Thanks for stopping by! So who am I? I am a husband and father. I call Nashville, TN, home, and have been fortunate to enjoy a long career in software systems development.
Software Systems
I’ve been designing and developing software for businesses for more than 25 years. Along the way, I have worked to build and deploy software solutions in many different industries, including heavy manufacturing, healthcare, embedded (Internet of Things) systems, financial services, online service delivery, biomedical research, and big-ticket retail. In many cases, the systems I’ve worked on would be classified as infrastructure for the business – the tools needed to deliver products and services to end customers. In other cases, the software system was the product itself.
Like most anyone who has been in software development this long, I’ve seen “the next big thing” come and go in computing, multiple times. As a software engineer, I have been continually faced with the choice of investing the time and energy to stay current with technology, or join the crowd of technical dinosaurs who decide to stagnate. I’ve always chosen the former, as I’m nearing ten “generations” of programming languages, platforms and paradigms that I’ve learned and applied through the years. Thankfully, there are lessons taken from each of these that inform my work with successive generations.
My work in recent years has been focused on functional programming languages, particularly Clojure, Erlang, and Elixir. These languages are ideally suited to leveraging today’s multicore servers while maintaining an elegant simplicity of solutions when skillfully applied.
Deploying such systems to cloud platforms can truly allow your systems to grow as your business does, without the need for costly re-writes or replacement of racks of servers each time there’s a need to increase system capacity. Be assured that this scalability doesn’t come without the proper system design expertise, however.
Consulting
Working on complex problems across multiple industries is truly enjoyable for me. My firm, Chase Data Insight, is focused on providing highly customized, effective software solutions that meet both the technical and human requirements of the customer. Success in this mission requires truly understanding what the customer organization must accomplish to operate profitably and efficiently, while retaining the trust of their customers. I have also spent time mentoring development staff and leaders for my clients, sharing the lessons of my years of experience with them.
People
Software is viewed as a technical field, and it is, to be sure. But it is not a monastic pursuit when it comes to your business.
In the end, it is a people business.
A successful software system requires deep interaction between the system designers and those who will use and operate the system. This means giving the stakeholders deep assurance that their concerns have been heard and understood, and will be accounted for in the product when delivered. These are difficult things to accomplish if you don’t like people, and are not willing or able to put in the time to allow yourself to see the specifics of the system you are building through their eyes.
This reality suits my interest in both people and technology very well, and I enjoy both components of what I do.
Can I Help You?
Do you have complex or thorny issues with the software you rely on in your business? Can you immediately identify that one system that nobody wants to touch for fear they’ll break it while trying to address some problem or shortcoming?
Are you looking to build a new software product?
Get in touch and let’s talk about it! I would welcome the opportunity to meet you, learn about your business, and explore the ways I can help you achieve your goals and benefit from reliable, maintainable software that can grow in both features and capacity.
Testimonials
Doug is the full package. He has an incredible depth of knowledge across multiple technology stacks, along with years of project planning & management experience. I’ve been working in the IT field for over 25 years, consulted for multiple fortune 500 companies and developed systems for mainframes, midrange and micro computers. I’ve worked with a lot of technical professionals in my career, and Doug is one of the best.
Allan Maynard
President, Senior Consultant
Stones River Technology Partners, LLC
I collaborated with Doug on many complex projects at the Center for Human Genetics Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. His remarkable skill with relational databases and programming are obvious. He is as skilled with this as anyone I have seen. However, the more impressive thing, that is apparent only to those of us who have worked closely with Doug, is his special ability to work with content experts in far-ranging fields. To effectively interact with a room of physicians like me who are unfamiliar with complex computer systems is a special skill Doug possesses. This doesn’t always show up in the “box score”, but you need to know this. Even more importantly, Doug delivered the software that these non-computing specialists needed to solve their research questions. He did this with meticulous care and it was always of the highest quality. I can only give Doug my highest recommendation. You will be glad that you have the opportunity to work with him.
Jeffrey A. Canter, MD MPH
Doug delivers high quality software quickly and works tirelessly to design and develop thoughtful solutions to meet business needs. He is professional, patient, and pleasant, and he’s who I want working on my projects.
Marc B.
Business Analyst & Project Manager