Paul Matthews
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SUMMARY
An accomplished technologist, programmer, curriculum developer, and educator. Passionate about solving any problems related to technology or technology education. Looking to continue deepening my existing technical skills and use those experiences as a way to continue empowering fellow technologists.
SKILLS
Programming
- Python
- Flask
- FastAPI
- Django
- Java
- Spring
- Node
- Express
- Component Based JavaScript Frameworks
- React
- Angular
- Rust
- Rocket
- C#
- Git
- Advocate of Coding Best Practices
Operations
- Linux
- Debian
- CentOS
- Arch
- Currently running Pop_OS and Manjaro on my personal machines
- Cloud Computing
- Most experienced with AWS
- AWS services: EC2, S3, IAM, VPC, SG, RDS, ELB, ECS, AWS CLI
- Azure services: VM, Key-Vault, SG, Azure CLI
- Most experienced with AWS
- CI/CD
- Jenkins
- Travis CI
- Docker
- Scripting
- Bash
- Powershell
- Python
- Node
Education
- Curriculum design
- Curriculum development
- Course instruction of classes of all sizes
- Course staff management and mentoring
- Student mentoring
- Student success tracking
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
Project Management
- Project research
- Project scoping
- Timeline management
- Agile preference. If you aren’t having retros, you aren’t learning!
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
LaunchCode
All titles in reverse chronological order.
Director of Technical Training
Work with LaunchCode partnered companies to assess technical needs and design/build/teach curriculum to up-skill partnered company employees.
Major Projects
Current Project: General DevOps Modules, collection of DevOps topics of interest to LaunchCode partner companies. The Linux module is in the pilot stage. A program introducing major Linux concepts. Upon completing the course students will have a deep enough understanding of Linux to adequately deploy web products to a local Linux distribution. This program is the first of a few programs that when linked together will create a full introduction to DevOps.
CodeCamp Instructor: Taught the pre-existing Introduction to Web Development & Java Web Development courses over 15 weeks full-time. All 31 students passed the course and were able to effectively work as entry level developers. Program was performed for Comcast in an opportunity to up-skill Comcast employees that had served as Service Technicians, or in Customer Service. In addition to student success, I also managed 3 Teaching Assistants to reach the large number of students effectively.
Microsoft Azure: 3 week full-time program introducing REST, Bash & Powershell scripting, introduces various Azure cloud services, and basic ops-level troubleshooting. Program designed for Microsoft to introduce new hires to necessary tools to be used in their roles as SREs.
GIS DevOps: 13 week full-time program introducing DevOps and various GIS tooling. Program designed and run for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. I also served as the instructor for 5 of the 7 cohorts personally teaching over 50 students. The course covers basics of web development in Java/Spring, HTML/CSS and JS, NPM, OpenLayers, RESTful API design, unit testing, integration testing, TDD, Elasticsearch, Swagger, code linting, 12 Factor Apps, basic cloud deployments using AWS, Gradle, CI/CD with Jenkins, Docker, specific GIS tools, and more. It’s just a massive class that covers tons of topics and is focused on building projects using the tools mentioned.
Education Program Developer
Work as a general member of the Education team to create high quality curriculum to meet the needs of LaunchCode general learners.
Major Projects
Liftoff: Designed, built and taught an 8 week part-time program preparing students for technical interviews and strategies for continuing their technical education to better prepare for tech jobs. Program was built for graduates of the general LaunchCode Education programs as a way to bridge the gap between course end and starting a job in tech. The program has been incorporated into the standard process for general LaunchCode Education programs.
Candidate Engagement Manager
Evaluate and coach potential LaunchCode apprenticeship candidates and manage ongoing general education programs. I was the first person hired into this role and established the mold for the position.
- Conducted over 1000 LaunchCode candidate interviews to determine candidate readiness for an apprenticeship at LaunchCode partner companies.
- Redesigned candidate evaluation including interview script and new tech screen questions.
- Established the process of candidate coaching, eventually resulting in the Liftoff program listed above.
- LC101 Instructor: 20 week part-time introduction to programming curriculum similar to the CodeCamp program listed above. However, the older LC101 curriculum taught Python/Flask instead of JavaScript as the introductory language.
EDUCATION
University of Missouri St. Louis - B.A. Psychology 2015
I thoroughly enjoyed my time at UMSL. Originally my goal of going back to school after working as a programmer was twofold - to complete a bachelor’s degree and to build knowledge/skills around successfully performing interviews.
At the time my career aspirations were to combine my technical skills with my soft skills to work towards a solution many companies face evaluating and hiring tech talent. At the time my dream job was to work as a technical interviewer. Someone that could combine technical knowledge and skills with human resource knowledge and skills to more effectively evaluate candidates for technical positions. I was able to work towards a realization of this goal in my time at LaunchCode.
Linn State Technical College - A.A.S Computer Programming 2011
Linn State is where I originally began my formal education in tech. I had a smattering of classes on programming and I learned a lot. However, I would say what I learned at LSTC has been far eclipsed in my time working as a professional programmer and in my time at LaunchCode.
School name changed to State Technical College of Missouri in 2014.
CODING PROJECTS
Personal Website
This website! It will eventually become a place I can share personal projects that are not related to my professional dealings. For now it holds my resume and ways to get in touch with me. I look forward to updating this site with additional projects as I am constantly progressing with my own learning journey!
Links
Technologies
- Hugo
- markdown
- small amount of Go & Go templates
- HTML/CSS
- JavaScript
- Caddy
- DigitalOcean
Explore Blog
A learning through exploration blog. I learn best by doing and create more effective curriculum when I have projects to share with students. My Explore Blog contain copy on various coding projects and the concepts & skills I learned along the way.
Overtime I will add more topics, but the first was the pylogger (GitHub repo) project. It’s a simple keystroke logger I built in Python using the pynput library.
Links
Technologies
The content is created with Hugo so it’s a similar stack to my personal website.
The content of the blog highlights many different skills as I continue on my own personal learning journey.
Random Data Generator & API
A random data generator and API for providing datasets to learners.
Links
- Live Swagger Docs
- Request JSON of randomly generated User data
- API GitHub Repo
- Generator GitHub Repo
Technologies
- Python
- Poetry
- FastAPI
- Faker
- Caddy
- Uvicorn
- OpenAPI Spec
Expense Tracker
A project I put together after designing and building Liftoff. The project was intended to serve as a guide for Liftoff students as they begin working on their own personal projects. I chose a tech stack I had little experience with and built a project similar in nature to what graduates are expected to build. My colleague and partner on the Liftoff program also built a project. We documented our journeys as a guide for students.
Links
Technologies
- Rust
- Rocket
- Diesel
- Tera Templates
- MySQL
GIS DevOps Final Project
The project took various forms through the evolution of the program. The majority of the graduates built a version of the project using MVC (Zika Spring MVC). In the final cohort my co-instructor and I adapted the project to be discrete front end (Zika Client) and back end (Mapnotes API) projects while adding functionality.
Links
- Zika Spring MVC Github repo
- Zika Client Github repo
- Mapnotes API Github repo
- Project Requirements for students
Technologies
- Java
- Spring
- HTML/CSS
- JavaScript
- OpenLayers
- PSQL
- Elasticsearch
- Docker
- AWS
- S3
- EC2
- RDS
- many more
- CI/CD
- Jenkins
DREAM JOB
I have an interest in many jobs related to technology and technical education. However, I am currently fascinated by a unique combination of my skills.
In combining my technical skills (coding/Devops), with curriculum development, and teaching I can offer a unique service in the form of a teaching technologist.