Samuel Minter

6124 125th Ave SE
Bellevue, WA 98006
abulsme@abulsme.com
425-999-6428

Areas of Strength

WEB CONTENT OPTIMIZATION – AUTOMATED MARKETING EMAIL – CONTENT TARGETING SYSTEMS
MANAGING AGILE DEVELOPMENT TEAMS

Flexible software development manager for strategic and tactical projects with over 10 years online experience. Specializes in problem solving to find creative technical solutions to business objectives.

• Provides the necessary communications bridge between business and technical teams.
• Experience building and leading a development team to meet deadlines while adhering to an agile end-to-end development process.
• Designs solutions to business problems while balancing needs to use existing processes and structures with ability to maintain future expandability and flexibility.

Professional Experience

Amazon.com: Technical Program Manager

(Aug 2010 – Present)

Responsible for coordinating various aspects of a service externalization project, including pricing and margin analysis, application flow analysis and documentation, and requirements definition.

Amazon.com: Manager, Automated and Targeted Merchandising / Customer Behavior

(May 2007 – Aug 2010)

Responsible for managing the Automated and Targeted Merchandising group (formerly named Customer Behavior).  Responsibilities include staffing of the group, coordination of ongoing projects, interfacing with users of our systems to understand needs and pain points, and determining the development roadmap for the projects owned by the group. Managed the continuing enhancement, development and maintenance of high performance, high volume, business critical systems. Projects have included:

• Content Optimization System: A system which dynamically optimizes the choices of which merchandising content sources should be used in what order to generate content for a user in a particular context on a website.
• Online Targeting System: Designed to very quickly determine if a visitor to a website meets specified targeting criteria using a variety of available attributes, behavioral and otherwise. This information is used by other systems to determine which content is shown to which users.
• Offline Targeting System: Designed to allow non-technical users to quickly specify attributes of a desired target segment and get back a list of matching user accounts which can then be used for various merchandising activities.
• Automated Email Marketing Programs: Two separate automated email marketing systems, one providing all customers with recommendations based on their personal purchase history and overall product purchase patterns, and the other messaging on the availability of particular new products to users the system determines are likely to be interested in the new product.
• Automated Email Program Creation Tool: A system to allow non-technical marketing users to create new ongoing automated email programs by defining the targeting criteria, content source, and recurrence pattern of the desired email, with additional safeguards in place to automatically stop programs that do not perform up to a defined quality bar.

Amazon.com: Technical Program and Product Manager

(Jan 2006 – May 2007)

Responsible for coordinating the efforts of the Customer Behavior team to meet roadmap deadlines and meet customer needs while interfacing with internal customers and other development groups to manage dependencies and requirements. Responsible for working with business partners to promote the adoption of our online targeting solution within merchandising teams.

Accent Technologies: Product Manager

(Mar 2004 – Jan 2006)

Responsible for maintaining a product development roadmap to align the evolution of the product with the needs of current and potential customers while supporting efforts internally and externally to maximize product knowledge and effectiveness during rollout and implementation efforts.

• Coordinate Product Roadmap: Work with internal sales, marketing and development teams to develop and maintain the roadmap of future product development for the company’s flagship product. The roadmap must take into account internal development priorities, input from customers and prospective customers regarding their needs, competitive intelligence and available development resources.
• Sales and Marketing Support: Develop proposals for prospective customers taking into account standard pricing and features as well as requests for optional modules and customization. Provide support to the sales and marketing teams as needed to inform customers and prospective customers about the product’s features, best practices for use of the product and how future features in the product roadmap may impact them.
• Customer Relationship Management: Coordinate any needed product customizations for specific customers. Consult with the customer to define exact product requirements. Coordinate with internal development and project management teams to ensure the requested custom work is delivered according to customer specifications.
• Professional Services: Work with the Professional services team to engage with existing customers to maximize their return on investment (ROI) for the product. Involves working to define the most effective methods and procedures for use of the product given the client’s specific needs, potential customizations to better integrate with existing client constraints, and content structure and organization.

Merrill Lynch: Vice President of Marketing Information Solutions

(Jan 2002 – Mar 2004)

Responsible for continuously analyzing current information solutions, coordinating requirements and needs across multiple business units, designing enhancement strategies, and ensuring flexible implementation.

