Brian Sappéy

brian@briansappey.com

Results-oriented, innovative, hands-on Senior IT professional with 18 + years of diverse experience with E-Commerce and Manufacturing Architecture, API’s & Microservice delivery platforms built for scalability and high transaction volume. Extensive experience leading globally distributed, cross-functional teams while maintaining a strong culture of innovation. Adept at leading design and development of highly complex E-commerce technology products, Manufacturing products, CRM’s, ERP’s and improving processes and procedures. Special focus on increasing team efficiency while utilizing the strengths of all team skill sets. Maximizing profits with low overhead and rapid development and deployments.

Experience

Vice President of Software Development

Guerrilla RF | Greensboro, NC

Quickly promoted to Vice President of Software Development. Increasing the departments staffing needs by adding five engineers. Automating many manual tasks across all company departments. Special focus on DevOps, Security, and Integrations into third party software. Assisted in taking the company public while meeting the demands of auditors, compliance officers and shareholders.

  • Responsible for the enterprise architecture and implementation of all systems, and applications, including networking.
  • Manage all personnel regarding compensation and yearly budgets.
  • Managed a building upfit for the corporate headquarters move, including AV, infrastructure, and security.
  • Negotiations with all vendors, contractors, and clients.
  • Ensure all engineers and architects are properly trained and certified to perform their roles.
  • Budgeting for yearly strategic items.
Key Achievements:
  • Three cloud migrations from traditional VPS servers.
  • Increased site branding and visibility.
  • Increased training activities and opportunities for all technical leaders and engineers.
  • Converted archaic project planning to a streamlined JIRA management platform.

September 2022 - Present

Sr. Director of Architecture

Guerrilla RF | Greensboro, NC

Quickly built and delivered two public facing web applications in the first few months of employment. Through custom application development, streamlined several company processes and functions that required intensive labor to complete tasks. Through negotiations and networking provided incredible cost for savings for software and reduced the IT budget. In addition, helped reduce costs across multiple departments. Instituted modern development practices to initiate the retirement of older legacy systems. Managed the software team and oversaw and managed help desk functions. Responsible for the architecture and implementation of all corporate and internal sites.

  • Started the build-from-scratch CRM and ERP in house system to meet company needs.
  • Streamlined operations and finance with better reporting and automation.
  • Architect and manage all company public facing sites (3)
  • Cloud migration to cut costs and incorporate CI Pipelines.
  • Built out a help desk system using JIRA Service Desk
  • Implemented a pilot project to test JIRA and its adoption.
  • Designed and implemented a CI pipeline.
Key Achievements:
  • Performed a cloud migration and built two sites from scratch in 6 weeks.
  • Architected and built an Investor Relations website, while maintaining compliance with the SEC.
  • Increased output by 30% across the entire IT division.
  • Converted archaic project planning to a streamlined JIRA management platform.

January 2021 - September 2022

Director of Architecture & Engineering

Market America/SHOP.com | Greensboro, NC

Rose through Architectural and Management roles of increasing complexity to drive all companywide enterprise architecture and engineering globally. Special concentration on Enterprise Architecture and company strategic solutions and development. Led all aspects of technology strategies and execution particularly involving enterprise systems, while directing a highly efficient team of 25 engineers and 5 Architects.

  • Responsible for the enterprise architecture and implementation of all systems, and applications.
  • Manage all personnel regarding compensation and yearly budgets.
  • Partner with leading technology companies to fulfill business and technical objectives.
  • Interface with all company departments heads and executives to encourage and assist in the completion of corporate strategic goals.
  • Ensure all engineers and architects are properly trained and certified to perform their roles.
  • Budgeting for yearly strategic items.
Key Achievements:
  • Reduced system errors and applications errors by 90%
  • Increased site scalability by 300% with no additional hardware or costs.
  • Developed a quarterly review process to maintain a highly efficient engineering group.
  • Increased training activities and opportunities for all technical leaders and engineers.
  • Developed an engineering volunteer program to get all engineers engaged and hands on for varying projects.
  • Increase project throughput and efficiency by integrating automation and process workflows for all development code and code deployments.
  • Executed strategic initiative to move all SOA to CI/CD pipeline, including containerization of code deployments.

