Jud Cole
Jud Cole is a highly skilled technology leader, innovator, strategist, and mentor who loves to solve complex technical challenges and build high quality technology-based solutions.
Jud Cole is a highly skilled technology leader, innovator, strategist, and mentor who loves to solve complex technical challenges and build high quality technology-based solutions.
Summary
I am a highly skilled technology leader, innovator, strategist, and mentor who loves to solve complex technical challenges and lead organizations and teams in creating efficient, high quality, easy to use and maintain technology-based solutions. I am an experienced leader, team builder, and motivator who combines the technical expertise of a software architect with the business and management acumen of a C-level executive.
I optimize return on investment by recommending short and long term technology strategies and leading their implementation in teams and companies of all sizes, specializing in streamlining software development teams and processes while improving their productivity. Although focused on leadership I maintain proficiency in almost 20 programming languages and numerous software platforms and technologies, including cross-platform development and Cloud-based implementations and migrations.Skills
Transformation of business challenges into reliable and scalable solutions
Innovative creator of technology-based strategies and solutions that provide optimal value for an organization and its customers
Visionary and inspirational IT leadership
Enthusiastic driver of organizational, team and personal evolution through team building, empowerment, and mentoring to create a culture of success and achievement
Exceptional results exceeding expectations
Committed goal and result-oriented pioneer of cutting edge techniques and technologies to enhance operational efficiency, reliability and profitability while reducing associated risk
Clear spoken and written communications
Skilled speaker and writer with international and multi-cultural experience in business development, proposal writing, product briefing, public speaking, training, and authoring technical manuals
Far reaching technical expertise
Knowledgeable leader and builder of technical solutions for Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP), Mobile, Web, Desktop and Virtual environments, hosted on Windows, iOS, Android, Linux and MacOS platforms
Technical Expertise
Leadership
Business Development
Management
Mentoring
Strategy
Team Building
Technologies
AJAX, Automated Testing, Autoscaling, Containers, Continuous Delivery (CD), Continuous Integration (CI), Dependency Injection, DevOps, DevSecOps, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Inversion of Control (IoC), Mocking, Multi-Threading, Responsive Design, Serverless Architecture, UML, Unit Testing, User Experience (UX), Virtualization.
Concepts
Agile development, Automation, Cross Platform Architecture, Database Architecture / Design, Design Patterns, Disaster Recovery, Estimation, Hybrid Architecture, Multi-Tier Architecture, n-Tier Architecture, MVC / MVP / MVVM, Object-relational mapping (ORM), PaaS, Profiling, Refactoring, SaaS, SOA.
Programming Languages
Assembler (Intel x86, Motorola 68k), C, C++, C#, CA-Clipper, CSS, Delphi, Groovy, HTML, Java, JavaScript, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, Scala, T-SQL, VB.NET, VBScript, Visual Basic and XML.
Experience
Propio Language Services
VP, Software Engineering Nov 2022 - Nov 2024
Led, built, and mentored the company's Software Engineering (Development, DevOps, and Quality Assurance) teams and their practices, processes, and direction. Worked closely with company leadership and other stakeholders to define, plan, and implement the company's software strategy and roadmap.
- Drove the evaluation and adoption of new and cutting-edge technologies, tools, and techniques to deliver rapid development of feature requests, frequent high quality deliverables, reliable and efficient applications and services, and high customer satisfaction.
- Provided leadership, guidance and mentoring as I grew the software development organization from 8 to 30+ engineers building containerized .NET, JVM, and NodeJS applications, services, and automated test suites on AWS in C#, Java, Typescript, JavaScript, and Python..
- Worked closely with the IT Ops teams in implementing Infrastructure as Code and automation pipelines to help ensure maximum reliability and performance across all products and services.
- Worked closely with the Security and Compliance teams to help ensure a best-in-class security posture across all products and services..
- Participated in Business Development, Acquisition, Client Success, and Client On-boarding efforts across the company.
Amazon
Principal Industry Specialist, Privacy Nov 2020 - June 2022
Helped lead and drive the automation and optimization of the worldwide Privacy and Compliance efforts of the Amazon Privacy team by implementing, executing, and monitoring Privacy by Design principles, policies and practices.
