Jasper AI (2022-2023)
Divvy was a FinTech SaaS company that specialized in corporate cards and an expense management platform based in Draper, Utah. In 2021, Divvy was acquired by Silicon Valley’s Bill.com.
Key software projects:
- Jasper’s Public API – a REST-based API launched in May 2023 for use by customers and partners to generate marketing content.
- Document Sharing – this feature allowed marketing team members to share documents used for storing AI content and writing with team members or their entire workspace.
- Document Statuses – we added a tag on documents that corresponded to the steps in a marketer’s content creation flow. This tag allowed them to filter documents while searching and indicate the status of a document to others in their workspace.
- Default Tone of Voice – this functionality allowed admins to define their “default tone” of their workspace that would be used when generating AI content in a template or document. It was the first step towards the “Jasper Brand Voice” strategy.
- Jasper Brand Voice Strategy – in Februrary 2023, we announced at the Gen AI conference the “Jasper Brand Voice” or “JBV” strategy. This strategy had two primary components: 1) generating AI content using a customer’s unique brand voice and 2) generating AI content that maintains facts and proprietary information. I was the primary driving force for this strategy and managed two JBV teams until Summer 2023.
Divvy/Bill.com (2019-2022)
Divvy was a FinTech SaaS company that specialized in corporate cards and an expense management platform based in Draper, Utah. In 2021, Divvy was acquired by Silicon Valley’s Bill.com.
Key software projects:
- Divvy Auth – due to an onslaught of attacks, our team built a standalone, customizable authentication service for customer-facing apps (web and mobile) as well as our internal siteadmin app called Houston.
- Seasonal Login Pages – as part of our Divvy Auth launch, we added a unique delighter in that we updated the login page image on both web and mobile every quarter to correspond to the current season.
- The Bookkeeper Role and Rolex – we built a role and permission service and a new, popular role for bookkeepers.
- Partner Co-branding – in this software project on web and mobile, we gave strategic partners the ability to co-brand their Divvy instance with their logo, physical card stock, and digital card images.
- Partner Application for Referral or Reseller Partners – on WordPress, I built and managed a partner referral and reseller application process until we were big enough to offload this process to an engineering team.
- Company Logo Upload – we gave customers the ability to upload their own logo on both web and mobile.
- CSV Uploader – we built a CSV import flow that gave admins the ability to upload a CSV of their employees in bulk to add their users to Divvy and to order their cards automatically.
- Getting Started Guide – COVID greatly impacted Divvy in 2020. As such, we built a self-serve flow that gave new users a tour of our app. We also rebuilt all support documentation and created a series of getting started videos to support this feature’s launch.
- Public API and Token Generation UI – we developed a GraphQL-based public API as well as a UX in the Divvy app to generate an API token.
- Quick Actions Menu – this web-based feature added an expandable menu of the most commonly performed tasks within the UI. Available menu options varied by user role.
- New Navigation – in Spring 2022, we made a series of changes to both web and mobile navigation. We also overhauled our internal app Houston’s global and secondary navigation as well.
- MCM Disconnect – MCM stands for Multi-Company Management. This feature allowed a user to switch between multiple companies using a single username. This feature makes it so users don’t have to manage multiple sets of credentials for Divvy and it also helps them quickly switch between multiple companies they are tasked with.
- 3-Factor Authentication – an additional factor in the authentication flow that required users to verify their web-based and mobile devices before logging into Divvy.
Team velocity:
Our People and Platform team was tasked with managing a very large area. As such, we made near constant changes to customer-facing apps (web and mobile) and to our internal app called Houston.
The graphic below illustrates the number of changes our team made in 2021 and how often our team shipped these features or improvements (every two weeks on average).
Instructure (2015-2019)
Instructure is an EdTech SaaS company that created Canvas, a K12 and Higher Ed LMS in Salt Lake City, Utah. Instructure also created a corporate LMS called Bridge. I was there when Instructure was in the startup phase through their first IPO.
Key software projects:
- SIStemic Integration Platform – this project involved working with another PM, designer, and ENGs to build an integration platform for student information systems (SISs) so that admins at schools could sync students, grades, courses, etc. to the Canvas LMS.
- Kimono Platform – this project involved working with engineers of a third party integration platform. This was a “backup plan” in the event that SIStemic never came to fruition. This iPAAS solution was primarily for K12 customers.
- Legacy SIS Platform Improvements – thousands of customers remained on the legacy SIS platform. We had to build enhancements to the platform itself and in our product’s APIs and administrative pages to continue to support SIS imports, reporting, etc.
- Badging Rebuild – our co-founder built a badging solution on a Heroku hobby server over a weekend. Years later, this badging solution that allowed students and teachers to earn digital badges when they achieved milestones in their learning was going down daily. We worked with a third party vendor, Badgr and internal engineers, to integrate a new badging solution into our product as a scalable, long-term solution.
- Sales Handoff Process Automation – I worked with a team of Salesforce engineers to optimize the Sales Handoff process. This involved integrating new tooling and changing some of our workflows in Salesforce to make the sales handoff cleaner and easier between Sales and CS.
- Scaling Project – I worked with numerous Instructure engineers to define breaking points in our software so we can improve our scaling and performance for high-use customers.
- SKU and Product Portfolios – I worked with our Salesforce engineering team again to consolidate all SKUs in the company and to simplify the deal desk flow for what could be sold by Sales in our product.
UFirstCU (2009-2015) - Formerly University Credit Union
Key software projects:
- EMV Support – supporting EMV chips on consumer and commercial credit and debit cards. Required software and hardware changes in our core, ATMs, and branch locations
- Apply Pay and Google Pay – in this software project, we were offered early access by VISA to built support for Apple Pay and Google Pay on mobile devices.
- Mobile Check Deposit (aka Remote Check Deposit) – this was a mobile app OCR and Check21 project that gave customers the ability to take a picture of a check to deposit it in their accounts instead of physically visiting a branch.
- NPS survey architecture – a software project that involved sending notifications to customers on regular intervals, tracking customer activity online and in branches, and a database of survey rankings and comments used to enhance the user experience.
- Receipt Capture – software and hardware buildout to support digital receipts that could also be printed as needed at teller lines
- ID Capture – software and hardware buildout for ID scanning machines and software to collect IDs for withdrawals, loan applications, and more.
- ITM Deployment – software and hardware project to support interactive teller machines (i.e. ATMs with video and audio capabilities allowing tellers to work remotely at any branch from an admin location).
- Student Life Center Branch Construction – a project to build out the new Student Life Center branch at the U of U that was primarily a teller-less branch leveraging ITMs, remote loan application software and hardware, and more.
- Holladay Branch Construction – a project to purchase, remodel, and rebuild the Holladay branch location. Involved hardware and software changes.
- Intranet buildout – using HTML, CSS, and JS, I built out an intranet that listed branch locations, contact information of employees, HR documents, and a dashboard with a calendar and company-wide announcements.
- CU Wiki – built an internal open source wiki for operational procedures, policies, and employee resources using HTML, CSS, JS, and Python
- Responsive Website Redesign and Internal CMS – in this project, we built a modular CMS with the help of third party engineers and a consultant that culminated in a total overhaul of our website.