Biff Gaut
8652 Sedley Ct.
Gaithersburg, MD 20879
biff@biffgaut.com
Senior Solutions Architect and Development Manager with over 35 years of hands on experience
architecting, designing and implementing mission critical solutions.
- Expert in AWS Cloud architecture
- Technical Leader for large-scale enterprise and Internet applications, managing teams of up
to
29
developers
- Computerworld-Smithsonian Award for Excellence in Information Technology winner in 1991
(EIS);
finalist in 1999 (NASDAQ SDR)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a leading provider of public cloud services.
- Principal Engineer - Architect and developer for Pythia, a service providing automated
architectural
guidance to customers and AWS employees. Pythia simulates an AWS Solutions Architect by
guiding
the user
through
a scripted conversation and making architectural recommendations based on the responses.
Leader
of AWS
Solutions Constructs, an open source library of CDK L3 constructs enabling AWS customers to
easily
compose
complex, well-architected workloads.
- Certification Technical Architect - Developed processes to improve the quality and accuracy
of
AWS
Certification exams. Created a tool that automatically generated new test questions,
protecting
the
integrity of the exams by ensuring a more dynamic question bank.
- Solutions Architect - Assisted customers in their journey to the cloud. In addition to
collaborating
one on one with customers, spoke at re:Invent and AWS Summits, wrote blog posts, conducted
training, and
served
as Subject Matter Expert for several Certification exams. Co-authored and coordinated the
AWS
Certified
Solutions Architect Official Study Guide.
ScienceWire is a product providing insight into the world of scientific research. A robust data
warehouse combining Publication, Grant and Patent information provides clients with the ability to
evaluate the
effectiveness of research departments; locate experts in scientific fields; and judge the success of
grant funding. Access is provided through custom analytics contracts as well as through an API
allowing
clients to write their own systems to mine the data.
-
Managed the development of the People Catalog initiative, a cutting edge process for
disambiguating over 180 million authors, investigators and inventors across the ScienceWire
database.
This effort relied heavily on the big data processing power of Hadoop.
-
Initiated a complete overhaul of the API, designing and prototyping a new architecture that
allows:
- More technology neutral access through REST and SOAP interfaces
- Simpler versioning of the interfaces, including the ability to easily retire
deprecated
versions
- A simpler vocabulary for the externally facing contract
- Drove the effort to reorganize the development processes of the ScienceWire product,
including
documented processes for tracking analysis, development and signoff.
FINRA is a self-regulatory organization responsible for regulating the securities industry. In
addition to delivering business applications, Senior Architect responsibilities include acting as an
internal
consultant to business teams; presenting to the President and CTO; and promoting shared software
services to
reduce TCO of FINRA technology.
- Led the rearchitecture of an existing .NET, browser-based case management system used by
FINRA
Regulation to track examinations and investigations. While continuing to provide new
business
features,
exposed
all system functionality as services integrated with other FINRA systems both synchronously
through web
services and asynchronously through the Enterprise System Bus.
- Led the design and implementation of a case management system used by the FINRA Dispute
Resolution
department to manage thousands of cases each year. This browser-based internal system is
written
on the
.NET
platform and features AJAX functionality and a custom ORM.
- Architected, designed and implemented a software service allowing the deployment of data
collection forms over the Internet without code using metadata and configuration. This
external
web
application is written
in .NET and makes extensive use of web services to allow interaction with internal FINRA
systems.
- Led the design and implementation of a web based software service allowing online payments
through
credit cards and ACH. This .NET system is architected such that it can be integrated with
other
FINRA
web
applications, including the data collection form platform.
Several independent consulting engagements across the country
- Architecture review of Verizon.com, leading to changes increasing server capacity 500% and
decreasing response time 37% (Dallas, TX)
- Created an architecture for Remember Data Services’ flagship product in .NET. Developed a
Proof of Concept based on composing transactions in a pipeline. (Indianapolis, IN)
Divine provides software and services for enterprise solutions, including XChange, a call center
management system.
-
Implemented several functions including a load balancing thread engine in
C++ for executing server side Visual Basic scripts; and a COM wrapper for the server call
management software, allowing customers to easily write their own client applications in Visual
Basic.
