Ars Utilica

Web Project Engineering & Engagement Management

Knights of Columbus (2014–2018)

Contracted as Lead Web Engineer and Engagement Manager with Knights of Columbus, a Connecticut-based insurance and fraternal service organization, for a multi-year, organization wide series of multilingual responsive redesign projects.

As Lead Web Engineer:

  • Centered on AngularJS as the core web application framework
  • Modeled business logic from insurance and asset management stakeholders to implement UI for web-based financial calculators;
  • Implemented a Test-Driven Development / Behaviour-Driven Design standard for all projects using the AngularJS project ecosystem for unit testing (Karma and Jasmine) and end-to-end testing (Protractor);
  • Performed peer code reviews for all projects and processed Git pull requests.

For Development Operations:

  • Implemented a Node.js-based development environment with build automation for all projects using Grunt and Gulp;
  • provided bash-scripted release artifacts for eventual integration into the organization’s TeamSite instance;
  • Integrated the organization’s GitHub repositories with Sauce Labs and Travis CI to provide an automated cross-browser testing and build process;
  • Developed a system of per-feature and per-release deployments to Heroku for client acceptance testing and staging for all projects;
  • Provided wiki-based documentation for all project repositories to facilitate onboarding for new developers and enhance overall product shelf life.

As Engagement Manager:

  • Facilitated Agile process for project and sprint planning and daily work for a 100% remote development team;
  • Represented developers in thrice-weekly client meetings;
  • Traveled to client headquarters for periodic in-person work sessions;
  • Provisioned and administered a Jira instance to implement issue tracking, project & sprint planning, customized workflows, and GitHub integration.

This design of KofC.org was live from 2015 through 2019. The AngularJS codebase from this period is still in production use.

Knights of Columbus homepage (2018) Knights of Columbus insurance calculator
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