Jim Christopher
Data, Analytics, Software, and Technology
Forward-thinking software and data engineer with 22 years of professional experience across highly-regulated industries including commercial software, defense, and education. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Adept research and analytical skills. Award-winning teacher and avid speaker. Seven-time Microsoft MVP. Small business owner.
Profiles
https://github.com/beefarino
https://twitter.com/beefarino
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-christopher-3344462
Contact
Websitehttp://beefycode.com
Emailjim.christopher@gmail.com
Phone980.322.9231
Experience & Outcomes
2020 - Present
Senior Director of Learning Sciences
Lead a tactical team of designers, analysts, and data scientists to promote learning best-practices in Pluralsight learning experiences. Construct data signals to instrument cognitive and teaching concepts in content. Embed with product teams to advocate for learner personas.
  • Close $5M in revenue through white-glove service aligning learning with business outcomes for enterprise customers.
  • Raise profit by $200,000 per year using GPT-3 technologies to replace error-ridden manual content indexing tasks.
  • Develop in-house Learning Science literacy curriculum for product, technology, and content production staff.
  • Automate data pipelines and reporting to support analysts and data scientists.
2020 - Present
Owner / Author
Write and self-publish novels. Build a list of readers and subscribers. Market and promote my work and others.
  • Publish four novels in two years.
  • Win first place in the Bookfest awards (2022 best supernatural thriller)
  • Finalist in the 2020 American Fiction Awards
  • Automate data pipelines to enable business dashboards to track subscriber growth, marketing, costs, works in progress, etc.
2014 - 2020
Director of Curriculum
Forecast Data Professional library needs and identify authors appropriate to fill these needs. Curate course proposals and author auditions. Resolve quality and technical issues in course content. Mentor course authors to improve the learning experience from their courses. Develop curriculum for general learning, certifications, and customer-specific training requirements.
  • Direct planning and operations for the most cost-effective segment of the Pluralsight content library.
  • Grow data author NPS by 7%, reduced time to data course production by 17%, and increased throughput of author contracts by 22% through tractible data-driven processes of curriculum planning.
  • Support data-driven role and skill planning using web scraping, data mining, natural language processing, and machine learning.
  • Develop in-house data literacy curriculum for Content teams.
Yarn, Hooks, & Love Silly LLC https://www.etsy.com/shop/YarnHooksNLoveSilly
2017 - Present
Crafter & Proprieter
Design and sales of custom crochet pieces that incorporate electronics, biosensors, programming, and mathematics.
  • Create the ChainOneTurn application to translate images into filet and colorwork crochet patterns.
Code Owls, LLC
2009 - Present
Owner
Provide contracted software engineering, data engineering, and project management services across highly regulated industries, including gaming, defense, and education.
  • Reduce expenses of a large school district by 1.2 million dollars by implementing a cloud-based answer sheet processing system, allowing the district to use inexpensive commodity scanners.
  • Release the open source p2f framework, which Microsoft now includes as part of the code base for PowerShell and Azure Cloud Shell. (https://github.com/PowerShell/SHiPS/blob/development/docs/Design.md)
PokerTek, Inc http://pokertek.com
2005 - 2010
Senior Software Engineer
Implemented software and services to support automated poker tables and poker rooms. Research and development. SCM, build master, and Scrum master.
  • Reduced time and cost of regulatory approval cycles through implementation of data-driven documentation and static code analysis systems.
  • Designed and developed enterprise application security and file integrity systems, including line-of-sight and monitoring of real-time status in accordance with regulatory demands.
  • Increased automated functional testing coverage to 80% of observed human behavior using a domain-specific language for describing poker room activity.
LearningStation, Inc
2002 - 2005
Senior Integration Engineer
Integrated systems across various education platforms and architectures. Created and managed a SAML-based identity federation service.
  • Eliminated 37% of all support incidents through automated data audits.
  • Implemented line-of-sight into data integration systems to support 99.9% uptime SLAs with external vendors.
Convey Systems, Inc
2000 - 2002
Software Developer
Developed browser-based communication and collaboration software.
  • Added 4.2 hours of average productivity per developer per week by automating software component documentation efforts.
  • Reduced response time for support incidents by 15 minutes through centralized real-time logging.
Breault Research Organization http://bro.com
1997 - 1999
Windows & Internet Software Developer
Created Internet-aware application components to support industry-leading optical engineering software.
  • Improved resolution rate of support team by 26% using Internet-enabled application support modules.
  • Increased website traffic by 112% though the application of data-driven behavior analysis.
  • Maintained a Secret clearance.
Volunteer
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools https://www.wearecms.com/
2008 - Present
Volunteer
Provide teaching assistance, in-class mentoring, technology application, and fundraising
Habitat for Humanity https://www.habitat.org/
2011 - Present
Carpenter, Framer
Build houses for families in need.
2007 - Present
Organizer
Fund and organize local PowerShell user group activities.
Education
University of Arizona - Cognitive Psychology
Masters
GPA: 4.0
Trinity University - Cognitive Psychology
Bachelors
GPA: 3.7
Skills
Data Analytics & Visualization (Intermediate)
  • Python
  • SQL
  • pandas
  • notebooks
  • statistics
  • scikit-learn
  • NLTK
  • spaCy
  • D3
  • Tableau
  • Power BI
Data Engineering (Intermediate)
  • PostgreSQL
  • BigQuery
  • SQL Server
  • MariaDB
  • MongoDB
  • neo4j
  • SQL
  • Cypher
  • Knime
  • Orange3
Software Development (Advanced)
  • Python
  • SQL
  • C#
  • .NET
  • C++
  • Javascript
  • git
Web Development (Intermediate)
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Javascript
  • D3
Scripting & Automation (Advanced)
  • No/Low-code Automation Platforms
  • PowerShell
  • Python
  • Javascript
  • Automation Design
  • API Design and Development
Interests
Tiny Houses
  • construction
  • off-grid living
Fiction Writing
  • novels
Music
  • guitar
  • ukelele
  • live concerts