October 2018 - January 2021

Sr. Applications Architecture & Manager of Engineering

Market America/SHOP.com | Greensboro, NC

Rose through technical leadership roles of increasing complexity to drive enterprise architecture and engineering delivering high value E-commerce projects globally. Special concentration on E-commerce solutions and development for over 10 years. Led all aspects of technology strategies and execution particularly involving checkout systems, while directing a highly efficient team of 12 engineers.

  • Responsible for the architecture and implementation of all checkout components including navigation, payment, and invoicing to execute company initiatives and strategies.
  • Architect and manage all company consumer facing sites including several intranet tools for seamless customer and distributor checkout experience.
  • Partner with leading technology companies to fulfill business and technical objectives.
  • Interface with all company departments to encourage and assist in the completion of corporate strategic goals.
  • Interpret complex business problems into domain layer rules to execute business initiatives.
  • Developed partnerships with marketing groups to increase customer engagement and improve site analytics to better capture user behaviors to increase site revenue and growth.
Key Achievements:
  • Establish an API and Microservice platform that connects core business processes.
  • Strategic partnership with Adobe on their API gateway that currently handles 1.2 million requests per week.
  • Develop and deliver an enterprise SOA architecture platform based on strategically benchmarking various implementations and solutions.
  • Normalizing the development practices to ensure consistent execution of architecture and deployment.
  • Increase project throughput and efficiency by integrating automation and process workflows for all development code and code deployments.
  • Universal checkout system with payment processor integration that handles revenue of $800 million annually.
  • Utilization of NoSQL to provide detailed business analytics for abandoned carts, fraud detection, logging, and other key metrics.
  • Implemented unit testing practices for the corporate SOA layer
  • Developing a career path for Engineers that provides growth and promotes teamwork along with a heavy focus on collaboration.

June 2008 - October 2018

Applications Developer

Westat | Rockville, MD

Brought on to create, deliver, and manage web applications for the business across all departments. Utilized a variety of programming languages, databases, and APIs to build scalable solutions. Responsible for interfacing with all department heads to gather requirements and execute coding and code deployments to assist the business with new growth opportunities.

  • Expanded service offerings with Java, ColdFusion, .Net and SQL.
  • Leveraged strong critical thinking skills to reduce software costs.
Key Achievements:
  • Launched a highly successful instant messaging system for the company saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on paid software subscriptions.
  • Eliminated hundreds of paper forms by streamlining day to day business needs with digital applications.

June 2006 - June 2008

Technical Recruiter

The Judge Group | Raleigh, NC

Delivered innovative business solutions by assisting companies in finding top talent to fulfill their most urgent needs.

  • Review job openings to understand the needs of companies and find the best candidates.
  • Understand technology and technical roles to isolate the most qualified job seekers.
  • Screen, interview and scrutinize job seeking candidate’s skill sets before presenting to hiring managers.
Key Achievements:
  • 8 full time placements and 7 contractors within the first two months of recruiting.
  • Highest grossing recruiter for placements in the Raleigh branch.

December 2005 - June 2008

Education

Elon University

Bachelor of Arts
English/Philosophy- Professional Writing and Rhetoric - Web Development Track
August 2001 - May 2005

Skills

Programming Languages & Tools
Additional Programming Languages
  • Adobe ColdFusion 2023
  • PHP
  • Java
Workflow
  • DevSecOps
  • CI/CD Automated Workflows
  • Mobile-First, Responsive Design
  • Cross Browser Testing & Debugging
  • Cross Functional Teams
  • Agile Development & Scrum

Training/Publications

Speaking

  • TeraTech Interview
  • Adobe CF Summit 2023 Certification Trainer
  • Adobe ColdFusion Summit East 2023 Speaker
  • Adobe CF Summit East 2022 Certification Trainer
  • Adobe ColdFusion Keynote Speaker - 2022
  • Adobe ColdFusion 2021 Speaker
  • Adobe ColdFusion 2020 Speaker
  • Adobe ColdFusion Summit East 2020 Speaker
  • Adobe ColdFusion 2019 Speaker
  • Adobe ColdFusion Summit East 2019 Speaker
  • Adobe CF Summit 2018 Speaker
  • Adobe CF Summit 2018 Hands on Training
  • Adobe CF Summit 2017 Speaker
  • Adobe CF Summit 2016 Speaker