Consulting Work
Building A New Search Engine With Elasticsearch
When asked by a large client in the food service distribution space to build a new e-Commerce search engine, I guided a cross-functional team in developing a search strategy, pillars of focus, and a roadmap for delivering via Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery. I focused on coaching team members and stakeholders that good search is Relevant, Responsive, Fast, and Intuitive.
In addition, I emphasized that:
Search is never done; the goal is to iterate and make things better -- not perfect
There is no silver bullet for Search
Every change/adjustment comes with its own tradeoff
Search changes should be small, subtle changes for users
Fail fast; Don't be afraid to try something quickly and then throw it away if it doesn't work
Listen to what our customers’ actions are telling us
What is right for Google, or Amazon, or Walmart might not be what is right for our users and their search use cases
The team implemented Elasticsearch and began turning on analyzers, boosting fields to adjust our relevance score, and adding functionality such as:
Natural Language Search Queries
Typeahead / Autosuggest
Fuzziness / Spelling Forgiveness
40+ Filters and Facets
Proprietary Brand Boosting
Synonym / Thesaurus Libraries
The result was a Search experience providing a balance of both Precision and Recall, allowing users across multiple languages to find relevant results quickly, easily, and without learning specific semantics or rules for our system.
Guiding The Shift To The Cloud
At Kin + Carta, I helped clients shift to services such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Pivotal Cloud foundry. I led teams in gathering requirements and making these shifts so my clients could be successful.
Transforming Digital At A Large Food Service Distributor
I was an instrumental part of a team of 60+ that helped a large food service distributor transform from long-lead time waterfall style software development to agile development to CI/CD.
Philanthropy, Diversity, and Corporate Social Responsibility
As part of my contributions to Kin + Carta, I was part of a committee to help define and drive Kin + Carta’s efforts in the areas of Philanthropy, Diversity, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Our committee helped define what each of these areas mean to Kin + Carta, and how we can contribute. One of Kin + Carta’s annual events is hosting the Chicago Dance Marathon in partnership with Lurie Children’s Hospital.
