It's me!

Isaiah Schultz

[email protected] github.com/schultzisaiah linkedin.com/in/schultzisaiah

Current Title

Lead Software Engineer
Full-Stack Webapp Developer

Experience

10.3 Years

Specialties

Java, Spring

Unit Testing

Web Services

CD/CI

Oracle/My SQL Relational DBs

Education

B.A. Computer Science

Saint John's University 

Location

Southeast Metro, Twin Cities, MN


About Me

Hi there! So far, I have spent the entirety of my career at FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters company in Eagan, MN. I pride myself in producing quality, maintainable code. Due to my many years of experience in real-world, enterprise codebases — supporting and enhancing (and upgrading) dozens of legacy applications, I favor clear and readable code, rather than fancy, academic, and hyper-efficient code minified to the smallest number of lines possible (for example). Enterprise applications live on for many years, and writing code that's self-documenting and organized for readability saves hours of headaches and keyboard-smashing.

I am also a HUGE advocate of no-merge development environments. I have years of experience with "build-once, deploy-many" applications that completely removes the headaches and opportunities for human error in big-bang code merges when it comes to releases. Because of that, I am also a proponent of properly-versioned API's, use of feature toggles, and the implementation of thorough test-suites. This also opens the door to Continuous Delivery possibilities, increasing the agility of all development teams!

Additionally, I pride myself in being a good leader. I believe that the work I do serves as a good example for those I work with. I enjoy coaching others, and I value providing other developers with knowledge and tools that will allow them to become more self-sufficient and produce higher quality code. While I am enjoying the development side of things, I do have aspirations to soon expand my leadership responsibilities — both technical and personnel. I look forward to opportunities that lead down that career path.

Technical Skills

Ranked by Confidence

Java (up to v1.8)
Spock Groovy-based Unit Testing
Spring frameworks
Web Service / API Development
Agile SDLC
Continuous Delivery development practices
IntelliJ IDE
Oracle/SQL Relational DB
Jira usage and administration
Crucible usage and administration
Git VCS
"RESTful" API design
Jenkins pipeline configuration
Unix Terminal / Bash
Perforce VCS
Python
Non-Spock Groovy syntax
Eclipse IDE
HTML/CSS

Career Experience

April 2021 - Current

Position: Lead Software Engineer - FindLaw Lawyer Directory  Dev Team

Employer: FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters company, Eagan, MN

  • Same team and similar responsibilities as previous position, but promoted from Senior level.
Feb 2019 - April 2021

Position: Senior Software Engineer - FindLaw Lawyer Directory  Dev Team

Employer: FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters company, Eagan, MN

  • Steward the overall health and direction of all applications supporting the lawyers.findlaw.com site.
  • This site is supported by about a dozen different applications.
  • Code best-practices enforced.
  • Code and design reviews completed for most changes to the application.
  • Code coverage required for all code changes (enforced by code review and build-time coverage check).
  • Full build/deploy pipeline implemented (Build, unit test, dev deploy, integration test, qa deploy, etc).
  • Application tech stack:
    • Java (up to 11)
    • Spring/Springboot
    • Tomcat
    • Cloudflare
    • Oracle SQL
    • AppDynamics APM
    • public and private APIs
Sept 2018 - Feb 2019

Position: Senior Software Engineer - Project Dev Team

Employer: FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters company, Eagan, MN

  • Previous position was outsourced to contractors.
  • I was asked to join this particular dev team to fulfill a technical leadership role not fully present previously.
  • Project and team leadership left the company, so I had to assume many of those responsibilities (in addition to my other regular development responsibilities).
  • Identical tech stack to previous positions.
March 2017 - Feb 2019

Position: Application Steward

Employer: FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters company, Eagan, MN

  • I lead a group of 4 developers in charge of the overall health and direction of an application.
  • This application was touched by most projects, and had a large user base.
  • Code best-practices enforced.
  • Code and design reviews completed for most changes to the application.
  • Code coverage required for all code changes (enforced by code review and build-time coverage check).
  • Full build/deploy pipeline implemented (Build, unit test, dev deploy, integration test, qa deploy, etc).
  • Application tech stack:
    • GWT (Java)
    • Integrations with internal and external REST API's
July 2016 - Sept 2018

