Backgrounder
Currently..
I’m a Product Development manager for a social media startup in Toronto. Most of my days are in atypical startup style flipping hats between managing direction of the application, ensuring the team gets what they need, and getting down and dirty with some Rails and developing parts of the application.
Previously
I’ve been in the game for 10+ years, through many various roles. Starting on the very ground floor, the basement of the IT world - tech support. Then, after the hard yards and a good number of years, to the lofty heights of a globe trotting Business Analyst before deciding I really liked this web business.
Taking the experience I learned from a solid business background, I applied it to my love for problem solving and got stuck into development - I’ve now settled somewhat in my niche of being the guy that can analyse and build a system from start to finish. From either a 10′000ft design level and managing a team, vision and direction. Or down in the nuts and bolts, coding. Getting it right and returning an end to end working system.
Key Experience
2+ years: Ruby on Rails
4+ years: PHP/MySQL
6+ years: Project Management
8+ years: Business Analysis
Specific Technologies
Frameworks: Rails, Merb, Flex, Symfony
Languages: Ruby, PHP, C#.NET, ASP, Actionscript (AS1/2/3), Javascript, VBA
Testing: RSpec, PHPUnit, SimpleTest
Webservers/app servers: Apache, Mongrel, SCGI, IIS
DBMS: MySQL, SQL Server, Firebird/Interbase
Front end: Flash/HTML/CSS
OS: CentOS, Debian, Suse, OS X, Netware, Windows
Work History
2007 - present: Product Development Manager for a startup in Toronto (Canada)
2006 - 2007: Web applications developer/analyst & team lead at The Strategic Coach (Canada)
2005 - present: Web application developer / manager at Fastmount Ltd (New Zealand / Canada)
2005 - 2006: Web Applications Developer; Soft Tech NZ Ltd (New Zealand)
2005 - 2006: Director; Nerds Inc (New Zealand)
2004 - 2005: Web Developer; PDF Communications LTD (New Zealand)
1996 - 2004: Project Manager, Senior Business Analyst, Business Analyst, Quality Assurance, Tech Support; Soft Tech NZ Ltd (New Zealand)
Contact: rowan (dot) hick (some symbol that looks like an a) gmail (dot) com
