Dan Howe

Nov 2017 - Now
MXstore

Led and mentored senior software engineering team, overseeing the development of custom purchasing and inventory management software for Australia's largest action sports and motocross retailer. Contributed to the company's growth from a modest scale-up to a major Gold Coast employer with 150+ employees.

Key Achievements

• Transformed order-by-order picking into a cluster system, handling 15,000+ units/day, greatly reducing walking and picking time, enabling business growth without added resources. Pick app built on React Native platform.
• Designed and implemented a migration from AWS EC2 to Kubernetes on Google Cloud, streamlining deployments and saving $150k in infrastructure costs.
• Replaced static inventory management system with FIFO (first-in, first-out) tracking for all inventory, enabling historical inventory value tracking, the ability to synchronise retail adjustments with cost adjustments, and versatile categorisation and reporting.
• Automated data extraction and transformation from MySQL databases and company spreadsheets into Google BigQuery data warehouse, eliminating the need for costly ETL solutions. Provided general data consulting, offering SQL mentoring and guidance on data warehouse structures.
• Built data warehousing and BI capability for Financial Management team for COGS and revenue analysis.
• Performing ongoing data structuring, cleaning and validation of existing data sources for use in BI visualisation and to help inform improvements to in-house software development.
• Leading a team of engineers as Engineering Manager and Agile Product Owner.

Tech:

 Kubernetes   Laravel   MySQL   BigQuery   Vue.js   React Native 

2007 - 2011
Weatherzone (Fairfax Media)

At Weatherzone I developed numerous products that continue to be marketable successes for the business to this day, in addition to streamlining various internal software processes.

Key Achievements

• Developed Weatherzone iPhone app, achieving the number 1 position in the Australian App store weather category. Built in Objective-C utilizing Weatherzone's XML API.
• Consolidated multiple custom client interfaces into a single client-customizable website, creating Weatherzone Pro, the flagship product in Weatherzone's business sector. Developed using Ruby on Rails, the company's first venture into the platform.
• (As meteorologist) forecasted weather conditions using numerical weather prediction models, satellite and radar data. Provided live weather broadcasts to radio stations and made briefings during shift changeovers (worked on a 16 hour shift roster).

Tech:

 Ruby on Rails   C/Objective-C   Perl 

Bachelor Of Science (Mathematics), Western Sydney University

• 6.2 GPA - Graduated with Distinction.
• Dean's merit list (top 10%) 2001, 2002, 2003. Ranked first in cohort for Statistical Methods.

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

• Gold Coast father of two, fitness/running/cycling, sustainability, urbanism and permaculture enthusiast. Ran GC half marathon in 2023, aiming for the full 42 in 2024! Strava
• Open source / Free Software enthusiast. I've made various open source contributions, including the caching layer in the Laravel Framework. First open source contribution made in 2004 (Rosegarden Midi Sequencer).