Jim Conigliaro

About Me

I've been involved in professional software development for about a decade now. My main focus has been on process improvement and best practices. Understanding a programming language is easy, understanding how to best apply your knowledge of the programming language is the challenge.

Management Philosophy

Rely in influence, not authority. If you gain the respect of your staff and can communicate with them as peers you can be far more successful than if you rely on giving direct orders to accomplish your job. Having your staff adopt some best practice or undertake some project because they believe it is a good idea and the right way to go offers far greater long term benefits that can be achieved when your staff is simply following your marching orders. It may take a greater initial investment, but the rewards are outstanding! Honestly, if you consistently need to rely in direct orders to get your job done then someone needs to be fired. It's either you or your employee.

Development Philosophy

Balance theory and practicality. Too often, the focus of software developers is on the mechanics of a language or a particular technology. Without tempering this focus on technology with a good foundation in software engineering theory, your options are limited. Having all the knowledge in the world about a particular technology isn't going to help you if you don't understand how to effectively use that knowledge. That isn't to say that you shouldn't strive to master the technology either. You just need balance. As an example, take a look at my bookshelf. Most of the books focus in (technology agnostic) best practices, with only a few books focused on a specific technology (e.g. C#, ASP.NET, Java, etc.)

Software Engineering

• CMMI
• Development Best Practices
• Object Oriented Design
• Requirements Engineering
• Software Lifecycle Management

Technologies

• Microsoft .NET Framework
  • ASP.NET
  • C#
  • LINQ
  • VB.NET
  • WinForms
• Oracle
• Requirements Engineering
• SQL Server
• Web Technologies
  • CSS
  • DHTML
  • HTML
  • JavaScript
  • XML
  • XSL

Jim Conigliaro

jconigliaro@ieee.org

Experience

2006 - Present | Journal Sentinel, Inc.
Director of Online Operations and Technology

Manages software development department, technical support team, and project management team. Manages and plans capital and expense budgets for entire division. Responsible for the oversight of the development and ongoing operations of all online systems including more than 100 web sites, content management tools and integration with more than 40 external systems.

• Successfully lobbied for replacement of entire content management platform that has subsequently enabled consolidation of web operations across all Journal Communications companies.
• Restructured technical teams and improved efficiency and quality through the introduction of best practices such as the use of source control, deployment scripts, continuous build processes, coding standards, code reviews, and application instrumentation.
• Responsible for division’s compliance to standards such as PCI, COPPA, and CAN-SPAM. Appointed privacy administrator for Journal Sentinel and sister company, Journal Broadcast Group.

1998 - Present (as needed)  | Marquette University
Adjunct Instructor

Prepare course outlines and lectures. Conduct independent study courses. Involved in efforts to bring electrical and computer engineering department up to ABET accreditation standards.

• Courses taught include Software Testing, Internet Applications, Data Visualization, Advanced Switching Theory, Software Engineering, and Computer Hardware Design.
• Personally authored the Introduction to Internet Applications and Data Visualization courses.

2002 - 2006 | Northwoods Software Development, Inc.
Software Development Manager

Responsible for overseeing a team of 18 software engineers and testers working on custom software development for companies such as AIG, Briggs & Stratton, Quarles & Brady, Snap-On, and Medical College of Wisconsin. Primary focus is on process improvement, best practices/quality assurance, and professional development.

• Created and tuned a development paradigm specifically for the way Northwoods runs its business.
• Development time tracking and reporting system/process for accurately tracking project budgets. The focus of the program is to catch projects that have the potential for running astray before too much damage is done.
• Integrated Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server into Northwoods’ processes.

1998 - 2002 | Engage Networks, Inc.
Director of Applied Research and Development

Responsible for managing software development for an industry leader in energy information systems. Manage all phases of the development life cycle. Responsible for all intellectual property (patents, trademarks, etc.) Manage large scale, international projects.

• Successfully transformed product line to the .NET framework in 7 months
• Responsible for all intellectual property (patents, trademarks, etc.)
• Authored formal development and quality assurance practices in the engineering organization.
• Remotely managed a team of 8 engineers in Hungary to develop an analytics application to manage distributed generation resources.

1997 | Rockwell Automation - Advanced Technology Group
Researcher

• Responsible for independent research and development activities. Provide guidance and recommendations to firmware engineers implementing control systems.
• Developed a new filtering topology that optimizes the filter processing speed while reducing the effects of quantization.
• Wrote advanced simulations to test real-life performance of filters.

Education

1996 - 1998 | Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Marquette University

• Specialized in Computational Intelligence
• Thesis: Identification of Alkali Metal Ions Using Acoustic Plate Mode Sensors and Adaptive Network-Based Fuzzy Inference Systems

1992 - 1996 | Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Marquette University

• Specialized in Computer Engineering
• Minor in Mathematics

Publications

• "Hybrid Methodologies for Small Scale Engineering", Proceedings of the International Engineering Management Conference, IEEE 2001.
• Identification of Alkali Metal Ions Using Acoustic Plate Mode Sensors and Adaptive Network-Based Fuzzy Inference Systems, Marquette University, 1998 - Thesis

Patents

• Method for ranking and dispatching electrical generation systems over a computer network 6,801,865. Issued August 4, 2004. A method of dispatching a plurality of electrical generation systems that are controlled by a central monitoring and control system that determines the order in which the distributed generators are deployed based upon several variables, such as maintenance costs, operating costs, and operating performance.
• Meter monitoring and tamper protection system and method, 6,775,594. Issued October 4, 2004. A mechanism for automatically detecting fraudulent tampering with commodity meters using wireless and wired internet protocols.
• Energy information and control system, 6,553,418. Issued April 22, 2003. An energy management system for monitoring and analyzing the power consumption at a plurality of locations.
• Responsible for coordinating the legal activities for Engage Networks’ intellectual property. This includes the development and invention disclosure policies, personally reviewing and/or drafting patents. Interviewed and selected new intellectual property law firm for Engage Networks.

Professional Organizations

• Association of Computing Machinery – 2003 - Present
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1996 - Present
• IEEE Computer Society, 1997 - Present
• IEEE Engineering Management Society, 2000 - Present
• IEEE Standards Association, 2000 – Present
• International Association of Software Architects, 2003 – Present
• Pi Mu Epsilon Mathematics Honor Society, 1995 - Present
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2001 - Present

Research

• Current research involves the use of Bayesian networks for automated document classification.
• Developed method for using naive Bayes classification for identification of authorship of large documents and novels.
• Thesis research involved investigation of the use of neuro-fuzzy systems and acoustic plate mode sensors to identify alkali metal ions and their concentrations in dilute aqueous solutions.