bits by luke

I've spent over a decade solving complex business problems, often with software. I particularly enjoy finding opportunities where software can reclaim people’s time and free them for more meaningful endeavors. I also have an affinity for teaching, especially when it involves software craftsmanship.

View my resume.

I have designed and built many software systems from scratch. I have also evolved and scaled existing solutions to better align with business needs. I am comfortable in a variety of programming languages (and their associated toolsets) such as Clojure/Java, Elixir/Erlang, and Javascript/Node. Given the choice, I prefer small teams working on simple solutions in a functional ecosystem.

I’ve collaborated with startups searching for traction in a market. I’ve advised product and service firms looking for their next stages of growth. I’ve embedded into established engineering teams to extend and transform existing legacy systems into modern, powerful platforms.

I bring the most value to a business when working directly with stakeholders and subject matter experts. By immersing myself in a domain, I serve as a hands-on partner adept at solving core business problems and overseeing the execution of a software strategy.

If this piques your interest, let's schedule a chat.

Project Portfolio

Below is a summary of some NDA-cleared projects I've built over the years. There are many more I wish I could share, so get in touch to learn more.

  1. Debugging with re-frame-10x

    I built a mobile-first application to help associates working in retail environments. The app can tell you exactly where a product is located (area, aisle, shelf [with pictures!]), delivers prioritized lists of tasks to complete, manages restock/re-pricing workflows, provides virtual in-store tours, and a bundle of other neat features. For this video, however, I wanted to highlight a particular tool I love that drastically improves the speed of debugging a complex frontend application.

    (Sorry for the robotic audio quality, I think I broke my microphone.)

  2. A claim management platform

    I helped define and implement a claims/risk management platform that served both insurance companies and companies with insurance policies. Our software enabled customers to drastically reduce the amount of time required to move claims from origination to resolution. We gave superpowers to administrators in an ecosystem that was disastrously overburdened with repetitive tasks, inaccuracies, and ancient processes.

    The platform provided completely customizable process workflows, configurable form/artifact generation, reporting and auditability capabilities, government compliance checks, field-level authorization control, and so much more.

    Watch this (long, sorry) guided tour of the comprehensive risk management platform.

  3. Backtesting

    I built out a rich SPA to empower internal users at a small hedge fund. Our backend supported the ability to run "backtests" on automated trading strategies. The intent was to visualize and analyze how well (or poorly) a facet-driven, parameterized trading strategy would have performed throughout a given time period in the market.

    This build included a deep exploration of the existing domain, as well as novel inventions for powerful backtesting and profile-building capabilities. I worked hand in hand with the product (and business) owner to design workflows, UI/UX elements, API contracts, metrics / reporting features, on-demand scalability, and more.

    Check out the video to get a sense of the product.

  4. Onboarding flows

    In the EU some companies offer over 18 months of maternity leave. This can be an extremely difficult landscape to navigate for first-time mothers. Women can easily fall behind on their career goals, pay grades, cultural knowledge, and encounter a plethora of other problems. The client offered education and mentoring services for women to lessen the impact and burden.

    I helped the client pair down their vast product offerings and lesson catalog into a series of discrete, easy-to-digest steps. We exposed mothers to carefully controlled streams of information they needed to know at the times they needed to know it, in an attempt to not overwhelm them. The learning and mentoring platform integrated with a variety of Learning Record Stores and xAPI course modules.

    Watch this walkthrough of the onboarding and lesson flows.

  5. AdTech dashboards

    One core competency of an AdTech firm is its ability to empower effective spending of client funds. The most well-targeted bang for your buck you can buy, if you will. An ad "campaign" typically runs on behalf of a given product or initiative for a constrained period of time. Believe it or not, large clients typically run their advertising on a "spend structure"– they have $2M to spend advertising a product in Q1, for example.

    Internally, a campaign manager is responsible for the successful burndown of a campaign's funds. They had a problem, though. There was no clear source of truth for detecting when a campaign was falling behind (not spending enough), or getting too far ahead (spending too much, too quickly). I was tasked with providing an internal-facing dashboard that helped campaign managers visualize the flow and timing of their spending structure. My dashboard aggregated many disparate internal sources of data, then exposed a loosely coupled API for interrogating the data.

    Watch below for a quick video demonstrating an early release of the campaign dashboards.