Alejandro Rivera

I started playing with Java when I was 17. During college, Java was the language of choice for most programming classes. I loved learning about the different frameworks, integrating with libraries, discovering ways of making Java less verbose and obviously all Java-related things. I've been coding Java professionally for the past 5 years. Spring is what I've been using the most (MVC, Data, Security, AOP, etc.). Most of my work has bee using Java 6 and Java 7. I'm familiarized with Java EE and some of most of the important JSRs (REST, Validation, etc.). I know many handy libraries to make things easier. I don't like designing things that scream "enterprise" (like FizzBuzz Enterprise Edition), but I do like following best OOD practices (SOLID) and well understood Web standards. I can get my hands dirty with Java profilers to understand performance issues, but I'm NOT an expert in JVM tweaking though.

My experience dealing with Mongo has been mostly creating complicated queries, using Mongo directly through MongoDriver or through some ORM like SpringData or Morphia. I've had experience managing/designing complex collections and document models, including indexes and stuff. I know the quirks about BSON and I know what kind of things can get you in trouble when designing your documents that will become a PITA in the future when you try to query. I don't have much experience doing db/sysadmin kind of work with Mongo. Setting up replicas, scheduling backups, etc. is not something I've had to deal with so far.

I can't claim to know the in and outs of Git, but I'm well versed into it from using it myself and having gotten into many nasty situations. I can easily recognize what's been done wrong and what needs to happen to fix issues with merges, "lost" commits, git hooks, multiple remotes, branching strategies, even Git-SVN.

I've started using MySQL since I was 17. It's been a while since I had to do anything interesting with this DB, but I have vast experience designing schemas, writing complicated SQL queries, using views, stored procedures, indexes, sharding, a couple db engines, etc. I don't have much experience as a db admin though so tweaking MySQL to (replication, multi-master setup, memory, etc.)

Ruby on Rails is definitely NOT my strongest suit. I understand Ruby pretty well, I've coded on Rails while working at Zynga. I know the idiosyncrasies of the language, but what I lack is more exposure to the ecosystem. I don't know the many different gems as well as I would like to. I can't recommend solutions that won't present issues later in terms of integration with the framework or other gems. I can help figure out where issues are coming from by performing debugging.

SQL is something I learned early on (15 y.o.) when playing with MS Access. I found it very powerful and fascinating so I went to play with more heavy-duty SQL servers. MySQL, Oracle and PostgreSQL. (Oracle is my least favorite :P) I can help build complex queries, explain long queries, design or help with schemas, etc. I can explain the different types of joins, how aggregation works, etc.

Started working with PHP when I was in college. I found it very practical and easy to learn. Then I worked on it professionally for 2 years and I started disliking the language a bit. I haven't touched PHP in maybe 4 years now, but I still have a good understanding of it. I also much prefer the Object Oriented features of PHP than using it as a big script. Learned a lot from working with and reading the code from Magento, Zend Framework, etc.