resume.json

{
  "basics": {
    "name": "James Nicholson",
    "email": "nicholsonjf@gmail.com",
    "url": "http://nicholsonjf.com",
    "profiles": [
      {
        "network": "GitHub",
        "username": "nicholsonjf",
        "url": "http://github.com/nicholsonjf"
      }
    ],
    "summary": "Backend-focused Software Engineer with 5+ years of experience designing and implementing scalable systems, APIs, and integrations. Skilled in Python, JavaScript, PHP, and Scala, with expertise in database optimization, automation, and cloud-based solutions (AWS). Proven track record leading large-scale web applications and data-driven projects at Harvard and Stanford, driving measurable efficiency gains, cost savings, and secure infrastructure. Strong foundation in data science and machine learning through a Master's in Software Engineering from Harvard Extension School, with hands-on experience building multi-threaded pipelines, predictive models, and production-ready backend services."
  },
  "skills": [
    {
      "name": "Programming Languages",
      "keywords": [
        "Python",
        "JavaScript",
        "Php",
        "Scala",
        "C"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Other",
      "keywords": [
        "System design",
        "Systems integration",
        "Project management",
        "Verbal and written communication",
        "QA process implementation",
        "WordPress development",
        "Automation",
        "Cloud computing (AWS)",
        "Data integration",
        "Accessibility & privacy compliance"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "work": [
    {
      "name": "Harvard Chan School of Public Health",
      "location": "Remote, San Francisco",
      "position": "Senior Web and Application Developer",
      "url": "https://hsph.harvard.edu",
      "startDate": "2019-09",
      "summary": "Led high-profile web development projects and major systems integrations, delivering measurable cost savings, improved workflows, and award-winning results. Recognized for technical leadership, automation expertise, and process improvements.",
      "highlights": [
        "Served as technical lead on the multi-year redesign of the school’s flagship website, launching successfully in December 2024 after coordinating 200+ UAT test cases, discovery of 100+ bugs, and managing 12+ testers. Advocated for a critical launch delay decision that ensured project success.",
        "Onboarded and mentored new developers to the flagship project, ensuring long-term sustainability of the platform.",
        "Built the authentication/authorization layer for the school’s intranet with fine-grained access controls, enabling repurposing of the WordPress multisite into a stable internal intranet.",
        "Developed a script and process automating removal of 1000+ unauthorized WordPress users, increasing security and efficiency.",
        "Automated archiving and deletion of 1100+ WordPress sites with the ability to restore from backups, freeing disk space and reducing maintenance costs.",
        "Created hybrid events calendar features to support virtual, in-person, and hybrid events, improving usability and adoption.",
        "Implemented automated database synchronization across environments, reducing developer friction and ensuring production parity.",
        "Built an application using Php, Javascript, and MySQL to programmatically create and update thousands of faculty and researcher profiles, saving $20k annually in manual content management.",
        "Led technical implementation of Emma email marketing service (SSO, DKIM, contact sync), improving branding and accessibility for school-wide communications.",
        "Introduced and documented new QA processes including PR templates, logging systems, and merge policies, improving reliability and code quality across the team.",
        "Served as WordPress team lead after only 9 months, driving faculty profile project rollout, major theme refactoring, and system integrations.",
        "Recognized by management for curiosity, initiative, and suggesting/implementing workflow improvements across multiple years."
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Stanford Graduate School of Business",
      "location": "Palo Alto, CA",
      "position": "IT Systems Analyst",
      "startDate": "2015-09",
      "endDate": "2019-09",
      "summary": "Provided IT systems development and support for classroom and academic technology at Stanford GSB.",
      "highlights": [
        "Wrote a Python script automating remote software upgrades to classroom hardware, improving consistency and saving hours of manual effort.",
        "Built an integration between Google Forms and Stanford’s classroom recording system using Google Apps Script and Javascript, enabling automated recording scheduling.",
        "Developed a classroom support request system with Python and Twilio API, improving average service request response time through real-time text notifications."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "education": [
    {
      "institution": "University of Colorado Boulder",
      "location": "Colorado",
      "studyType": "Bachelor's",
      "area": "Journalism",
      "endDate": ""
    },
    {
      "institution": "Harvard Extension School",
      "location": "Cambridge, MA",
      "studyType": "Master's",
      "area": "Software Engineering",
      "endDate": "2024",
      "courses": [
        "Thesis project: Automating Meta Analysis Information Extraction with a Large Language Model",
        "Worked with a team of research scientists at Pfizer to build a multi-threaded information extraction pipeline using Python and Meta’s Llama API that sped up the existing manual extraction process by a factor of 20x",
        "Read more: https://nicholsonjf.com/hectre",
        "Completed advanced coursework in Cryptography, Cloud Services, Operating Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Scala for Big Data, Mathematical Statistics, and Robotics."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "projects": [
    {
      "name": "Predicting Flight Delays",
      "description": "A random forest model that predicts flight delays using temporal and operational features; built in Python with scikit-learn and pandas.",
      "url": "https://nicholsonjf.com/flight-delay-prediction"
    },
    {
      "name": "Multi-Class Image Classification: Transfer Learning vs. Standalone CNNs",
      "description": "Compared transfer learning against training CNNs from scratch for multi-class classification; implemented with Python, Keras, and pandas.",
      "url": "https://nicholsonjf.com/transfer-learning"
    },
    {
      "name": "Information Extraction via Large Language Model (HECTRE)",
      "description": "Web and CLI application that uses LLMs and parallel processing to extract structured clinical trial data from PDFs, reducing manual effort from months to minutes.",
      "url": "https://nicholsonjf.com/hectre"
    },
    {
      "name": "Using Akka Streams to Process MBTA Predictions",
      "description": "Scala/Akka Streams pipeline consuming MBTA real-time arrival data, throttling and persisting predictions for streaming analytics.",
      "url": "https://nicholsonjf.com/mbta-arrivals"
    },
    {
      "name": "Implementation and Comparison of Navigation Algorithms",
      "description": "Implemented and benchmarked multiple path-finding algorithms for robotics/AV contexts, analyzing performance tradeoffs.",
      "url": "https://nicholsonjf.com/navigation-algorithms"
    },
    {
      "name": "Academic Profiles (Automated Faculty Profiles)",
      "description": "Built automated profile generation for thousands of faculty/researchers using PHP, JavaScript, and MySQL, replacing manual content entry and saving ~$20k/year.",
      "url": "https://nicholsonjf.com/academic-profiles"
    }
  ]
}