Sean Hester, Senior Consultant

Sean is a Senior Consultant with ThreeWill with 15 years experience developing web applications. The majority of his experience is with Microsoft AppDev platforms, but he’s done enough work with J2EE and Open Source platforms to be able to help them play (somewhat) nicely together. He has over 10 years experience developing enterprise web applications with .NET technologies, (starting when .NET 1.0 was in late beta). For the past 3 years he has worked almost exclusively on projects for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010, focusing on user experience, SharePoint-based product development, and custom administrative and lifecycle management solutions. His primary passions are in usability, group collaboration, project and process automation, data visualization, and social media tools. He is an MCP in SharePoint Application Development.

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Experience

Senior Consultant – SharePoint 2010 Site Requesting, Provisioning, and Management Automation Solution for Global Professional Services Firm
  • Co-architected, designed, and defined technical requirements for a system to manage requests for new SharePoint 2010 sites, provision the requested sites across multiple SharePoint farms in a global IT environment, and track the sites through a multi-stage lifecycle from initial request to deletion.
  • Designed and led the creation of a domain-driven architecture that integrated SharePoint and existing SQL-based enterprise data sources for multi-environment (SharePoint, PowerShell, AJAX), multi-farm interoperation.
  • Created a set of multi-step, multi-system-aware AJAX UI controls to provide integration and data validation for SharePoint site requests and site management activities.
  • Created a set of RESTful WCF-based services for inter-site collection and inter-farm communication enabling SharePoint site management and site lifecycle events.
  • Sourced and heavily customized an attribute-based, lightweight ORM persistence library for SQL data sources.
  • Created an attribute-based, .NET generics-enabled, ORM-style persistence library for SharePoint data sources.
  • Designed and assisted in creation of a custom PowerShell library to manage the provisioning of SharePoint site collections. 
  • Created technical training and system design documentation for system hand-off to client resources.
Senior Consultant – SharePoint 2010 Site Requesting, Provisioning, and Management Automation Solution for International Law Firm
  • Co-architected, designed, and defined technical requirements for a system to manage requests for new SharePoint 2010 sites, provision the requested sites across multiple SharePoint farms.
  • Designed and created a workflow-enabled, SharePoint-to-PowerShell provisioning solution to automate the provisioning of requested SharePoint sites.
  • Designed and created a PowerShell cmdlet library to manage the provisioning of SharePoint site collections, sites, and manage site membership.
  • Designed and created a SharePoint Service Application to manage cross-site collection user membership and navigation for an environment supporting hundreds of site collections.
  • Integrated the SharePoint membership requirements with Active Directory via the custom SharePoint Service Application.
  • Created custom, AJAX-enabled Web Parts and UI controls to support the management of the creation of the site collections, webs, and their respective membership for both internal and external users.
Senior Consultant – SharePoint 2010 Product Testing Automation Solution for Document & Image Viewing & Publishing ISV
  • Architected, designed, and led development of a unit and through-the-web-browser integration testing automation solution for a SharePoint 2010-based document viewing and publishing ISV.
  • Designed and created the core libraries and patterns for test automation.
  • Created a sample suite of automated tests providing coverage for one of the ISV’s several products.
  • Created training and video-based documentation of the test automation system for use by the ISV’s internal QA resources.
Senior Consultant – SharePoint 2010 Product Integration for Document & Image Viewing & Publishing ISV
  • Assisted with the business value assessment of potential product features with the context integrating ISV products into SharePoint 2010.
  • Co-architected, designed, and defined technical requirements for SharePoint integration of ISV products.
  • Created a suite of Web Parts, UI controls, custom pages, and custom list views to use and consume the ISV products from within SharePoint.
  • Created a set of AJAX-enabled, object-oriented Javascript libraries to provide complex, multi-Web Part and UI control interactions to support “Web 2.0” style features.
  • Created a set of Central Admin and Site Collection Admin management pages to allow fine-grained control of the ISV products integration with SharePoint, including control over security-enabled and ISV license-controlled features.
  • Created SharePoint Designer-enabled custom workflow actions to allow integration of ISV product document viewing and publishing activities into custom SharePoint workflows.
Senior Consultant – Custom SharePoint 2007 Site Definition-Based Application for Global Professional Services Firm
  • Co-architected, designed, and defined technical requirements for long-running engagement management and collaboration application based on heavily customized SharePoint 2007 site definition.
  • Created custom SharePoint schema (fields, content types, and lists) to capture and manage engagement data.
  • Created custom SharePoint Web Parts and pages to provide enhanced features for managing and reporting on the engagements.
  • Created Web Part-based dashboards to provide engagement-wide reporting and individualized task tracking and management.
  • Created a document generation system to automate the creation of standard engagement artifacts by rolling up data available within the SharePoint sites.
  • Designed and created a .NET generics and LINQ-based SharePoint data access layer to enable dashboards, reporting, and document generation.
  • Mentored client developer team on SharePoint strategies, limitations, and best practices
Senior Consultant – Testing Automation for SharePoint 2007 Document Generation Solution for Global Telecommunications Company
  • Architected, designed, and developed a test automation solution for a SharePoint 2007-based sales and field engineering document generation and automation solution.
  • Created the core libraries and patterns for unit and through-the-web-browser integration test automation.
  • Created test suite providing coverage for the full solution.
Senior Consultant – SharePoint 2007  Knowledgebase Usability & Branding Enhancements for National Engineering Services Firm
  • Reviewed existing knowledgebase and provided structured assessment of recommended areas for improvement and opportunities to increase usability within SharePoint 2007 context.
  • Created custom, flexible, SharePoint-native form generator to generate custom UI logic for the document capture based on the selected document types (SharePoint content types) and targeted SharePoint lists and libraries for publishing the content.
  • Created a custom branding overhaul for the knowledgebase site covering custom theme and a set of highly custom master pages and CSS libraries.
  • Created a custom application page and Web Parts to provide one- or two-step based migration and capture of knowledgebase content.
  • Created a custom SharePoint schema (fields and content types) to define metadata and improve discovery and search-ability of knowledgebase content.
  • Created custom search site UI to integrated advanced metadata filtering options and results viewing provided by BA Insight.
Senior Consultant – Custom Project Management Toolset Using Microsoft Project 2007 Add-In and .NET ClickOnce Desktop Application
  • Created enhancements and new features for Microsoft Project 2007 Add-In product for an international project process consulting company.
  • Created custom windows forms and controls to enable the custom project management process with Microsoft Project.
  • Created new features for ClickOnce application to enable project progress updates from remote stakeholders.
  • Updated custom MSBuild scripts to provide custom build and release metadata and integrate and secure the Microsoft Project Add-In and the related ClickOnce application.
.NET Architect/Senior Consultant – Business Consultant Firm
  • Led the definition of business and technical requirements, working directly with business users, project stakeholders, and client IT.
  • Produced UML, business process diagrams, and UI mock-ups for key business, technical, and UI concepts.
  • Mentored the project team and client IT group on the solution architecture, tools (VS.NET, NHibernate, NUnit, ASP.NET controls, etc.) and best practices.
  • Implemented base classes, reference samples, and reference unit tests for all libraries using object-oriented design and appropriate design patterns.
  • Implemented the Data library using NHibernate with dynamic SQL as needed for complex reports.
  • Implemented the Web and UI services directly, including Web Services, HTTP modules, Web Forms, AJAX communication framework, AJAX Control Toolkit controls, custom AJAX controls, Excel reporting, etc.
.NET Architect/Consultant – Business Consulting Firm
  • Led the definition of business and technical requirements, working directly with business users, project stakeholders, and client IT.
  • Led the identification, selection, and design of new features for each new revision.
  • Produced UML, business process diagrams, and UI mock-ups for key business, technical, and UI concepts.
  • Mentored the project team (contractors and client IT resources) on the solution architecture, tools (VS.NET, NHibernate, NUnit, ASP.NET, AJAX, MVC, controls, etc.) and best practices.
  • Implemented base classes, reference samples, and reference unit tests for all libraries using object-oriented design and appropriate design patterns.
  • Designed and implemented all database schemas, structures, and SQL queries.
  • Implemented the multiple Data libraries using NHibernate and/or CodeSmith DAL code generation.
  • Implemented the Web and UI services directly, including Web Services, HTTP modules, Web Forms, AJAX communication framework, AJAX Control Toolkit controls, custom AJAX controls, ASP.NET MVC, Excel reporting, error handling and presentation.
  • Implemented system logging framework using log4net.
  • Provided constant system performance tuning across all layers (DB tuning, caching, UI optimizations, etc.)
  • Implemented system testing & QA framework using NUnit and Selenium (automated integration testing).
  • Provided technical writing and editing for both technical and user documentation.
Software Developer/Senior Consultant – IT and Services Company
  • Collaboratively developed business and technical requirements, working directly with business users, project stakeholders, and client IT.
  • Produced UML, business process diagrams, and UI mock-ups for key business, technical, and UI concepts.
  • Implemented code libraries for all system areas using object-oriented design and design patterns.
  • Implemented numerous web UI solutions using classic ASP and ASP.NET
  • Implemented numerous XML-based data integration solutions using XML, XSD, XSLT, etc.
  • Implemented database schemas, structures, and SQL queries
  • Provided mentoring and go-to support for web UI and XML solutions
Web Developer/Webmaster – Medical Staffing Company
  • Developed business and technical requirements, working directly with business users and IT team.
  • Developed DHTML (heavy JavaScript and CSS) interface for corporate websites.
  • Developed classic ASP database integration to provide web-based querying against company databases

