Jim Winstead Jr.

Summary

A software engineer with over 20 years of experience in businesses ranging in size from a small local retailer to a Fortune 500 technology company, including two startups. An active and long-time contributor to open source communities including Linux, PHP, Apache, Perl, and MySQL. Fueled by a passion for technology and fostering community.

Work Experience

• Imperial Dog, Inc.

  Staff Software Engineer

  September 2015 — Present
  • Built an open-source POS and e-commerce system in PHP, MySQL, and Javascript with unique integrations into vendor systems and features driven by hands-on experience with retail sales.
  • Contributed to open-source project ArchiveBox, built with Python: improved web scraping and content parsing, upgraded to the latest stable version of Django, and expanded test suite.

• Raw Materials Art Supplies

  CEO & President

  May 2008 — December 2023

  Co-founded the premier independent art materials retailer in downtown Los Angeles with annual sales over $750k annually. Developed processes for business operation, grew staff to a peak of seven employees, oversaw relocation to a new location that doubled the footprint of the store, and revived the store from a closure of more than one year due to COVID-19. Became an expert in art materials, buying, and small business administration.

• Oracle Corporation

  Senior Software Developer

  January 2006 — June 2010

  Worked with Python and Ruby open-source connectors to ensure compatibility with latest MySQL authentication system. Took over development of Connector/ODBC, working with the build engineering team to re-engineer the release and testing process, which then enabled creating the long-overdue next major version with support for Unicode encoding. Worked on separating Connector/C from the server code base and creating a release and testing process.

• blo.gs

  Founder

  December 2002 — June 2005

  Started a web service that grew to track updates on over twelve million blogs, had over ten thousand users, and passed along data in streaming XML format to about ten other blog-related web services and search engines. Developed tools to filter out and manage spam and other malicious content. Acquired by Yahoo.

• MySQL AB

  Maintenance Engineer

  January 2005 — January 2006

  Joined the server software development team as a maintenance engineer focused on bug fixing and other cleanups and closed over 400 bugs. Worked to integrate a new storage engine, Falcon, into the MySQL server (work was later abandoned).

• MySQL AB

  Lead Web Programmer

  June 2002 — January 2005

  Led web development team of programmers and external contractors for company's public web presence and internal tools, including two major redesigns of the main public site. Built and maintained the public bug tracking system for all products and the mailing lists infrastructure and web interface.

• HomePage.com

  Senior Software Engineer

  July 1998 — October 2000

  Led team of programmers in developing a brandable free website hosting service using the Apache web server and mod_perl. Developed a dynamic HTML and Perl-based page editing platform for user-generated content. Integrated the service with third-party web applications and APIs (such as webmail, news headlines, and statistics processing) and customer websites (including ICQ.com, About.com, and AltaVista.com). Developed trust & safety tools to aid customer service team in finding and eliminating spam and other unwanted content. Worked closely with the system administration staff in diagnosing and fixing problems (hardware, software, and network related), including debugging a critical NFS failure in Linux.

• Knowledge Adventure

  Lead Programmer

  March 1997 — November 1998

  Lead programmer on Dr. Brain Thinking Games: IQ Adventure. Led team of four programmers in implementing an isometric adventure game for kids with an online multiplayer component in C++ on Microsoft Windows.

• Knowledge Adventure

  Internet Programmer

  September 1996 — March 1997

  Helped specify and implement redesign of corporate website including web-based games, an online encyclopedia for kids, and an online store in Perl and PHP.

• Knowledge Adventure

  Applications Programmer

  June 1995 — September 1996

  Responsibilities included programming for Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair using a proprietary multimedia scripting language and C++. Developed asset pipeline tools and was primarily responsible for creating test and release builds.

• Octel Communications Corporation

  Intern

  Fall 1994 — May 1995

  Designed and prototyped software in Visual Basic to aid in the translation of voice mail prompting system into foreign languages based on both existing system software and systems under development at Octel. (Part of the HMC CS Clinic program.)

• Harvey Mudd College , Office of College Relations

  Intern

  May 1993 — June 1995

  Responsibilities included editing, designing, and writing for major campus publications. Developed prototypes of online versions of campus publications including the course catalog.

• Harvey Mudd College , Dpeartment of Humanities and Social Sciences

  Student Teacher

  January 1994 — May 1995

  Assisted beginning students in a multi-image production course. Responsibilities included giving classroom and individual instruction, helping to develop the course syllabus, administration of Macintosh systems, and processing color, black and white, and lithographic slide film.

• Star Payphones, Inc.

  Programmer

  September 1989 — November 1994

  Implemented small office network using LANtastic, developed database applications in FoxPro (DOS and Windows), and integrated a variety of communications programs for use in data collection and transmission.

Education

• Harvey Mudd College

  Bachelor of Science, Computer Science

  1991 — 1995

  Course work included UNIX system administration, operating systems, networking, software engineering, computer graphics, computer architecture, programming languages, algorithms, and scientific computing.

Professional Affiliations

• Apache Software Foundation, Emeritus Member.
• PHP Group, Member.