Blake Kelley

About Me

You won't find your average tech nerd here. I build web applications for a living, but when I'm away from the keyboard you'll catch me spraying dirt on my motorcycles, shredding on a jet ski, or pedaling through trails on a bike. I'm organized, detail-oriented, and fully invested in whatever I'm working on, and I spend plenty of time sharpening my skills, both technical and otherwise. Hard problems don't deter me. They're what pull me in. And I'm not afraid to ask for help or pull in the right resources when it'll get the job done better. Take a look around to see where I've been and what I've built.

Discovery

Resume

LinkedIn

GitHub

Blog

Skills

AWS, Serverless

Main cloud computing platform that I am familiar with. Experience includes IAM, Cognito, Route 53, CloudFront, Lambda, API Gateway, S3.

Developed our applications using the Serverless framework for simplicity of configuration and deployment.

Node.js, TypeScript, React/Redux, Vue, Material UI, Express, Bulma, Vitest, Mocha, Chai, Jest

Primary development stack used at IdeaRoom and Versabuilt.

At Versabuilt I built a product, Robot2CNC, utilizing a Raspberry Pi to create an application for communication between a robot and a CNC machine using a user interface, REST API, or text-based API.

ASP.NET MVC with C#, LINQ, Razor, HTML, CSS, JavaScript/jQuery, Telerik Tools

The main stack that I developed web applications in for WhiteCloud and Relias. I have created and maintained several major applications for both internal and customer use. The functionality of these applications ranged from data entry, data load, and data management to user creation and management.

SQL - SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, TypeORM

My team managed St. Luke's data warehouse as well as our own application databases. I created and maintained databases, tables, views, and stored procedures on a daily basis.

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery

Experience creating CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps, Bamboo and Octopus Deploy, Travis CI, CircleCI, AppVeyor, and Heroku.

Microsoft BI Stack: SSMS, SSIS, SSAS, SSRS

I worked as a BI Developer for some time at WhiteCloud where I worked with the Microsoft BI stack on a day-to-day basis.

Docker

I've used Docker, specifically Docker Compose, in several projects to run Node, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and PGAdmin services for development and testing.

PowerShell

I've used PowerShell to automate processes such as downloading files from a SharePoint site or FTP, and to automate local development machine setup by downloading necessary files and building and deploying projects.

Java, C

Most of my Java and C programming comes from school and I do not have much real-world experience.

WordPress/PHP

Built and maintain a couple of local business websites: the local motorcycle club website Owyhee Motorcycle Club and StoreyTails LLC.

Python

I began learning Python to help automate processes for work and my own enjoyment, such as Raspberry Pi projects.

Business Intelligence Markup Language (BIML)

BIML is an XML dialect used to write business intelligence solutions. Combined with BimlScript (C# nuggets embedded in Biml), we were able to turn our SQL Server ETL packages into dynamic and modular files based on templates, allowing changes to be applied across multiple packages with a single change. This simplified and sped up the development process.

Experience

IdeaRoom

Software Engineer
Aug 2020 - Present

Working with a highly skilled group of developers on a 3D configurator application to create the most effective, delightful buying and selling experiences for customized products.

  • Lead a CRM application team, driving roadmap, technical direction, and code quality across both product and infrastructure work
  • Engineer on a 3D configurator serving 700+ clients and over 500K monthly users
  • Designed and built a TypeScript-based incremental sync system for Aurora MySQL that mirrors 14 production tables to staging using watermark tracking, topological FK ordering, and batched upserts
  • Architected AWS IAM roles, Secrets Manager policies, and API Gateway domain management to support multi-tenant SST deployments
  • Built an internal onboarding tool that streamlines new client setup and configuration data management
  • Partner with project management on scoping and sequencing new implementations, infrastructure work, and feature priorities

Horsin' Around

Founder / Developer
2019 - Present

Founded and built Horsin' Around, a platform for managing equestrian events and tracking competitive riders. The site gives organizers tools to run shows and gives riders a way to compete, follow their horses' performance, and find events.

  • Designed and developed the platform end-to-end, including architecture, infrastructure, UI, and data model
  • Built event management tools for organizers to create and manage series, events, and classes with customizable rules and settings
  • Implemented a real-time scoring and timing system used live during competitions
  • Created rider and horse profiles for tracking competition history and performance over time
  • Shipped event discovery and registration so riders can find and enter local shows

Contractor - Blue Cross of Idaho

Programmer Analyst
Feb 2020 - Aug 2020

Working on the Data Integrations and Delivery team focused on providing clients with up-to-date billing data.

  • Creating custom data integrations and delivery applications for clients given specific business logic
  • Templatizing generic inbound and outbound project applications
  • Helped automate build and deployment of databases using SQL Server Data Tools

Versabuilt Robotics

Software Engineer
Jan 2019 - Oct 2019

Worked on a small team of developers focused around providing robot-automated CNC solutions to manufacturers worldwide.