- Worked with software development teams, financial teams, legal teams, and privacy and security specialists across Amazon to define and build automated solutions using both internal and external tools and technologies.
- The key technical partner in successfully achieving the CDO Privacy 2021 S-Team (highest level leadership) goal to perform privacy reviews on 600+ high priority services and onboard them to our DSAR and Data Deletion systems.
- Focused on automation and scalability of privacy auditing and compliance testing tools and their integration with existing security and privacy systems handling DSAR and Data Deletion requests.
- Built the infrastructure and framework for the automated preparation and distribution of code reviews for privacy-related issues using the AWS CDK and open source and commercial tools such as CodeGuru and PMD.
- Drove privacy and security policy adoption measurement and monitoring, roadmap coordination and integration across multiple development teams, risk assessment, gap analysis, and remediation planning.
- Trained and mentored both internal and contract hires on Amazon privacy and security tools, processes and practices.
Code Healer Group
Vice President of Software Engineering Jul 2018 - Nov 2020
Returned to Code Healer Group to provide expert software architecture, development, privacy, security, management, and leadership consulting services to its clients.
Key client contracts:
Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY, USA (Aug 2020 - Oct 2020)
www.hss.edu U.S. #1 in orthopedics 11 years in a row.
- Whole Foods Market, Austin, TX, USA (Jan 2019 - July 2020)
www.wholefoodsmarket.com The world’s leader in natural and organic foods. - Paradigm, Madison, WI, USA (July 2018 - Dec 2018)
www.myparadigm.com Leading technology and services provider for the building products industry.
General Activities:
- Leading and participating in the implementation of comprehensive local and cloud-based DevOps infrastructure using automation and virtualization tools such as Ansible, CloudFormation, Consul, DataDog, Docker, Jenkins, JMeter, Packer, Portainer, Terraform, Vagrant, Vault, VirtualBox, and VMware.
- Architecting and building Hybrid High Availability Multi-Tier applications in Scala, Java, C#, Python and JavaScript deployed to AWS Fargate, EC2 and RDS instances, Glue and Lambda jobs, KMS, S3, Secrets Manager, and other AWS services using CloudFormation templates, PowerShell, and the AWS CLI.
- Driving architecture and participating in the implementation of enhanced privacy and security policies and practices across Cloud-based applications and systems.
- Leading and participating in the implementation of Agile and Scrum driven practices using tools such as GitLab, Atlassian Jira and Confluence for project management, and Jenkins for continuous integration and automated testing and deployment.
- Consulting with customers and partners on Cloud Migration and Multi-Cloud strategies and implementing Agile, DevSecOps, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS principles for the AWS, Azure and GCP platforms.
TASCET
Chief Technology Officer Apr 2016 - Jul 2018
Led and drove the strategic technical direction and architectural vision of the company. Responsible for the design and implementation of the TASCET identity resolution infrastructure, as well as solutions delivery and technology operations management.
- Built the company’s mobile, enterprise strength, FIPS and HIPAA compliant, secure, scalable, Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) solution on AWS EC2 and oversaw its deployment at customer sites in multiple states.
- Managed and mentored the technical team coding applications in Java, Spring, Python, JavaScript, CSS and HTML in Eclipse to run on Apache Tomcat servers and MySQL / MariaDB / SQL Server databases in Docker containers on CentOS servers in both local VMs and on Amazon AWS EC2 using VPCs, Route53 and CloudTrail.
- Implemented a comprehensive local and cloud-based DevOps infrastructure using automation and virtualization tools such as Ansible, Chef, Docker, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Packer, Puppet, Vagrant, VirtualBox, and VMware.
- Led the implementation of Agile and Scrum practices and tools to provide rapid development of feature requests, frequent high-quality deliverables and high customer satisfaction.
Baton
Chief Technology Officer Jan 2015 - Mar 2016
One of 4 co-founders of Baton. Led all aspects of the technology practices and strategy of the company. Provided technical leadership, guidance, and mentoring as I led and actively participated in the design, implementation and deployment of a system enabling aggregation and updating of patient care information in real time by the care team.
