David Cramer's Blog

David Cramer

An energetic Web Developer specializing in intuitive and innovative web applications with extensive experience in user-centric development built on rich database driven-backends. I love open source.

Summary of Qualifications

• Proven knowledge in Search Engine Optimization and Marketing; extensive experience with Google’s search rankings.
• Skilled in Object-Oriented Development and the MVC architecture.
• Passionate about web development standards and best practices.
• Driven to deliver functional, polished applications using the latest technologies.
• Demonstrated understanding of the development cycle ranging from proof of concept, implementation, unit testing, and deployment.
• Proficient in building frontend applications with cross-browser support and working around their quirks; Opera, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer (6/7).
• Able to manage a small team and work around communication barriers.

Technical Expertise

Languages

Python, PHP, JavaScript, CSS

Databases

MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Riak

Frameworks

Django, Flask, jQuery

Concepts

OOD, Unit, Module, and Systems Testing, Obfuscation, Synchronization, Internationalization, Full-text Search, Browser and System-level Caching, XSS, OpenID, REST/SOAP, JSON, SEO/SEM, AJAX

Professional Experience

• May 2010 - Present
  San Francisco, CA

  DISQUS

  Software Engineer

  Building cool shit, like Search, API, etc.

• February 2008 - May 2010

  iBegin

  Managed and developed numerous projects both in PHP and Python. Handle all DBA work and server configuration for project releases.

  • Built and deployed large Django infrastructure across multiple installation sites.
  • Maintained and optimized large MySQL database.
  • Launched several open source projects, such as wp-lifestream, iBox, and Share.
• July 2006 - February 2008
  San Francisco, CA

  Curse, Inc

  Lead Developer

  Developed and maintained Python architecture for a user-centric web 2.0 website network. Managed projects for a small team of individuals with different nationalities, while being completely hands-on in most development. Continually analyzed and worked around bottlenecks using the Django platform under a LAMP architecture.

  • Made initial switch from the PHP architecture to Django and Python.
  • Created core JavaScript libraries for building dynamic elements.
  • Built core systems for tagging, rating, and interacting with pluggable content modules.
  • Performance tuned Django framework and website platform to reach in excess of 250 requests/second (600,000+ pages an hour).
  • Developed open-source components for interacting with Sphinx full-text search engine and memcache in-memory cache.
  • Assisted in deploying MySQL master/slave architecture.
  • Created all initial frontend code following CSS 2.0, XHTML 1.0, Accessibility standards.
• March 2005 - May 2006

  Enthropia, Inc.

  Consultant

  Worked remotely doing backend and frontend development for paying clients. Created several applications and enhancements for company owned websites.

  • Converted designs into compliant CSS/XHTML webpages.
  • Developed tools to help a viral marketing campaign.
• March 2005 - May 2006

  MMOGuru

  Rebuilt a core network site, WoWGuru, to revamp its convert its original limited scope to an innovative platform with a wide range of services for gamers. Learned and practiced search engine optimization techniques to increase site traffic by almost 6000% over the course of one year. Did minor work on other network sites such as integrating vBulletin into a central cms system.

  • Developed several tools to datamine and collect information from the game World of Warcraft.
  • Created an open-source database for the client-side database in World of Warcraft.
  • Developed dozens of user-centric community tools, ranging from articles and file downloads, to image and video hosting.
  • Managed most community and viral marketing to encourage site growth.
  • Created all frontend components, and most design for the website