  • Developed a product, Robot2CNC, utilizing a Raspberry Pi to bridge the communication of various robots with a variety of CNC machines over Serial or Ethernet IP
  • Created a user interface, REST API, and text-based API to communicate with the Robot2CNC for ease of use and versatility
  • Responsible for helping with the release of the latest software for the main company product VBX160
  • Improved drivers for controlling robots and CNC machines

WhiteCloud Analytics - A Relias Company

Software Engineer
May 2017 - Jan 2019

In May of 2017 WhiteCloud Analytics was acquired by Relias (formerly Relias Learning). With this change came new opportunity to move around in the company. I moved to a team that was responsible for creating a Common Data Platform which would be the central hub for loading, housing, maintaining, and reporting for all analytics applications. On the team I worked on creating a web application that would allow for other developers to create metrics in a fraction of the time. I also helped create and maintain the automated build and deploy using Bamboo and Octopus. Created automated scripts for quickly setting up or restoring to a fresh state on the servers as well as local development machines. Used BIML and BimlScript to convert the existing load packages into dynamic and modular script files. This allowed existing packages and any new packages to be created using a simple configuration file.

  • Developer on a team responsible for creating the architecture used to load, store, maintain, and report on all analytics data across multiple clients
  • Designed and implemented an ASP.NET MVC application used to create and maintain healthcare metrics
  • Developed and maintained the team's automated build and deploy using Bamboo and Octopus
  • Created automated setup scripts for servers and local machines

WhiteCloud Analytics

Solutions Architect / Scrum Master / Mentor
Dec 2014 - May 2017

Following a year-and-a-half internship with WhiteCloud, I was offered a full-time position on the Research team. My team worked directly with St. Luke's Health System, taking feedback on what type of problems they were trying to solve and quickly creating applications focused around achieving outcomes. I worked directly on an application focused around improving the quality of care provided to patients. I started taking over this application as an intern and fully led it by the time I was hired full-time. From there I focused much of my time automating the data load, cleaning up the database, and rewriting application code for reusability so that I could focus on other endeavors. The question of Single Sign-On was brought up in an effort to reduce user support by members of our team. In order for this to be possible, I needed to move our applications to a framework that could support SSO. I took the lead on recreating our front-end application with ASP.NET MVC. Having no knowledge of the MVC framework or SSO, I took the initiative to learn what I needed to accomplish this task. I then joined a team focused on creating a platform for loading, processing, and maintaining the various healthcare organizations' data.

  • Lead developer responsible for the introduction and implementation of ASP.NET MVC web applications for internal use as well as client interaction
  • Implemented Single Sign-On for all of our applications using St. Luke's Health System's ADFS system as our IDP, eliminating maintenance of user passwords
  • Created simple API endpoints for use by other applications to retrieve data
  • Designed and implemented the data Extraction, Transformation, and Load (ETL) and data mart structures for various applications
  • Developed enterprise-wide automated validation across production applications
  • Adopted the Agile methodology to collaborate with clients to gather requirements, design a Proof of Concept, implement a development environment for User Acceptance Testing, and deploy to Production
  • Responsible for building, supporting, and troubleshooting data issues within complex ETLs, stored procedures, MDX and SQL queries
  • Worked closely with Project Manager and client to ensure timely, successful implementations
  • Collaborated with various members of the team

WhiteCloud Analytics

Intern
Jun 2013 - Dec 2014

After a couple of years of school I started looking around for an internship at a tech company and came across WhiteCloud, a small startup in downtown Boise. Upon applying I was able to secure a position where I began taking on simple tasks of fixing bugs, adding minor updates, and taking over data loads. When the need arose for a front-end ASP.NET VB application to be taken over, updated, and maintained, I eagerly stepped up to the task. This was my first non-CMS website and I was able to take it from a basic web page that displayed the current user's list of applications and expand it to add administrative functionality. The application allowed the creation of users, which would create the user in Active Directory, add them to the appropriate groups, and update the information in the database.

  • Maintained complex applications through data load, ETL, development, and production
  • Implemented a customer-facing ASP.NET application to display user applications and manage user access
  • Provided user support to hospital customers utilizing WhiteCloud applications

Flynn's Saddle Shop

Web Administrator
Feb 2008 - Jun 2013

I began my first official work experience at a small tack shop in Boise, where I started out working in the back room loading grain bags for customers, running the forklift, and stocking shelves. After some time I began running the register and helping with orders. Once comfortable with that, I expressed interest in helping out with their outdated website. After getting comfortable with the existing website and getting it up to date, I led the process of migrating the website over to WordPress for easier maintenance. This was my first real exposure to websites and helped me learn a great deal… mostly the hard way.

  • Created and designed the company's WordPress e-commerce website
  • Maintained website content and inventory
  • Managed the company's brand development to increase sales
  • Increased website traffic growth using SEO

Education

I attended Boise State University in pursuit of a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and accomplished my goal in December 2014.