About Me

My Story

Hi! My name is Joshua Alfred Erney. I'm a software developer (among other things) currently based out of Denver, CO. Welcome to my blog!

I created site so that I would have a place for sharing my thoughts and experiences, with the primary goal of helping others who are living similar experiences. I actually didn't start writing in any meaningful sense until not too long ago. When I was younger, I used to spend hours at a time writing short stories when I grew bored of playing video games. However, as my studies became more interesting and I became engrossed with computer programming, my writing went by the wayside. Writing code became much more exciting to me. I could write a program that writes (horrible and incoherent) stories for me. After I grew more comfortable in the technical aspects of my vocation, I turned to helping others, and as I did that, I started to ask myself how I could efficiently help the most amount of people succeed in the field I was working in. This, in combination with being inspired by the writings of Paul Graham (Hackers and Painters, On Lisp), Joel Spolsky (Joel on Software), and Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror), lead me to writing again.

What I do here might be considered technical writing. But I'm not really comfortable saying that technical writing is something that I'm passionate about. Since I began software development, my interests around it have grown from purely "how to do x in Javascript", to the study of programming languages, programming paradigms, management around software teams, training and education, community building, marketing, and the business as whole. I tend to look at programming through all of these lenses in some way or another, and I belive that gives me a valuable perspective when it comes to my writing. Programs don't and shouldn't live in isolation from the people and communities that build them and use them. There need to be people who help bridge that gap. That's what I'm here for.


In case you're curious, below is more or less my resume, and here's my LinkedIn.

Knowledge/Skills/Accomplishments

Education

James Madison University - Harrisonburg, Virginia - Graduated May '13
Bachelor of Science - Integrated Science and Technology
Minor - Computer Science

Activities

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society JMU Chapter – 2011 to 2014

  • President, Apr 2013 - May 2014
  • Treasurer, Aug 2012 - Apr 2013

Publications

“Designed-for-Motivation based Learning for Large Multidisciplinary Team One Semester Hands-On Network Based Course Case Study”
ASEE Conference Paper, March 2013

Blog - https://jerney.io

Certifications

  • Mulesoft: MCD Integration and API Associate (Expired)
  • Amazon Web Services: AWS Certified Developer - Associate Level
  • Red Hat: Red Hat Delivery Specialist - Enterprise Messaging with JBoss A-MQ
  • Red Hat: Red Hat Delivery Specialist - Middleware Integration Services

Speaking Engagements

Acknowledgements / Accolades

Technical Overview

Programming Languages: Java, Swift, Python, JavaScript, DataWeave, Lua, PHP, SQL, LISP
Programming Paradigms: Object Oriented, Functional, Prototypal
Developer Tools: Git, Maven, Docker, Eclipse, Anypoint Studio, Atlassian tools (JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket)
Mobile App Developement: iOS
Integration/Cloud Tools: MuleSoft Products, AWS, Kong API Gateway
Project Analysis: Requirements gathering, User Interface Design, API Design, Data Modeling
Operating Systems: OS X, Windows 7/10, Unix (Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS)
Computer Networking: Network Analysis, Troubleshooting (Wireshark), Virtualization (VMware Workstation, VirtualBox, GNS3), Network Programming, TCP/IP Networks, HTTP(S)
Web Development: HTML, CSS, MySQL, Laravel, Ruby on Rails
Misc: Working in multidisciplinary teams (2 – 20 people), Laboratory Skills, Report and Technical Documentation Writing, lifelong learner


Work Experience

Mountain State Software Solutions (Nov 2015 - Present)

Integration Engineer, Solutions Architect, Team Lead

  • General:

    • Communicate technical and non-technical concepts to client developers and corporate stakeholders of various levels of technical knowledge and ability
    • Integrate billing systems, IT asset management software, medical information, inventory systems, customer relation systems
    • Implement Pull Request model with BitBucket
    • Learn, teach, and adhere to GitFlows branching model
    • Utilize Atlassian Suite (JIRA, Confluence, BitBucket) to organize development procedures and documentation
    • Custom logging solutions via Log4j2
    • Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) solutions
    • Extensive experience training junior Mulesoft resources in application integration, Java programming best practices and OO design, database design, DataWeave transformations, functional programming concepts, API design, and unit testing
    • Systems analysis and recommendations for improvements
  • Integration- and Mule-Related Experience:

    • Utilize Mulesoft products CloudHub, Anypoint, and Mule ESB to deliver scalable integration solutions to various customers.
      Analyze, test, and develop understanding of existing applications and data flows
    • Create and enforce coding and design standards (API governance) for MuleSoft projects
    • Experience with integrating Oracle, MySQL, ServiceNow, and SalesForce applications
    • CloudHub Insights
    • API, data type, trait, etc. modeling with RAML v0.8 and v1.0
    • Deploy and analyze application performance using CloudHub
    • Unit testing with MUnit
    • Anypoint Platform API Manager
    • Mule infrastructure setup and configuration involving ESB servers, API Gateway Servers, reverse proxy servers, Anypoint Runtime Manger, load balancing, secure communication, and caching via Redis
    • Implementing APIs based on existing standards (i.e. FHIR spec)
  • Clients

    • US Army (Sr. Consultant)
    • Kaplan (Solutions Architect)
    • Washington University in St Louis (Solutions Architect)
    • Ameren Corporation (Sr. Consultant)
    • Mt Sinai (Sr. Consultant)
    • ABC Supply Co., Inc. (Sr. Consultant)
    • Sungard Availability Services (Jr. Consultant)

CGI Federal (Jun 2014 - Nov 2015)

Technical Analyst

  • Work with a partially remote team of three developers and a business analyst to gather requirements from a remote EPA team
  • System and user interface design, data modeling, planning the testing and implementation of updates to the CEDRI system

Spottercharts (August 2012 - November 2014)

Web App Developer

  • Port application to deliever graphical football statistics for NCAA and NFL announcers (i.e. spottercharts) from Wordpress to Laravel. Then later from Laravel to Ruby on Rails.