Alexander Tomic, B.Math

 

Career Objective

I am interested in applying my extensive experience in database and systems design towards interesting projects that push the limits of technology. I am currently located in Toronto and open to travelling for work, but have no desire to relocate anywhere else at this time.

Blog

http://www.tomictech.com/

Summary

* Over 9 years of experience with database development, design and maintenance in a wide range of environments

* Proficient in server-side programming and debugging with Java, Perl and PHP

* Capable leader of development teams, able to mentor and guide junior developers

* Extensive database design and architecture experience with DB2 UDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Access, and Oracle

* Extremely capable in data analysis, including statistical techniques such as regression, clustering, prediction and other data mining methods using systems such as Splus/R, IBM Intelligent Miner, SAS and custom-built tools

* Over 10 years of programming experience for a diverse range of purposes, from low-level graphics programming in C/C++ to user-interface development with Java and Visual Basic

* Native English speaker with excellent written and verbal communications skills

* Spoken languages: English (native), Serbo-Croat (fluent), German, French, Japanese, Russian (basic)

* Capable writer of technical documentation

 

Computer Skills

 

Frameworks/Middleware Java/J2EE: Spring MVC, JMS, Hibernate Annotations/Core PHP: Symfony Database Systems: MySQL, IBM DB2 (Certified DBA), Essbase/DB2OLAP, Oracle, Access, PostgreSQL, Notes, SQL Server Database Programming: Java JDBC, PHP, Perl DBI, Visual Basic ADO/DAO, PL/SQL, OLAP	Scripting Languages: Perl, bash, ksh Development Environments: Eclipse, Websphere Application Developer 5, MS Visual Studio 6 Statistical/Mathematical Systems: SAS, SPlus, R, Matlab, IBM Intelligent Miner for Data/Text	Operating Systems Windows NT/2K/XP/2003, Linux (RHEL/CentOS/Fedora, Suse, Gentoo, Ubuntu), Solaris, AIX, HP-UX Office Productivity: MS Office suite (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, VB for Applications), Lotus Notes, OLE Automation, OpenOffice.org Networking Linux, Windows TCP/IP networking

Experience

Database Consultant, Thought Convergence (Los Angeles, CA) April 2008 - March 2008

• Systems, database and infrastructure consultant.

• Maintenance and tuning of several hundred MySQL databases across multiple colos

• Lead development of Pentaho Data Integration/Kettle-based (Java) ETL process for new data warehouse

• Redesign of fraud ETL pipeline leading to over 10x improvements in processing efficiency

• Provide advice on tuning PHP and SQL for optimal database and system performance

 

Senior Database Architect, Adconion Media Group (Santa Monica, CA) July 2007 – April 2008

Accomplishments:

• Lead team of three in responding to the needs of a highly data-intensive organization

• Daily network traffic ranged from 150-300 million impressions / day resulting in 75-150GB raw data / day

• Led development of MySQL back-end for real-time financial and behavioural tracking systems with 20 minute delay

• Managed development of new 2TB PostgreSQL-based data warehouse

• Use of Kettle as primary ETL tool

• Spring-based J2EE application for controlling various aspects of update and maintenance process

• Responsible for implementation of Rallydev-based scrum development methodology for entire development team of 15 people

• Maintained legacy MySQL-based reporting systems

 

Database Architect, Gifts.com/IAC Interactive, Inc. (Los Angeles, CA) May 2006 – July 2007

Accomplishments:

• Primary architect and administrator for cluster of databases driving the online gifting service Gifts.com

• Maintained a series of high-availability master/slave pairs used by J2EE application

• Oversaw migration from MySQL 4.0 to 5.0 of all database systems with negligible downtime

• Deployed Fedora Core 5 Xen virtualization test environment on commodity hardware for minimal cost

• Greatly enhanced development team’s ability to test changes with a wide scope such as architectural changes

• Enhanced database architecture to support product feeds of up to 1 million products with minimal system impact

• Deployed and architected project to open up nearly 3 million products to SEO and SEM traffic

• Contributed to DAO layers of main Java/Spring application to  process complex product exclusion rules

• Deployed Pentaho/Mondrian-based OLAP tool for financial and traffic analyis (open source Java/JSP-based OLAP tool)

• Wrote perl scripts for administrative tasks: log parsing, database performance testing and monitoring

• Assisted development of Lucene 2.0 prototype for product indexing and analysis

OLAP Developer/DBA, BMO Financial Group (Toronto, ON, Canada) Aug 2005 – Jan 2006

Accomplishments:

• Member of development team deploying large (>100gb), multi-partition Essbase OLAP cubes to finance user community

• Deployed and maintained large (50gb) MySQL datamart for departmental use

• Responsible for analysing trends and patterns in data to allow for efficient multi-dimensional database design

• Developed ETL process for data movement from DB2 warehouse to local MySQL datamart and Essbase cubes

• Developed web-based, relational-OLAP front-end to local datamart using Open Source tools Mondrian/JPivot

