Jonathan Hopson

Principal Software Engineer

About Me

Self-motivated problem solver. I have worked in the higher education software business since 2007; working remotely from my home in Tennessee on teams ranging from 2 to 15.

Strengths:

  • Go
  • Ruby / Rails
  • PHP / Laravel
  • Database Design, Performance, and Optimization
  • AWS Services
  • Kafka

Emerging Interests:

  • Event Driven Architecture
  • Infrastructure / DevOps
  • Front-end Software Development

Experience

Elsevier

Principal Software Engineer

June 2022 - Present

https://elsevier.com

Elsevier acquired Interfolio in June 2022.

Since the acquisition, I have been leading a team focused on providing a unified experience to clients. Bringing our products together to work more like a product suite.

I’ve championed event driven architecture to decouple our distributed monolith of microservices and utilized it to deliver value to our customers.

I promoted, mentored, and documented the adoption of Go microservices to our infrastructure.

Skills include:

  • Go
  • Ruby/Rails
  • PHP/Laravel
  • GraphQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • Kafka
  • Git
  • Docker
  • AWS Services (S3, SNS, SQS, DynamoDB, etc.)
  • Integration with internal and third-party software
  • Agile Software Development
  • Architecture Diagrams / Data Modelling

Interfolio

Staff Software Engineer

January 2017 - June 2022

https://interfolio.com

Interfolio acquired Data180 in January 2017. Initially, I assisted in the transition of Faculty180 into the Interfolio ecosystem. This included a migration to Git, moving hosting to AWS, integrating Laravel into our legacy monolith, and adapting users and authentication to the existing Interfolio infrastructure.

Over time, I expanded to develop and maintain a majority of the Interfolio backend software suite, largely written in Ruby/Rails. While also helping design and develop several greenfield microservices, as well as automation integration software for the CI/CD process.

Skills include:

  • PHP/Laravel
  • Ruby/Rails
  • GraphQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • Git
  • Docker
  • AWS Services (S3, SNS, SQS, DynamoDB, etc.)
  • Integration with internal and third-party software
  • Agile Software Development

Data180

Software Engineer

March 2007 - January 2017

https://data180.com

From a brief stint as QA as I finished my degree. I was later hired on as a full-time software engineer to help develop and support Data180’s flagship product, Faculty180, a higher-education faculty data and activity tracking system.

Later on, I was the lead engineer for their student product, which supported students and schools with activity tracking, co-curricular transcripts, resumes, and assessments.

Skills include:

  • PHP
  • PostgreSQL
  • jQuery
  • SVN
  • Integration with third party APIs

Education

Morehead State University

Bachelors in Business Administration (Computer Information Systems)

2003 - 2007

A Little More About Me

I love writing software and building solutions. When I’m not problem-solving via code, I’m problem-solving or puzzle creating in Dungeons & Dragons as both a player and a game master.

D&D teaches many non-technical skills. As a player, you are constantly working as a team, playing off your party members’ strengths and understanding each other’s weaknesses. It also teaches you how to share the spotlight amongst a group, taking strides to both lead and follow.

As a game master, your responsibilities are endless. Quick decision making, designing encounters to both challenges and showcase your players, and describe the world your players are in and the individuals they are interacting with. Thinking on your feet is a necessity, as a group of unpredictable players can quickly throw a wrench into any pre-planned ideas you have.