Karl Christopher Alcorn

Karl Christopher Alcorn

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ABOUT ME
Full Stack Developer - 20+ Years of Experience
Full Stack Developer - 20+ Years of Experience

With over 20 years of IT industry experience, I understand a wide variety of businesses and their unique needs.

English
Central Time (US & Canada) (-05:00)
Joined February 2020
EXPERTISE
22 years experience
Web development is really what got me excited about developing software in the first place. The web has changed much over the years, but...
Web development is really what got me excited about developing software in the first place. The web has changed much over the years, but web development remains a true passion of mine. As of late I have been primarily focusing on Single Page Applications (SPA) using a React/ASP.NET MVC/C# stack.
22 years experience
I have been developing APIs using a variety of languages since before the turn of the century (back then we used Perl and PHP). Fast for...
I have been developing APIs using a variety of languages since before the turn of the century (back then we used Perl and PHP). Fast forward to today, and I prefer to create RESTful web services and APIs, split into microservices, typically using a Web API/C#/SQL Server stack. I have also worked with WCF services when a need arises to expose legacy code with an API.
22 years experience
It may make me sound dated, but I have been developing desktop applications since Visual Basic 3 (16-bit). After mastering HTML/CSS, VB ...
It may make me sound dated, but I have been developing desktop applications since Visual Basic 3 (16-bit). After mastering HTML/CSS, VB was the natural progression to challenge myself. Since then I have used every major version of VB, however, I prefer to use C# these days. I have also worked extensively with C++ for desktop financial applications, and I have worked with Java a time or two as well.
20 years experience
Cloud computing really stems from virtualization technology when you think about it. I got started running virtual machines with VMWare ...
Cloud computing really stems from virtualization technology when you think about it. I got started running virtual machines with VMWare initially. I was instantly hooked when Rackspace released their cloud platform. The idea of instantly spinning up a server on demand was highly appealing. I have since moved on to AWS for most of my projects, but I have used Azure a bit as well.
20 years experience
My first introduction to databases was out of necessity: my employer needed an existing proprietary software package to do something that...
My first introduction to databases was out of necessity: my employer needed an existing proprietary software package to do something that it didn't, so I learned to navigate MS SQL Server 2000, and whipped up a program fit for the task. Trial by fire, basically. When I create new databases, I focus on quality database design, normalization (and de-normalize if/when performance becomes an issue), consistent naming conventions, industry best practices, security, etc.
22 years experience
My first small business that I ran as a high school student was a web hosting company. I ran Redhat Linux on a cluster of 3 servers runn...
My first small business that I ran as a high school student was a web hosting company. I ran Redhat Linux on a cluster of 3 servers running the Apache/Sendmail/MySQL/Bind stack. Over the years, I have been responsible for managing many servers, ranging from Linux to Windows, and applications ranging from Microsoft Exchange to NGINX.

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SOCIAL PRESENCE
GitHub
aws-contactus-api
TypeScript
0
0
EMPLOYMENTS
Principal Software Architect
Alcorn Technologies, LLC
2019-05-01-Present

• Contracted as Chief Software Architect for a SaaS medical start-up, managed and mentored an

international team, and assisted i...

• Contracted as Chief Software Architect for a SaaS medical start-up, managed and mentored an

international team, and assisted in scaling their software offering nationwide.

• Performed due-diligence audits of both source code and development teams for multiple start-ups and

enterprise clients, including some collaboration with both Microsoft and IBM software developers.

• Contracted as Director of Technology/Interim CTO on a venture involving the American College of

Gastroenterology, with an emphasis on auditing their MVP, assessing and managing the dev. team, and

identifying and protecting their intellectual property.

• Contracted by a Cloud AI SaaS startup using LLMs to automate medical insurance claims, to oversee the process of turning an MVP into a production ready system capable of scaling nationwide.

• Created a two-way ETL system to synchronize HIPAA protected data stored on-premises to/from the Cloud in a multitenant environment.

• Created several small POC projects for the US Department of Veterans Affairs to demonstrate the utility and feasibility of modern technologies such as Angular, Azure Functions, Cosmos DB, etc.

• Modified long-polling distributed systems to instead use Web Sockets to connect to the Cloud in order to reduce load and costs.

• Created a brandable and highly reusable white-label Mobile App for use by labor unions using Flutter/Dart.

• Implemented DevOps policies including CI/CD pipelines using Bitbucket, GitHub, and GitLab.

• Reverse-engineered a salted security hash to allow insertion into a third-party MySQL database as if the original software were performing the INSERT operations.

HTML/CSS
C#
SQL
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HTML/CSS
C#
SQL
Node.js
MySQL
Redis
TypeScript
Asterisk
React
JavaScript
Redux
.NET Core
Flutter
RESTful API
Express.js
AWS
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Automation Analyst
Century Aluminum Co.
2017-10-01-2019-05-01

• Lead efforts to consolidate and modernize software infrastructure across three plants.

• Created a web application for monitor...

• Lead efforts to consolidate and modernize software infrastructure across three plants.

• Created a web application for monitoring multiple carbon furnaces, valued at $30M+ each, using React, ASP.NET MVC, Web API, SQL Server, etc.

• Created a web application for Layered Process Audits to allow management to track productivity at multiple levels, identify discrepancies, and opportunities for cost savings.

• Maintained and updated legacy systems, including working with interfaces to hardware such as crucible scales, using VB.NET, Java, PHP, Apache Tomcat, MySQL, etc.

HTML/CSS
PHP
Java
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HTML/CSS
PHP
Java
C#
SQL
MySQL
MVC
React
JavaScript
Microsoft SQL Server
ASP.NET
VB.NET
ASP.NET Web API
.NET Framework
Apache tomcat
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Lead Developer
SS&C Technologies, Inc.
2015-08-01-2017-09-01

• Implemented new features and bug fixes on C/C++ financial software with 30+ million lines of code.

• Created a modern, respons...

• Implemented new features and bug fixes on C/C++ financial software with 30+ million lines of code.

• Created a modern, responsive, Corporate Actions web-based product using C#, ASP.NET, Web API, WCF, SQL Server, etc.

• Reduced build times by 75% by scripting and automating the 120+ step build process.

• Acted as SCRUM Master: held daily meetings, retrospectives, and worked with product owners to create user-stories and estimates.

C#
C++
SQL
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C#
C++
SQL
jQuery
JSON
Silverlight
XAML
PowerShell
DevExpress
MVC
JavaScript
Microsoft SQL Server
WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) Service
ASP.NET
ASP.NET Web API
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PROJECTS
Professional WebsiteView Project
2023
HTML/CSS
CSS3
Amazon S3
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HTML/CSS
CSS3
Amazon S3
Adobe Photoshop
Bootstrap 5
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