Michael Rowe's Résumé

Phone: +61 (0) 412 477 661

Email: mrowe@mojain.com
Blog: mikerowecode.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michaelrowe/
GitHub: https://github.com/mrowe

Overview

I am an experienced professional software developer, architect and manager familiar with working in fast-paced agile environments. I have a strong focus on people–coaching, mentoring, and creating the conditions that allow them to be their most effective.

Employment History

Group Director, Engineering

Art Processors (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
Mar 2021 - Sept 2023

As Group Director, Engineering I support a team of software engineers and managers who are delivering Art Processors’ core experience management platform product. In collaboration with the Chief Technology Officer and other engineering Group Directors, I lead the development and implementation of strategy for the entire engineering team, anticipating complex issues, challenges and opportunities, and ensuring integration with the wider organisational strategy.

Key achievements:

Technical Team Lead

Art Processors (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
Jan 2020 - Mar 2021

Principal Software Engineer - Reliability Engineering

Suncorp Group (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
Feb 2019 - Jan 2020

The purpose of this role is to design, implement and manage a Reliability Engineering function for Suncorp’s Digital Technology business unit. I work with delivery teams across Suncorp’s banking and insurance brands to foster and promote an “SRE mindset” towards operating reliable customer facing applications.

The role also involves hands on development and implementation of systems and dashboards to measure and present key aspects of application performance and reliability to teams and business stakeholders.

Responsibilities:

Technologies:

Delivery Manager

REA Group (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
Jan 2018 - Oct 2018

In this role I had delivery and technical accountability for the technology teams in the Leads & Branding tribe. The team is building the next generation of digital marketing and advertising tools for REA’s customers. To aid with the pace and focus of this new set of products, the team is set up as a “startup”–expected to deploy often and learn quickly–but with the support and backing of an ASX100 enterprise.

I was responsible for building a productive and effective engineering team to support the product and business goals of the Tribe. Each squad is comprised of an Engineering Lead and 5-6 developers, plus a product manager and UX designer.

Responsibilities:

Key achievements:

Architecture Manager

REA Group (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
Feb 2017 - Dec 2017

In this role I led a team of developers, tech leads and architects who are responsible for providing architectural leadership, consulting and support to product delivery teams in REA Group globally.

Responsibilities:

Key achievements:

Throughout my time at REA I have also initiated, driven and been responsible for a number of additional responsibilities not specific to my role including:

Senior Tech Lead

REA Group (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
Jan 2016 - Jan 2017

Responsibilities:

Tech Lead

REA Group (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
Dec 2012 - Dec 2015

The consumer-facing web application that powers realestate.com.au is backed by provisioning, messaging and search systems that have evolved over several years. I lead a small team of engineers with responsibility for the long-term architectural direction of these systems, and for undertaking project work in cooperation with line-of-business teams to implement technical improvements.

In addition to product delivery projects, I managed and maintained some key internal infrastructure products including Atlassian Bamboo and GitHub Enterprise, including vendor relationships and contract negotiation.

Responsibilities:

Senior Developer

REA Group (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
Jan 2011 - Dec 2011

I was employed as a senior developer on REA’s mobile team, responsible for development and maintenance of REA’s iPhone and iPad applications.

Consultant

Cogent Consulting (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
April 2009 - Jan 2011

I am an experienced consultant, developer and team leader with expertise in many development environments and platforms. As well as cutting code, I am skilled at configuring the systems and tools that support the development process.

I’ve worked on numerous projects for Cogent’s customers, including significant public Ruby on Rails and Java-based applications.

Projects:

In between customer engagements, I also spent some time working on Cogent’s Getting Things Done® product, Runway.

Senior Developer

Lonely Planet Publications (Footscray, VIC, Australia)
May 2008 - March 2009

I was engaged with Lonely Planet to join the major redevelopment of their public web site. In the course of the contract I worked on many components of the site, including the Drupal-based content management system and Java web applications.

I also acted as a technical team leader for much of the contract, being responsible for the day to day management and technical output of five developers.

Senior Developer

Fast Search & Transfer (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
November 2007 - January 2008

I was employed by FAST on a short-term contract to help with a major release of their AdMomentum product.

Tasks included fixing bugs and adding features in both the struts-based web front end and the stand-alone Java back end.

Senior Developer

National Australia Bank (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
January 2007 - November 2007

I was contracted to NAB as a senior developer in a large project team developing customer-facing J2EE systems.

Senior Developer

CGU Insurance (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
September 2006 - January 2007

I was contracted to CGU Insurance (part of IAG) to work on a new programme of work to develop a framework and end user applications that provide a modern user interface to legacy policy management systems.

The initial project used J2EE application servers and a 3270 screen scraping tool to deliver a browser-based end user application based on data managed by a legacy mainframe system.

Projects:

Technical Analyst

Australia Post (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
November 2005 - August 2006

My role in the Solution Architecture group at Australia Post involved performing technical quality assurance for projects developed by Post’s external service providers. This included document, design and code reviews, as well as general support and coordination of development, test and production environments.

I engaged with external lead designers and developers and internal technical teams to provide specialist guidance, ensuring applications are designed, developed, tested, and deployed properly and in accordance with enterprise standards.

Projects:

Senior Developer

Sensis Pty Ltd (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
February 2004 - October 2005

I was contracted to Sensis Pty Ltd to work on an enterprise-wide integrated content management system. The work involved custom J2EE application development and integration using Tibco and Sun components.

Key challenges in this project included development of components for high performance XML data manipulation, and concurrent scheduling of inter-dependent work units.

I was engaged on various components of the system over the life of the project, including:

Projects:

Senior Consultant

BearingPoint, Inc. (formerly KPMG Consulting) (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
January 2002 - January 2004

I held the position of senior consultant in the Technology Integration Services practice of BearingPoint, Inc. I was responsible for and involved in a wide range of consulting assignments covering design and implementation of complex information technology systems.

Projects:

Senior IT Specialist (Solution Architect)

IBM Global Services (Atlanta, GA, USA)
November 1999 - December 2001

I was employed as a Solution Architect within IBM’s Center for E-Business Innovation, primarily as part of the content management/e-publishing team.

My duties at IBM included: designing and developing web-based (Internet and intranet) publishing, content management and portal solutions for IBM’s customers; managing small to medium development projects; providing leadership and mentoring to other members of the development team; and architecting solutions with Domino/Lotus Notes, IBM WebSphere, IBM DB2, IBM WebSphere CommerceSuite, Oracle, Open Market, Vignette and Interwoven.

Projects:

Consultant

PSR Software, Inc. (Atlanta, GA, USA)
March 1998 - November 1999

I was employed by PSR to perform pre-sales marketing and demonstrations, post-sales implementation, project management, installation, training and support for the software products that PSR develops and distributes.

Other duties included developing Domino-based e-commerce web sites for customers and performing ongoing Notes/Domino development and maintenance tasks for internal and external customers.

Projects:

Senior Consultant

Software Spectrum Inc. (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
March 1997 - March 1998

Projects:

Systems Engineer, Senior Systems Engineer

Business Computers of Australia (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)
May 1993 - February 1997

Professional Memberships

Education

Higher School Certificate, 1986 Banyule High School