Hey there! 👋 My name is Tobias Davis.
Even in this AI-hype driven world software is written by people and for people, and I believe that the bigger problems in software systems aren’t technical–they come about because of things like poor communication, unclear vision, and poor work culture.
Understanding the human element of software systems has opened my eyes to things like the importance and complexity of knowledge sharing within teams, and the importance of having a long term vision for any software service.
Currently I’m working with Ford (the big vehicle company) helping build systems that optimize electric vehicle charging.
In the past I worked with From Now On as the system architect and engineering lead, designing a backend architecture that handled over 80 mobile apps, with each app having as many as tens of thousands of sport fans getting real-time stat updates and game notifications.
While at From Now On, I was the lead architect and engineer for a large migration of system architecture, which dramatically decreased server load, allowing the company to drastically reduce costs while also scaling up the number of clients they could support.
I also planned and executed a large ~2 year migration project, taking a backend+frontend CMS from Jade (now called Pug) to Svelte. This migration, along with many architectural changes, allowed them to significantly lower the cost of feature development and ongoing maintenance.
Some personal things about me:
- I want to understand your real needs and desires. I focus on building things that bring you concrete, measurable value.
- I love training and mentoring people and teams in best practices. Knowing and implementing the right things saves money, and makes it possible to easily add new features.
- My goal is always complete satisfaction: if you aren’t happy, I’m definitely not happy.
Here are some things I’ve done for other clients in the past:
- Refactoring and re-designing old servers and webapp systems to have fewer embarrassing defects, while still allowing for faster development of new features.
- Building and maintaining digital content management systems, sold to high-touch clients.
- Designing analytical tools for inspecting high-value, large data sets used in the financial sector.
- Internal system monitoring tools, to keep critical systems up and running.
- Security review of applications, to verify architecture and design were following industry best-practice.
Bullet point overview of my career in software:
- Software architect specializing in the AWS serverless stack since early 2018.
- Full-stack JavaScript developer since mid-2016, building APIs and web apps used by high-touch clients.
- Full-stack developer focusing in Java and AngularJS early 2012 through mid-2016, building and maintaining business web applications used by over a million users.
- Started writing a lot of open source software in mid 2010.
- Professional web developer in early 2010, mostly creating and maintaining WordPress websites.
- Amateur website designer and programmer since ~2002.