James Hawkins
Software Engineer at @Ethos. Previously @Uber on the Fraud & Risk product team. Full-stack engineer with experience using React, Javascript, Node, Python, Django. 6 years of experience in tech on fast-moving, rapidly-growing teams. Various side-projects include a fully-functional messaging app, a typing speed testing game, a finance-focused data visualization tool, and an original concept in-browser game.
Experience
Senior Full-Stack Software Engineer
- Team lead with 5 direct reports (Full stack developers)
- Feature-based web development in a React / Node.js application
- Design, build, and maintain public and private RESTful APIs
- Refactor a monolith to event-driven microservice architecture
- Integrate with third party vendors, including Stripe, LexisNexis, and TransUnion.
- Own large product builds end-to-end, from design to post-launch.
- Collaborate with engineering, design, and product, and analytics to develop and ship features
- Write efficient, modular, and reusable libraries and abstractions
- Design and build internal tooling to improve development efficiency
- Participate in code reviews, employee training, onboarding, presentations.
Senior Manager, Product Operations: Risk & Fraud
- Drove quarterly product planning cycles for six Product teams within the Risk organization.
- Helped grow the Risk team from 5 to 100+ while dropping loss rates >80% in the same timeframe.
- Built a global network of operations managers to monitor fraud at the regional level.
- Wrote fraud rules in Python and SQL queries to debug, scope, and block attack vectors.
Senior Manager, Community Operations
- Piloted and trained the first team of dedicated support representatives at Uber, laying the foundation for a 20,000+ person support organization.
- Defined hundreds of support policies for riders and driver-partners around the world.
- Managed a team of seven employees responsible for writing support policies and managing individual sub-teams
- Maintained a support SLA of < 12 hours for all support tickets in the West Coast region.
Second Assistant to Ashton Kutcher
- Researched startups for possible investments and assemble dossiers based on findings.
- Documented ideas and produced presentation decks for potential investors and business partners.
Projects
Hype Chat
React/Redux, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Action Cable
- Pixel-perfect rendition of Slack
- User-to-user chat using websockets
- Real-time unread notifications
- Chatrooms, group threads, direct message conversations
Rocket Typer
MongoDB, ExpressJS, React/Redux, NodeJS, Socket.IO
- Multiplayer functionality -- race alone or with friends
- Global leaderboard and recent races
- User account creation and authentication
- User profiles with personal stats
Education
App Academy
University of Southern California
Skills
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JavaScript
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React
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HTML5
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CSS3
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NodeJS
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SASS
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Redux
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AWS
Interests
In my personal life, I'm a bit of a gym rat and love to ski. I've completed a handful of marathons and it's not uncommon to find me at the gym or out running. When I'm indoors, I spend a lot of time on Hacker News & Reddit and, when I find the time, love to play video games (anything from PC to consoles to VR).
My current bucket list includes:
- Finishing a marathon in under 3 hours
- Skiing on all seven continents
- Completing an IRONMAN triathlon
- Become SCUBA certified
- Complete a solo parachute jump
- (Completed) Join a safari in Tanzania
I've recently caught the travel bug and am looking for new places to check out (open to suggestions -- easily accessible skiing is major plus).
A few of the places on my list:
- North Dakota (It's the only US state I'm missing!)
- Vietnam
- Great Barrier Reef
- Croatia
- (Completed) Tanzania