James McMahon

James McMahon

Versatile product focused software engineer. Full time nerd.

Open Source

Given a choice, I would love all my work to be open source. Luckily I've had the opportunity to do some open source professional work in addition to my personal projects.

  • Entitas 2D Roguelike

    A ground up rewrite of the Unity 2D Roguelike Tutorial redesigned to use the Entity component system (ECS) architectural pattern.

    I created this project as a proof of concept to see if ECS style games were a good fit for my work. Turns out they were and I ended up using this style of architecture in I, Falling Robot.

  • MachO

    A Ruby library for parsing Apple's Mach-O binaries.

    Used by the Skillz internally to id iOS binaries. I expanded and cleaned up this lib from an existing project and incorporated it into the Skillz Rails backend.

  • OpenBEL Cytoscape Plugin

    A plugin for the Cytoscape biological data visualizer.

    This is a tool I developed to give scientists a clear view of OpenBEL data. OpenBEL is Linux foundation backed open standard for sharing biological data.

Games

Simply put, I love games. There are a large reason that I got into programming in the first place. In 2016 I fulfilled a life long dream and started my own game company.

I, Falling Robot

I, Falling Robot is a simple original mobile game that I designed and developed. I wanted to build something that took advantage of the natural input of modern smartphones, so the game uses the accelerometer coupled with tap and swipe motions for input.

BackBreaker 2: Tournament Edition

When Skillz partnered with Zynga we wanted to put our best foot forward and release a custom version of their successful BackBreaker titles. I was asked to take on the BackBreaker codebase and redesign it for competitive online play. This involved creating new game modes, introducing dynamic difficulty and redesigning the UI.

Sadly as of August 2016, this project is no longer available on the App Store due to circumstances beyond my control.

Resume

Experience

  • 2019 to 2021 Consulting Software Developer Focused Labs

    Software Consultancy

    Stack / Tools: Typescript, Kotlin, Spring Boot, Firebase, Vue.js, React, Kubernetes, CDK

    First engineer at boutique software consultancy.

    • Responsible for establishing/building development practices and culture with founders.
    • Combined modern development practice with DevOps, with a high emphasis on testing, repeatability, and configuration as code.
    • Grew the development team through recruiting and interviewing.
    • Worked with startup companies to build software core to their business.
    • Consulted as both a high-level technology advisor (CTO) and implementor, building modern software and infrastructure.
    • Products include: analytics-driven HR platform, web-based email client, cutting edge real-time collaboration application, and green energy-based transportation platform with integrations to major car companies.
  • 2018 to 2019 Staff Software Engineer Consultant Pivotal Labs

    Software Consultancy

    Stack / Tools: Java, Kotlin, Typescript, Spring Boot, React, Cloud Foundry

    In addition to the senior position's responsibilities below, I was promoted to this role to reflect my growing influence beyond the product team to an office level.

    • Grew Pivotal and client development practices by leading and organizing talks and events.
    • Mentored junior developers from both client organizations and internal to Pivotal.
    • Collaborated with the US Air Force Kessel Run program to bring cutting edge development practices to the US military.
    • Continued to represent and lead development practices in cross-discipline teams.
  • 2016 to 2018 Senior Software Engineer Consultant Pivotal Labs

    Software Consultancy

    Stack / Tools: Java, Kotlin, Typescript, Spring Boot, React, Angular, Cloud Foundry

    Lead teams of Pivotal / client developers to build business-critical products using XP development practices (TDD, Pair Programming, CI/CD) in a highly collaborative environment.

    • Collaborated with cross-discipline teams (PM, Design, and Dev) to deliver Lean products to market quickly, often releasing multiple times a day.
    • Mentored client developers on development and delivery practices to enable them to bring change to practices in larger client organizations.
    • Leveraged Pivotal Cloud Foundry to enable modern rapid release practices.
    • Responsible for rapid delivery of products and quality of codebases.
    • Work ranged from Green Field applications to modernization of monolithic legacy applications to modern microservices.
    • Would switch product teams every 6 - 9 months to spread expertise.
    • Clients include: HCSC (Blue Cross Blue Shields), Rocket Mortgage, Aon, Discover, and Vizient.
  • 2015 to Present Indie Game Developer Lucid Dream Party

    Game Company

    Stack / Tools: C#, Unity

    Developed and released an original multi-platform mobile game, I, Falling Robot.

  • 2014 to 2015 Senior Integrations Engineer Skillz

    Tournament System and Monetization Platform for Mobile Games

    Stack / Tools: Ruby, Objective-C, C#, C++, Java, Unity

    Took over customer-facing integrations role and worked with the business stakeholders to improve and launch games on the Skillz platform.

    • Lead technical contact for business-critical partners and customers.
    • Worked with large game publishers, including Glu and Zynga, to get them integrated and launched.
    • Responsible for shipping numerous games on the Skillz platform. See LinkedIn profile for a partial list.
  • 2013 to 2014 Full Stack Engineer Skillz

    Tournament System and Monetization Platform for Mobile Games

    Stack / Tools: Groovy, Ruby, Rails, Grails, MySQL, Mongo, Git

    Joined Skillz pre-launch as the fifth engineer and played a crucial part in building out core technology for launch and subsequent funding rounds.

    • Backend engineer for central Grails-based tournament system.
    • Scaled server code and infrastructure to handle growing customer base.
    • Established AWS-based servers and initial operations infrastructure.
  • 2010 to 2013 Platform Developer Selventa

    Biotech Services

    Stack / Tools: Java, Javascript, Python, Spring, JPA, MySQL, Mongo, SVN, Git, Tomcat, JSF, ExtJS

    Worked with a team of developers to enhance and develop a biological data analysis platform for major pharmaceutical companies and in-house researchers. Duties evolved from enhancements of the previous platform to leading development on a new platform, and working on the Linux Foundation backed OpenBEL project.

  • 2007 to 2010 Software Developer Boston Financial Data Systems

    Financial Services

    Stack / Tools: Java, Microsoft SQL Server, JSP, SVN, Tomcat, Spring MVC

    Collaborated across departments to build custom solutions that solved a diverse set of problems.

References

References available on request.

Education

Bachelor of Computer Science at Bridgewater State University.