Blaine Motsinger

Email: blaine@renderorange.com

Summary

Senior software and systems engineer. Skilled at root cause analysis, bug fixes, and optimization.

Employment

Senior Software Engineer, Foundant Technologies (2023-12 - present)

Software and infrastructure development for CommunitySuite.

  • Frontend, backend, and devops development

Technologies used:

  • Perl - mod_perl, Template::Toolkit, DBI*, Test*
  • Databases - PostgreSQL
  • Frontend - mdbootstrap, Font Awesome, jQuery, Vanilla HTML/CSS/JavaScript
  • Infrastructure - Docker, Terraform, Kibana, DynamoDB, RabbitMQ
  • AWS - ECS, EC2, CloudWatch, ELB, RDS (Aurora), S3, Route53, Lambda
  • Dev tools - Git, Github, Jira, perltidy, perlcritic
Software Development Engineer III, cPanel (2022-11 - 2023-12)

Software development for internal applications.

  • Full lifecycle frontend and backend development of in-house software for monthly customer billing automation, customer management portal, licensing APIs, and payment gateways
  • Lead team development (implemention discussion, limiting scope, slicing and sizing projects, release planning and coordination)
  • Mentor new software developers
  • Triage, root cause analysis, and bug fixes to support users of internal software

Technologies used:

  • Perl - Dancer2, CGI::Application, CGI, Template::Toolkit, DBI*, Test*
  • Databases - MariaDB
  • Frontend - Bootstrap, DataTables, Font Awesome, jQuery, jQuery UI, Vanilla HTML/CSS/JavaScript
  • Infrastructure - Docker
  • Dev tools - Git, Gitlab, Jira, perltidy, perlcritic
Senior DevOps Engineer, Best Practical Solutions (2021-02 - 2022-11)

Automation, tooling, and administration for hosting services.

  • Lead new initiative to build inhouse RT hosting solution at AWS
  • Design, analysis, and performance tuning of hosting infrastructure including multi-server, multi-location, load balanced postfix email and apache frontends, and redundant database backends
  • Built automation for full lifecycle deployment (spinup, configuration management, maintenance patching, and deletion)
  • Built custom software to support hosting operations including email failure reporting and automated security update notification (for all infrastructure), CloudWatch monitoring metrics automation, automated S3 backups for instances, automated SSL expire time notification (for all hosting domains across all instances)

Technologies used:

  • Perl - Mason, Plack/PSGI, DBI*, Test*
  • Databases - MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite
  • Frontend - Bootstrap, Font Awesome, jQuery, Vanilla HTML/CSS/JavaScript
  • Infrastructure - Ansible, Puppet, Docker
  • AWS - EC2, CloudWatch, ELB, RDS, DMS, S3, Route53
  • Linux - Debian and Redhat based OS, administration of web, mail, database, and dns servers
  • Dev tools - Git, Github, Request Tracker, perltidy, perlcritic
Software Engineer, Best Practical Solutions (2019-02 - 2021-02)

Multi discipline software development and system administration for popular open source web application.

  • Frontend, backend, extension development, and direct product support for Request Tracker
  • Build, upgrade, and migrate customer servers, forward port configurations and custom extensions
  • Migrated two applications to new custom light and dark bootstrap themes
  • System administration for internal BPS servers

Technologies used:

  • Perl - Mason, Plack/PSGI, DBI*, Test*
  • Databases - MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite
  • Frontend - Bootstrap, Font Awesome, jQuery, Vanilla HTML/CSS/JavaScript
  • Linux - Debian and Redhat based OS, administration of web, mail, database, and dns servers
  • Dev tools - Git, Github, Request Tracker, perltidy, perlcritic
Perl Developer II, cPanel (2016-11 - 2019-02)

Software development for internal applications.

  • Full lifecycle frontend and backend development of in-house software for monthly customer billing automation, customer management portal, and licensing APIs
  • Feature and maintenance development for all other internal systems (PTO, ticket system, cpanel store, internal budget and expense system)
  • Triage, root cause analysis, and bug fixes to support internal and external users of internal software

Technologies used:

  • Perl - Dancer2, CGI::Application, CGI, Template::Toolkit, DBI*, Test*
  • Databases - MariaDB
  • Frontend - Bootstrap, DataTables, Font Awesome, jQuery, jQuery UI, Vanilla HTML/CSS/JavaScript
  • Dev tools - Git, Jenkins, Jira, perltidy, perlcritic
Quality Assurance Analyst, cPanel (2014-11 - 2016-11)

Bug finder and advocate for quality in an agile (scrum) environment.

  • Wrote, ran, and maintained automated tests and test plans for cPanel/WHM
  • Functional testing and bug reporting within a scrum team workflow
  • Release testing

Technologies used:

  • Perl - Test*
  • Databases - MariaDB
  • Linux - Redhat based OS, administration of web, mail, database, and dns servers
  • Dev tools - Git, Jenkins, Jira
Technical Analyst II / Migration Specialist, cPanel (2012-04 - 2014-11)

Technical support and migrations for enterprise partner's cPanel servers.

  • Planned and migrated hosting servers from other control panels to cPanel/WHM
  • Wrote and maintained departmental scripts to assist in troubleshooting common issues and automating migrations
  • Internal documentation and troubleshooting guides

Technologies used:

  • Perl - scripting
  • Databases - MariaDB
  • Linux - Redhat based OS, administration of web, mail, database, and dns servers
Technical Product Specialist, cPanel (2011-04 - 2012-04)

Technical sales, training, enterprise partner customer relationships, and representing cPanel at conferences in the US and abroad.

Web Developer, Render Orange, LLC (2009-11 - 2013-10)

Owned and operated, full service web development company.

  • Custom web development and hosting
  • Project planning and collaboration with contract designers and marketing professionals

Technologies used:

  • PHP - Wordpress (custom plugins)
  • Frontend - Vanilla HTML/CSS/JavaScript
  • Databases - MariaDB
  • Linux - Redhat based OS, administration of web, mail, database, and dns servers

Education

  • University of Northern Iowa (2010-07 - 2011-04) (Graduated University of Northern Iowa business incubator)
  • North Iowa Area Community College (2005-08 - 2007-12)

Portfolio

Notable Projects
App::AWS::CloudWatch::Monitor

Collect and send metrics to AWS CloudWatch.

Technologies used:

  • Perl - scripting, SDK, Test*
  • Linux - process, filesystem, service, logging
  • AWS - CloudWatch API
Pasteburn

Shareable, encrypted, ephemeral pastebin.

Pasteburn is a web application for encrypting and sharing secret content.

Technologies used:

  • Perl - Dancer2, Template::Toolkit, Starman, Test*
  • Databases - SQLite
  • Linux - Apache, systemd
trackability-api

API for storing and retrieving arbitrary JSON data.

Technologies used:

  • Perl - Dancer2, Template::Toolkit, Starman, Test*
  • Databases - MariaDB
  • Linux - Apache, systemd
Git::Lint

Pluggable framework for linting git commits and messages.

Technologies used:

  • Perl - scripting
  • Dev tools - Git
daily_book_python

Finds quotes in free ebooks at Project Gutenberg.

Technologies used:

  • Python - scripting
App::RemotePerlJobs

Automated syndication of remote Perl job postings.

Technologies used:

  • Perl - scripting, RSS feed reading and parsing
  • Databases - SQLite