
• Linux
  I use Linux, specifically CentOS, for deploying systems in a production environment. I have been doing so for many years now and am comfortable with what it takes to properly configure and secure the environment.
• Windows
  I use Windows exclusively for my development environment and have even used it for internal production systems. I like where Microsoft is taking Windows server.

Independent Computer Consultant
01/89 – Present

Consulted for many customers over the past 20+ years building systems and web sites to enhance their bottom line.

Ibuildings
Utrecht, The Netherlands, 11/2008 – 12/2009

Director of the PCE
As the Director of the PHP center of Expertise, I have wide latitude to take on projects where I feel I can make a difference. Some of the highlights have been:

• Hosted the Dutch PHP Conference 2009
• Grew the Dutch PHP Conference while maintaining profitability
• Created, techPortal, the first PHP training blog targeting advanced PHP developers.

Zend Technologies, Inc.
Cupertino, CA, 06/2006 – 10/2008

Editor-in-Chief
At Zend, my duties were to write articles and tutorials about PHP for Zend’s DevZone. I was tasked to promote PHP to the technology community at large and Zend to the PHP community. Additionally I was responsible for managing the relationship between Zend and the PHP community. I moved quickly from Editor to Editor-in-Chief. In 2006, I was the Master of Ceremonies at the annual Zend PHP Conference and Expo and in 2007 and 2008 I was the Program Chairperson.

In my role at Zend, I have more than doubled the incoming traffic to DevZone in a year. Additionally, I started a PHP centric podcast called PHP Abstract. It has garnered wide acceptance in the community judging by the feed statistics.

As the program chair for ZendCon in 2007 and 2008, I was instrumental in shaping the course and content of the conference. I organized the first ever ZendCon Unconference.

RouTek, Nashville, TN
01/2006 – 03/2006

Senior Programmer
My duties at Routek include converting an existing VB application to VFP as well as extending existing web applications as needed.

Jupiter Hosting Inc., Santa Clara, CA
07/2005 – 12/2005

Director of Information Technology
My responsibilities as Director of Information Technology included hiring and firing responsibility for all IT personnel. I had budgetary responsibility for both the development team as well as the operations team. I managed the data center and was responsible for oversight as well as day to day operations. In addition to my management responsibilities, I also handled pre-sales technical questions and post-sales support for major clients.

Software Development Manager
My charter at Jupiter Hosting, Inc. was to build and manage the growing development team for both in-house and client-facing projects. I was responsible for locating, hiring and managing the development team.

SimpliHosting Inc., San Jose, CA
01/2005 – 06/2005

Chief Operating Officer
My focus at Simpli was to bring my 22 years of IT experience to bear. I initiated several infrastructure changes while working to streamline the ordering and billing operations.

• Led effort to audit billing system and locate customers who were not properly in the system.
• Managed a cage in Above.net data center with 200+ servers. Includes shared hosting servers, firewalls, dedicated servers, co-location servers, routers and power equipment.
• Responsible for all technical operations of the company.
• Managed a 24×7 support team.
• Improved efficiency in services offered that reduced number of support incidents and increased customer satisfaction.
• Wrote automated nightly backup system for shared servers.
• Implemented Nagios monitoring system for all corporate servers.

J & J Music, Chickasaw, AL
01/2002 – 01/2005

Director of Information Technology
As Director of Information Technology at J & J Music, my first priority was to stabilize the software that had been neglected for several years. Once stable, I was able to turn my attention to infrastructure details.

• Replaced Novell server with Linux/Samba
• Replaced 2 co-existing email systems with a single system
• Brought the email server in house,
• Spread their services across 3 Linux based servers to reduce risk,
• Built a backup system that allowed for automated, off-site backups and a hot-backup server
• Built a custom firewall and web caching system.
• Implemented Nagios monitoring system for all servers.

All of these infrastructure changes were built using whenever possible open source solutions and existing hardware.

The resulting system stabilized the infrastructure and reduced system wide downtime from approximately one day per week to less than 1 hour per month.

Martin Progressive – WebMD Nashville, TN (Contract)
06/2001 -01/2002

Principal Engineer
At WebMD, my primary function as Principal Engineer was to maintain and extend their web based claims processing system. My team managed the processes that handled both their batch and real-time processing. I gained experience in EDI, medical insurance claims processing, and integrating MS-SQL Server/VFP-COM/VB/IIS.

RHIC – Asurion, Nashville, TN/Houston, TX (Contract)
04/2001 – 06/2001

Project Manager/Senior Developer
At Asurion I oversaw the conversion of a major application from FoxPro 2.6 to VFP 6. Additionally, the database was moved from native FoxPro tables to SQL server. I was the lead developer as well as the project manager while working on this project.

