Eric Hankins

Career Summary

Versatile, highly motivated software engineer with experience developing web applications. Proven ability to solve problems and deliver quality software that exceeds expectations. Capable of assimilating new technical information quickly and absorbing new computer skills. Effective team player balanced with detail-oriented independent worker.

Photoshop
Java
Subversion
MySQL

XHTML
CSS
JavaScript
AJAX

PHP
C/C++/Objective-C
Unix/Linux

Education

B.S., Computer Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha - Omaha, NE, May 2007
GPA: 3.7, Full scholarship, Dean's List 2003-2007

Business Experience

Intuit June 2005 - August 2007

Software Engineer May 2007 - August 2007

Hired on as permanent full time after graduation, to continue engineering in an expanded role. Communicated with quality assurance team to fix bugs.

Improved process by utilizing test-driven development and scripted builds.
Constructed first iteration of new test product in Java using Spring and Hibernate.

Programmer Intern June 2005 - May 2007

Designed and developed tools for data management. Rapidly prototyped web applications; conducted on-going changes through research phase. Collaborated with other engineers to plan and build products.

Increased productivity by developing new and updated data management tools in PHP with AJAX.
Improved agility by rebuilding a product in PHP, allowing immediate changes in response to interface research.
Designed and built prototype tax filing application in PHP with AJAX.
Implemented specifications on large project in Java using JSF.

Volt Technical Resources August 2004 - November 2005

Apple Campus Representative

Creatively evangelized Apple on school campus and drove sales of Apple products by building brand awareness. Devised and ran on-campus marketing activities.

Raised awareness by running demonstration tables in the student union.
Increased sales by making headway into unfriendly markets.

Voelker Research June 2001 - August 2003

Consignment Technician

Managed and ran consignment equipment program including receiving equipment from customers, certifying equipment salability, and contacting customers regarding failed equipment. Performed hardware and software repairs, special projects as needed.

Improved effectiveness of parts storeroom by updating inventory and improving inventory process.
Increased efficiency of consignments by streamlining the consignment process, resulting in faster turnaround.
Initiated and implemented redesign of company website, leading to a 100% increase in contacts from the website.

Personal Interests and Self Development

I started getting into HTML when I was… what, like 12? I believe my first site was about SimCity 2000 and it was hosted on GeoCities, and it was really terrible.
Eventually, I bought my own domain name and hosted it on my parents' DSL. Catch it at http://stormsilver.net
At some point I got interested in Apache's server side includes because I realized I was typing a lot of the same code over and over. I thought it was the neatest thing that I could have my site swap between one design during the day and one at night.
My boss at the shop told me about PHP and I immediately fell in love. I remember the first problem I ever solved was how to display a table with five pictures per row and an arbitrary number of pictures.
That was when I started rolling my own blogging platform… I mean, I didn't know that's what I was doing because I hadn't heard the word "blog" yet, but it allowed me to store posts in a database and update them. Then I heard about MovableType and I was like, "Man, I've been reinventing the wheel over here."
While I was writing PHP, I got really tired of switching to iTunes to change my music. I decided to learn Objective-C and wrote iTunesCheck, which, if you have a Mac, you should totally check out at http://stormsilver.net/itunescheck
AJAX had just been coined when I started working at Intuit, so I taught myself JavaScript by reverse engineering the widget downloader on Apple's website. My project was a data management app which had all kinds of stuff like modal div boxes that nobody had done yet. Then people starting releasing huge libraries that did it way better than mine, and I was like, dude, it was my idea first.
I wrote a neat Christmas gift wish list management program for my family in PHP, which I later rewrote using Ruby on Rails when I wanted to learn that.
I also wrote a simple finance manager for my house in Groovy on Grails, which I fell madly, truly, deeply in love with.
Recently I've been working with Spring and Hibernate, and I think they're pretty cool. I've also been reading about project automation and continuous integration and I'm really excited to employ them.