Founded ESS in 2007 after The Software Factory partnership split. ESS did not replace work overnight - it layered on top of existing commitments and long-term client relationships. Built from a solo consultancy into a 15 person delivery organization known for white-glove service.
De facto CTO for telecom logistics enterprise across a 19-year partnership. First met MDSi through Magenic (2006), continued through TSF and ESS. MDSi has always been an ESS client - engagement varied from full-time contracts to part-time 1099.
Led an 11-engineer delivery team, driving Agile adoption and technical delivery for enterprise consulting engagements.
Built and led a 19-engineer technology organization delivering Fortune 500 digital platforms and enterprise integrations.
Led a 10-person development team delivering e-commerce, digital media, and integration platforms for national clients.
Contractor delivering mission-critical systems for Georgia Department of Revenue. Architected and implemented E-Lien/E-Title, Tax Delinquency Inquiry, and ASP.NET Membership systems for state government operations.
Contractor at a major $250M footwear e-commerce company (Dr. Scholl's partnership). Individual contributor with light team leadership. Designed and implemented a full test automation framework as the standout contribution.
Contractor who architected and fully implemented an incident/claims management system. Despite architecture responsibility, the role was still hands-on and execution-focused.
Co-founded consulting firm that scaled to 12 consultants with $2M+ project portfolio. Key entrepreneurial learning experience - both founders were developers (too much skill overlap), which eventually led to partnership dissolution and the founding of ESS.
Career-defining role where Tom discovered his love for consulting. Member of Microsoft Partner of the Year team (2005). First met MDSi here - beginning of the 19-year partnership. Delivered enterprise modernization and healthcare audit projects.
Individual contributor with team leadership. Role was heavily focused on code generation - helped build internal code generation frameworks and used them to generate large volumes of production code. Early experience with template-driven development and automation.
Team lead position with hands-on execution focus. Mentored a small number of developers while building and extending features for the reservation management system. Still primarily an individual contributor with leadership responsibilities.
Architected AND fully implemented the Colorado Lottery claims management system. First architecture role - described as "learning architecture" while being a "workhorse implementer". Required CBI background clearance for high-security lottery systems.
Career origin story: Started in QA, self-taught programming, and earned promotion to development. Early .NET adopter from Beta 2 through 1.1, building enterprise deployment and licensing platforms for 15,000+ salespeople.