InPHact, Nashville, TN
03/2000 – 04/2001

Nerd Herder
At InPHact I was hired to replace an existing application with one developed in house. I selected the core technologies that would be used. I built the development team necessary to create the application using the technologies selected. Finally, I filled the role of Senior Architect until I could hire one. The application was web based, we used Apache running on Solaris, Java with Tomcat and Oracle as the back end database.

Education Networks of America, Nashville, TN
02/99 – 02/2000

Director of Applications Development
While Director of Applications Development at ENA, I staffed two separate development teams. One building web based applications using Microsoft technologies. The other building back-end services, filters and network routing software based on Linux.

Each team had 3-5 members and was responsible for building pieces to assist in managing the network for all Tennessee School systems.

SCB Consulting Nashville, TN
04/98 – 02/99

Senior Analyst
As a Senior Analyst for SCB, I was assigned to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health/Mental Retardation. While there I worked on a variety of FoxPro and Visual FoxPro projects.

Express Media, Nashville, TN
09/97 – 04/98

Director of Management Information Systems (MIS)
While at Express Media, I was responsible for day-to-day operations, computer support and designing new systems to support the various needs of the company.

Christian Broadcasting Network, Virginia Beach, VA
2/95 – 09/97

Lead Developer and Analyst
I started at CBN as a Systems Analyst/Programmer working on FoxPro based systems. In 2.5 years, I was promoted 3 times to the eventual position of Team Lead. While a Team Lead, I managed teams who maintained and extended the mission critical “Partner Information” system. My teams also implemented the first handwriting recognition system at CBN and replaced the aging check processing system with new state-of-the-art hardware and software.

J & J Music, Chickasaw, AL
2/85 – 2/95

MIS Manager
At J & J I was tasked with maintaining and extending a Xenix based accounting system. For 6 years, I managed that system until it became apparent that PCs and networks would be a more cost-effective system. I selected the new platform and accounting system, oversaw the transition from the Xenix system to the new PC based accounting system, wrote all the data migration code and trained all the employees on the new system.

References Provided Upon Request

Dear Reader,

Most of you know, but some of you may not know, that one of the consulting services I provide is helping people identify and hire quality PHP programmers. I’ve been hiring developers for a long time now and inevitably, someone will ask me in a conversation, “How can I find good programmers?” Since I assume they know that I charge people to do this, I always refrain from the obvious answer, hire me.

However, after having a variation of this conversation for the then thousandth time recently, I decided to lay my cards out on the table and tell everybody the secret. Feel free to use this without hiring me but remember that if you get stuck, I’m here for you.

Looking back over the 200+ developers I’ve hired in my career as a manager, I can honestly say that hiring and retaining good developers can be boiled down to two rules. Everything else that goes into the process is just details. (And I do want to apologize to my friend Leslie who is in HR. I do not mean to minimize your job by saying you are a detail!) :)

Developer Hiring Rule: Only hire developers you trust.

I’ve laid out elsewhere my process for hiring developers, those are the details. The decision though as to who gets hired and who doesn’t comes down to a matter of trust. To put it a little more bluntly, trust your gut/instinct. As with any hiring manager, I’ve made bad decisions, in all but one case that I can think of though, bad decisions were made because I did not trust my instinct on a person.

This is an especially important rule for small businesses. You may only hire one or two IT people for your entire company. Make sure you really feel that the person is a good fit, both skill wise and personality wise.

Developer Retention Rule: Trust your developers.

If you followed the advice of rule #1 then this one should come easily. I’m not advocating handing a new hire the keys to the company but your developers, more than anyone outside of your management team, will know the inner workings of your company. If you are not a software company then your IT staff will have access to a number of important facts not known to others in the company. If you followed Rule #1 then you’ve got people you trust…now trust them to do their job.

If you are a software development company this is especially important. As a matter of fact, if your company makes any part of it’s revenue stream from software development or from providing services built by developers, and you personally do not write code, you company’s fate is in somebody else’s hands. You want to make sure that you followed Rule #1 and hire people you feel you can trust and that you then follow Rule #2 and trust them to do their job.

What to do when either rule fails you.

Actually, the better question is what can you do when you failed to follow one of the rules. One of the greatest bosses I ever had gave me some sagely advice. “A sharp knife cuts clean.” If you’ve got a developer on staff that you cannot trust, get rid of them and do it quickly and unambiguously. (local labor laws not withstanding)

The #1 task is to get rid of the developer before they become a problem. The second task though is to let the rest of the team know exactly what went down, why the developer is not there and reassure them that their jobs are not in jeopardy. It always astounds me when people suddenly disappear form a corporate org chart without explanation. Does upper management (C-Level usually) think that nobody will notice? Do they think not saying anything is actually better for morale than being open and honest with their employees? remember, you’ve hired people you can trust…trust them to be smart enough to be able to handle the information.

So there you have it. If you don’t want to hire me to help you build your PHP development team, those are the two rules I use to hire and retain good developers.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=