Built the company’s mobile, enterprise strength, HIPAA compliant, secure, scalable, cloud based software solution, and oversaw its successful deployment at a number of major East Coast hospitals.
Architected and coded in Groovy, Grails, Java, Objective C, Python, JavaScript, CSS and HTML to run on Apache Tomcat servers and MySQL / MariaDB / SQL Server databases on Ubuntu servers in Amazon AWS VPC clouds.
Implemented comprehensive DevOps-based infrastructure using automation and virtualization tools that include Ansible, Chef, Packer, Puppet, Vagrant, VirtualBox, and VMware.
Attended and graduated from the DreamIT Health Baltimore 2015 startup incubator as one of only six companies that were selected from a list of more than a hundred national and international applicants.
Led the successful implementation of Agile Development and Deployment practices and tools, enabling rapid development of feature requests, frequent high quality deliverables and high customer satisfaction.
Fulcrum
Director, Software Engineering Aug 2010 - Nov 2014
Led the software development practices, strategy and direction of the company’s Civilian division. Provided technical leadership, guidance and mentoring across teams, projects and contracts, and drove the evaluation and adoption of new and cutting-edge technologies, tools and techniques. Actively participated in Business Development efforts across the company.
- Built and led the team that designed and delivered on schedule the tablet-based assessment system for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Technology Based Assessment piloted in 200 schools in 2014, and administered to over 130,000 students across the U.S. in 2015.
- Architected and coded in C#, Java, HTML, Python, JavaScript and CSS built on a Microsoft stack of ASP.NET, MVC, IIS and SQL Server and a mobile stack of Cordova using Angular, Bootstrap, jQuery and other JS frameworks.
- Hired, trained, managed and mentored multiple software development and project managers and their team members.
- Led and participated in teams developing applications in Unity 3D, having personally built the first application from scratch in C# and architected a shared framework library on which the other applications were built.
- Led the successful implementation of Agile Development and CMMI-Dev practices and tools in multiple teams and projects across the company, significantly increasing customer satisfaction and the quality of deliverables.
- Led technical efforts for the winning proposal for the company's largest contract, a $64 million technology contract with the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES).
Chesapeake Capital Corporation
http://www.chesapeakecapital.com
Software Architect May 2007 - Jul 2010
Led all aspects of the in-house and outsourced IT software development, including systems and software development architecture, standards and quality control, and hiring, training and managing of in-house and outsourced staff. Reported directly to the Chief Operating Officer.
- Transformed the disparate IT software development efforts into a scalable and reliable, enterprise-ready, suite of software applications and development and operating environments.
- Architected and coded in C#, Visual Basic, HTML, PHP, Python, JavaScript and CSS on a Microsoft stack of ASP.NET, MVC, IIS and SQL Server.
- Championed and led the introduction and successfully implementation of formal SDLC, coding and testing standards, techniques and processes, and a range of automated build and deployment tools.
- Led and oversaw the in-house and outsourced software development teams, including internal and external software development and project managers.
- Pioneered the use of virtualized Development, Test and QA environments isolated from production.
Code Healer Group
https://www.codehealer.com/
Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Dec 1999 - Apr 2007
Co-founded the Code Healer Group to build software development tools that improved the quality and performance of software developers' source code. Led the management and implementation of all the technology related aspects of the company strategy and direction, and co-architected its business strategy.
- Led the creation and development of commercial software development tools such as CodeHealer, a source code analysis and verification tool used by developers around the globe.
- Architected and coded in Java, C#, Object Pascal, Assembler, HTML, JavaScript, CSS and others on a variety of technologies and operating systems that included Apple, Borland, Microsoft and other open source software.
- Liaised with customers, partners, vendors, and distributors to maximize the knowledge, information and viewpoints on which strategy and implementation decisions were made.
- Oversaw software development consulting, troubleshooting and training services.
- Administrator for DUnit, an Open Source unit testing tool for Delphi with more than 10,000 regular users.
- Presented at software development conferences and user groups across North America and Europe.