Plural, the 1999 Microsoft Partner of the Year is a Microsoft-focused computer consulting
firm providing project-based application development for a wide range of Fortune 500 clients. In
addition
to nationwide internal training, mentoring and project troubleshooting, built and managed the DC
Advanced
Technology Group. This 10-person group specialized in COM-based enterprise and Internet
applications.
Through
this group, was engaged as manager and developer for over 28 different projects.
- Technical manager, architect and developer for NASDAQ Surveillance Delivery Realtime (SDR)
- an application used by NASDAQ Market Watch to monitor market activity. This application,
distributed
between 9 different servers and dozens of client desktops, monitors and correlates several
data
feeds
and
processes up to 2000 messages a second. Construction involved 29 developers and utilized
MTS,
MSMQ, SQL
Server,
WBEM, MMC Snap-ins, SNMP and DCOM. Since this was one of the first projects that showed
Windows
NT to be
capable
of BackOffice calculations at this volume, Microsoft monitored the progress closely and
published a
whitepaper about the application on its web site. The application was a finalist for the
Smithsonian-Computerworld Award for Excellence in Information Technology.
- Technical manager, architect and developer for NASDAQ Mid-Tier - an application that
monitored NASDAQ data feeds, consolidating transaction information and producing a data feed
of
periodic
reports
to NASDAQ clients on transactions and market state. This project utilized MSMQ, C++, ATL,
SQL
Server and
DCOM
extensively and processed over 2000 messages/second.
- Architect and developer for NASDAQ-Online (design and prototype of the COM architecture) -
a limited access Internet site. This limited access site provides market and corporate
information to a
user
base of 5000 users. Implementation of the design tripled the speed of the site over the
previous
ASP/SQL
Server
only implementation.
- Led a team of 6 people through the design and implementation of the prototype.
Technical manager, architect and developer for Tasmanian Traders - an application written
for and with Microsoft demonstrating the capabilities of the soon to be released Visual
Studio
5.0. This
application was written using pre-Beta software for Microsoft to use in the introduction of
the
Visual
Studio 5.0 at Developer Days '97 and beyond. Led a team of three people through conception,
design and
construction.
- Internal technology leader - authored and delivered internal classes and workshops on many
technology topics at Plural offices across the country; authored the corporate C++ coding
standards;
contributed to the corporate software methodology.
Technology evangelist for firm - spoke at several industry conferences; contributed
chapters to Microsoft Press book on web technology; authored whitepapers.
GeoSystems provided custom built Geographic Information System applications for clients.
- Technical Manager for the New Jersey Transit Travel Information System - an
application that allows users to
calculate and plot routes using the bus and rail system between any two points in New
Jersey. This product was
written in C++ using Motif for the user interface. Accomplishments include supervision
of the overall design; liaison with customer; supervision of data production; and C++
coding.
- Delivered multiple coding features of varying scope to round out the mapping family of
products as well as to support sales, including a multimedia prototype kiosk-based Travel
Information
System
that included music and full motion video. Participated in several oral presentations of
contract
proposals to
prospective clients.
Research Alternatives provided map-based Emergency Management software and services to
state and local jurisdictions as well as private industry. This software would facilitate
communication
and coordination between agencies during times of emergency.
-
Technical Manager, architect and developer for the Emergency Information System (EIS)
- a PC-based, map-oriented database system for emergency management in the public and
private
sectors. EIS is installed in more than 1300 locations world-wide and won the
Computerworld-Smithsonian
Award for Excellence in Information Technology in 1991. It was certified in 21 states as the
official
state-wide Emergency
Management software system. EIS features include: full jurisdictional mapping; complete
multi-user database capabilities; background communications and remote sensor monitoring.
Its plume dispersion
information file format has become an industry standard, supported by four of the top five
plume dispersion
modeling programs in the world.
Responsibilities outside technology included marketing and system demonstrations; user
training
across the United States and the Caribbean; chairing sessions in national conferences;
writing articles
for quarterly newspaper; and managing Technical Support.
B.S. cum laude in Mechanical Engineering with Computer Science Minor
Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA
Microsoft Certified Architect