• Site Upgrade Analysis: Led small team to conduct analysis of issues surrounding several web properties, both internal and external. Designed strategies to enhance and upgrade the sites, with high-level requirements for the implementation of the new systems.
• Content Administration Tools: Coordinated development of requirements for content administration tools for a revised online site for clients and prospects across multiple business units. Integrated requirements from business users and previous administration tools into the “use case” format required by the Rational development process. Worked through a number of iterations of the requirements as the environment changed and the environment changed and the project developed through to validating the final applications produced.
• Content Management Data Modeling and Architecture: Assigned to take over a floundering content management project using the Documentum 2i architecture and bring it to the point where it could be launched and used. Assessed the current state of the project and through interviews with stake holders and potential users developed detailed gap requirements to bring the project up to speed including details content data model documentation and application flow and wire frame documents. Coordinated with development team to ensure delivery of as much as possible of the requirements given limited time and budget. Once deployed, assisted content deployment team in development of techniques and procedures to use the new tools.
• Workstation Integration: Managed communication between the Marketing department and the department responsible for the design and launch of the new workstation for brokers. Examined options for placement and highlighting of Marketing tools and content within the workstation, made recommendations and facilitated the marketing discussion of how best to use those options and get the results integrated into the workstation release.

Merrill Lynch: Vice President of Development for Interactive Web Technologies

(Feb 2000 – Dec 2001)

• Managed a team of up to 10 web application developers, graphic designers, business architects and support personnel with the mission of defining the organization, structure and technical direction of websites and projects in order to meet business needs while maintaining technically sound solutions.
• Coordinated the efforts of the team to efficiently create and upgrade content management and display applications for the public website and other web properties using Vignette technologies
• Coordinated the efforts of the team to design a new public website for Merrill Lynch US Private client combining the features of three pre-existing sites. The new site incorporated a unique entitlements system and utilized an XML data exchange methodology for data sourcing and integration.
• Set the technical direction and orientation of the group's development efforts
• Managed relationships with business clients, systems support organizations, and external vendors
• Managed projects, including hiring and staffing, in an environment of shrinking resources and budgets

Merrill Lynch: Web Publication Manager (Assistant Vice President)

(Mar 1999 – Feb 2000)

• Managed a web publication team of up to 10 people including HTML coders, CGI programmers, quality assurance specialists and site coordinators for the Marketing division
• Ensured daily publication of content updates to the public site and the site for clients involving multiple updates and revisions daily
• Coordinated transition from manual content creation and publication methods to an automated Vignette based content management and display system.
• Managed staffing issues including hiring employees and consultants and integrating with on site vendor teams and coordination with business partners and other technical groups.

Merrill Lynch: Development Manager

(Jul 1998 – Mar 1999)

• Managed a team of HTML developers, graphics artists and quality assurance staff in the Interactive Sales Technology group
• Ensured the daily content update process for the public website and client site occurred efficiently and on time
• Coordinate initial development and design efforts for The Learning Network, an internal training website

Merrill Lynch: Web Developer

(Jan 1997 – Jul 1998)

• Member of the User Interface group within the Distributed Application Technology division.
• Developed Perl based content entry and HTML creation tools
• Worked with graphic designers and application programmers to implement user interface decisions in the static HTML based prospect website and the dynamically created client access site
• Interfaced extensively with business partners and quality assurance groups to ensure regular content updates occurred daily

ANSER Inc.: Web Developer

(Dec 1995 – Jan 1997)

• Website design and maintenance for a variety of clients with duties including client interface and needs assessment, proposal writing, information structuring, graphic editing, Perl scripting of interactive areas and Apache webserver administration under Solaris
• Led, coordinated and trained ANSER's four member Internet Group

Freelance Web Producer

(Jul 1995 – Feb 1998)

Freelance web design, development and maintenance for a variety of clients including Talk Radio 1250 WTAE (Pittsburgh),Variety 96 Radio (WVTY Pittsburgh), Operation Crossroads Africa and Creepy Classics Video.

Non-Web Positions

(Aug 1990 – Dec 1995)

Pre-web experience includes talk-show radio producer, research assistant at a polymer laboratory, and computer cluster help desk assistant.

Education

• Carnegie Mellon University – Bachelor’s of Science in Physics Received 1993
• Additional business and management classes taken at H. J. Heinz School for Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon

Recognitions and Awards

• 2006-2010 – Four Patent Applications in process
• 2000 – Presented "Structured Information in an Unstructured World: Balancing Static and Dynamic Content" IQPC Intranet Content Management Conference (Chicago, July 17-18)
• 1997 – Merrill Lynch Special Achievement Award for critical role in hosting online chat with Chairman of US Division after market correction
• 1996 – ANSER Excellence Award for participation in development of website for ANSER’s Electronic Source Selection team