Blink, Inc.
President and Software Architect Feb 1990 - Sep 1999
Co-founded Blink, Inc. to build performance enhancing software development tools that improved software developer productivity by simplifying complex tasks. Led the management and implementation of all the technology related aspects of the company strategy and direction, and co-architected its business strategy.
- Grew the company to 25+ people in 3 locations in the USA and the UK, supporting over 50,000 customers throughout the world, and liaising with customers, vendors, distributors and other business contacts.
- Led the creation of commercial software development tools, including Blinker, an award winning Linker and DOS Extender, DeltaPatch, a file comparison and patching utility, and Shrinker, a Windows .EXE compression tool.
- Hired, trained, managed and mentored multiple software development and project managers and their team members.
- Architected and coded in Assembler, C, C++ and other languages on Windows, DOS and other OSs.
- Liaised with customers, vendors, distributors and other business contacts to maximize the knowledge, information and viewpoints on which strategy and implementation decisions were made.
- Presented at software development conferences and user groups throughout the world, including North America, Europe, Australia, Brazil, South America, and Asia.
- Received Data Based Advisor Readers Choice Awards annually for 5 years, and a Jolt (Computer Language Magazine) Productivity Award for Blinker.
IBM
Systems Engineer
Joined IBM as one of the first employees of the PC Division of IBM South Africa.
- Prepared and presented technical courses throughout Southern Africa on each new IBM PC product announcement, including the IBM PC, XT, AT and network (PC and Token Ring) hardware and software.
- Trained IBM employees, customers and PC dealerships on selling and supporting the PC products, and helped provide technical support to them and their customers.
- Consulted at a number of large IBM mainframe clients on PC related matters.
- Presented technical overviews of major product announcements at conferences.
- Programmed in-house systems in Intel Assembly language, FORTRAN, Turbo-Pascal and CA-Clipper.
- Achieved the job title of full IBM SE in less than three years.
- Drove the evaluation and adoption of new and cutting-edge technologies, tools, and techniques to deliver rapid development of feature requests, frequent high quality deliverables, reliable and efficient applications and services, and high customer satisfaction.
Recommendations
Jud was/is of immeasurable value to any company that has the pleasure of working with him.
He has a great ability to lead whilst bolstering his team's strengths, and mentoring through its weaknesses.
Amongst the best managers I have worked for and with, he manages projects with great attention to detail in regards to product and customer, but above all else he completely understands all the technical aspects of the projects that many seem to lack. His technical background and expertise in a plethora of programming languages and philosophies, spanning programming architecture, project management, and team/resource management make him truly unique and valuable in an industry of PMP's with little technical knowledge.
I personally found Jud to be one of the best manager's I have ever worked with. My respect for his knowledge surpasses most in the industry. Very few could be as trustworthy as he, with any projects they might have. It would be a pleasure to find myself mentored under his wing again.— Jeremy Batts —
Jud is a STAR. There is nothing that he can't solve & does it all with the perfected British composure of a master software engineer. Jud is THE inspiration for anyone who wants to learn what it is to “Lead by Example”. I know he will be a success at everything he does and I look forward to working with him in the future!— Amy Schippers —
Jud is one of the best managers I have ever worked with. He is affable and funny, but grasps both the technical and political aspects of any project easily and with full clarity. He taught me everything I know about the Agile methodology and is a joy to work with. If I were starting up my own tech firm, he'd be among the first of my contacts I'd bribe to join me.— Gregory Anderson —
Education
Imperial College London
Computer Science, BSc (Eng) Hons
Repeatedly rated 3rd in Europe and 8th in the world in the Times Higher World University Rankings, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research. Imperial provides world-class scholarship, education and research in science, engineering, management and medicine.
Activities: Student member of both Chaps Club and Links Club (invitation only sports and social clubs).Other achievements
- Tested into Mensa (High IQ Society)
- Ran the Johannesburg Marathon
- Lived and worked on 4 continents
- Graduated IBM Sales School
- Completed Karrass Effective Negotiating course
- Attained US Public Trust security clearance
Contact me!