Technical Environment: Classic ASP, VBScript, JavaScript, Oracle 8

Education

Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA — 5+ years of course credit toward a BA in English Composition

Technical

Tools:

Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft SharePoint 2007, Microsoft Project Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (and previous), SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services), Active Directory, PowerShell, jQuery, AJAX, Prototype, too many charting and graphing libraries to list, LINQ, log4net, NHibernate, MySQL, Apache 2 (and previous), Linux, PostgreSQL, Oracle 7 – 9, Python, Apache mod_python Java, J2EE, JBoss 3 – 4, Jython, Tomcat, NAnt, NUnit, Selenium (OpenQA), VB

Technologies:

.NET 1.0 – 4.0, IIS 4 – 7, WCF, WWF, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Classic ASP, JSP, Servlets, Entity Beans, COM/COM+, MTS, MSMQ, MSXML

Languages:

C#, D/HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, SQL (T-SQL, PL-SQL), XML, XSL/T, XSD, XPath, UML, VB.NET

Areas of Expertise:

OO Development, Design Patterns, Domain-Driven Design, Test-Driven Development, Continuous Build & Integration, Usability Testing, QA Test Automation, Team Leadership, Project Management, Microsoft Project, Decision Analysis, Financial Modeling, Portfolio Management, Strategic Decision Support