• Deployed and maintained departmental XMPP/Jabber Instant-Messaging server to improve internal communication

 

Software Developer, IBM Canada, Ltd. (Markham, ON, Canada) March 2004 – July 2005

Accomplishments:

• Level 2 defect support analyst, handling customer problems and questions for DB2 UDB tooling and applications

  • Includes customer applications written in C/C++, Java, Visual Basic, Cobol, and IBM-supplied tools

• Level 2.5 Specialisation in debugging problems with Java-based applications and stored procedures in all languages

• Extensive C/C++/Java debugging and code analysis across multiple components of DB2

• Responsible for interfacing between customer and DB2 development organization

• Developed prototype for large-scale clustering tool for customer problems:

  • Tool geared primarily towards determining similarity between new and existing documents in knowledge-base

  • Designed to improve analyst productivity with numerous other possible applications

  • Built with custom Perl scripts, Java stored procedures and DB2 back-end

• Developed Java/Swing tool to improve trace file readability and improve analyst productivity when debugging problems

• Developed R-based tool to statistically model flow of customer problems to optimize staffing and improve operations

 

Environment and Tools:

Operating systems: AIX, Linux, Windows, Solaris, HP-UX
Tools: DB2 UDB v7.2, v8.1, v8.2, Websphere Application Developer 5.1, Eclipse 3.0

 

Database Administrator, BMO Institute for Learning (Toronto, ON, Canada) Aug-Sep 2002, Aug 2003-Mar 2004

Accomplishments:

• Performed reporting gap analysis as part of a database migration; developed new reports based on resulting requirements

• Enhanced existing database structure to improve efficiency and capability of reporting

• Building on improved structure of database, created MSOLAP-based front-ends in Excel linking to external databases to significantly enhance speed and effectiveness of analysis

• Developed various Excel-based macros to help improve efficiency of business processes

Environment and Tools:
Microsoft Access 97/2000, Excel (with VBA), Oracle 9i , Crystal Reports 9, MSOLAP, Windows NT/2K

 

 

Data/Text Mining Programmer, IBM Deutschland Entw. GmbH (Böblingen, Germany) Jan – April 2002

IBM Canada Ltd. (Markahm, ON, Canada) May – Sept 2001

Accomplishments:

• Developed a web-based statistical system for prediction and categorization of business rules based on highly unstructured text logs

• System components custom-built using Perl, Java and DB2, including:

• Program to replicate daily a large database without installing any cumbersome software on the server machine. Target database contained over 250,000 text documents and 6GB of data

• Programs to efficiently perform regular expression matching on these documents through the use of Perl and the Perl DBI (database interface)

• Perl tools to produce statistical models based on data generated by the expression matching tools

• Tuned DB2 data warehouse of over 6gb of data through effective use of indexing and table structure

• Developed Perl-based CGI web front-end for analysis of data, including Java applets for visualization purposes

• Used IBM tools to perform associations and clustering mining based on data created by the above-mentioned tools

Environment and Tools:

DB2 UDB 7.1, Perl, Java, Windows 2000, Lotus Notes, Intelligent Miner for Data/Text

 

Programmer/Analyst, AGF Management Ltd. (Toronto, ON, Canada) Jan – Aug 2000

Accomplishments:

• Developed Access application to streamline analysis of nightly batch process, helping to quickly identify problems areas and improve efficiency

• Created, analysed and optimised existing SQL*Plus reports, PL/SQL and Korn shell code

• Wrote Perl programs to validate and process large flat data files to ensure compliance with standards

• Created Access application using OLE Automation to index documents on multiple drives and help reduce redundancy

• Wrote Excel VBA scripts for numerical analysis purposes

Environment and Tools:

Oracle 7/8i, SQL*Plus, PL/SQL, Perl, Linux, DC/OS (Unix), Excel, Access, OLE Automation, Windows 98

 

Database Administrator, Del Management Solutions, Inc. (North York, ON, Canada) May - Sept 1999

• Lead member of project to migrate data managed in various Excel documents to a relational Access database

• Wrote Excel VBA scripts to clense data for population in Access database, drastically reducing manual effort required

 

IT Support Clerk, Ontario Realty Corporation (Toronto, ON, Canada) June - Sept 1998

• Provided on-site technical support services for office staff such as network and desktop machi

 

Education

 

University of Waterloo (Waterloo, ON, Canada)

Bachelor of Mathematics, Mathematical Sciences, Honours Co-op

• Options in Computer Science (10 Courses), Statistics (9 courses), Pure Mathematics (4 courses)

• Strong business component with 7 courses in economics, business, accounting and finance

 

Volunteer Work

 

CAP AIDS – Canada Africa Partnership for AIDS (Toronto, ON, Canada) 2006

• Lead member of Young Professionals Committee charged with raising HIV/AIDS awareness among young professionals

• Assessed migration of existing website to open-source content management system like Mambo or OpenCms

• Assisting with event-planning and promotion

 

 

References available upon request