Position: Senior Software Engineer - Small Enhancements Dev Team

Employer: FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters company, Eagan, MN

  • Promoted from previous position; same team.
  • Continued responsibilities from previous position.
  • Responsible for code/design reviews for the team.
  • Helped mold technical direction of the department (along with other senior/lead developers).
Oct 2013 - July 2016

Position: Software Engineer - Small Enhancements Dev Team

Employer: FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters company, Eagan, MN

  • All non-support and non-project development for FindLaw.
  • Responsible for all ~120 deployed applications
  • Full stack development.
    • Oracle SQL DB layer
    • Spring-based service layer
    • Integrations with 3rd party API's
    • Numerous front-end technologies (many quite dated), including
      • GWT
      • JSP
      • Angular JS
  • Team was very geographically diverse.
    • Navigated multiple unique language barriers:
      • Chinese
      • Indian
      • Belarusian
June 2013 - Oct 2013

Position: Software Engineer - Fulfillment App Team

Employer: FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters company, Eagan, MN

  • Full-time support and enhancements for projects related to internal fulfillment applications.
  • Full stack development.
    • Oracle SQL DB layer
    • NetKernel service layer
    • Google Web Toolkit front end
  • Team was dissolved due to company restructuring.

Ongoing Learning Opportunities

July 2020

Event: AWS Technical Workshops

Sponsor: FindLaw/Thomson Reuters and Amazon

  • 2-day immersive learning, lead by Amazon instructors
  • Key topics:
    • Compute options (EC2, containers)
    • Lambda fuctions
    • Native data solutions
    • Serverless implementations
March 2019 - May 2019

Event: Dojo  Immersive Team Training

Sponsor: FindLaw/Thomson Reuters

  • Successfully applied:
    • 2-day sprints
    • Full team representation and integration
      • development
      • operations
      • database
      • product owners
      • performance
    • Highly-collaborative workspace, accommodating remote team members
      • all-day video conference
      • virtual whiteboarding/brainstorming
      • MS Teams
    • People and results > process and reporting
  • Dojo Master: Kevin Burns  (Agile Coach)
2016, 2017, 2018, 2020

Conference: No Fluff, Just Stuff

Location: Minneapolis, MN

  • Key topics with applied relevance:
    • Spring
    • Java 8 syntax
    • Continuous Delivery Pipelines
    • Unit Testing with Spock
Early 2017

Event: Agile Workshop Series

Sponsor: FindLaw/Thomson Reuters

March 2016 - July 2016

Event: Continuous Delivery Book Club

Sponsor: FindLaw/Thomson Reuters

Aug 2009 - May 2013

Degree: Bachelor of Arts, Computer Science

School: Saint John’s University, Minnesota

Other Work Experience

Aug 2010 - May 2013

Position: Student Supervisor (equivalent to Team Lead)

Employer: Fine Arts Programming, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University, MN

  • Manage a team of 4-8.
  • Supervise the team during live events.
  • Assist my superiors in team performance evals & department policies.
  • Train new employees.
  • Assume all responsibilities of Technical Aid (see description below).

Aug 2009 - Aug 2010

Position: Fine Arts Technical Aid

Employer: Fine Arts Programming, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University, MN

  • Perform Stage Manager role during live events.
  • Work as a team under strict time constraints.
  • Execute independent decision-making given high-level requests from designers.
  • Construct and detail sets and props.
  • Program and operate live sound/light board; setup any necessary equipment.

May 2006 - Aug 2010

Position: Cook/Cashier

Employer: Dairy Queen

  • Face-to-face customer service in a fast-food environment.
  • Handled the preparation of numerous simultaneous orders.
  • Train new employees.

This Website

While I am not a front-end developer (and I don't have desires to become one full-time), this website was completely constructed by me. No templates or wysiwyg tools were used in the implementation of this site. Hosting and registration of this site is also managed by me.