My Resume

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Jimmy Brancaccio

Contact Information

Phone: 802-715-1473
Location: Cypress, TX
Website: jimmyb.ninja
Email: hi[ @ ]jimmyb.ninja

Professional Summary

I have been fortunate to spend each day in a field that enables me to utilize my skill set and forces me to think outside the box. I thrive in a fast paced role and enjoy the flexibility my job demands. I'm a problem solver, people person, and a team player who is passionate about creating positive experiences. I think strategically and holistically to ensure that the customers and people I work with have excellent experiences.

Experience

Gitpod - May, 2022 - January, 2023

Technical Support Engineer
As the inaugural Technical Support Engineer at Gitpod, I played a pivotal role in establishing and shaping the Support department from its inception. Throughout my tenure, I successfully accomplished the following milestones at Gitpod.

• I accomplished the development of 90% of the Technical Support Handbook, a comprehensive manual designed for day-to-day use by Technical Support Engineers. This handbook provides detailed guidance on executing daily duties, addressing specific customer issues, and other policies and procedures related to the support department.
• Established a complete test environment using Amazon's EKS service. This empowered team members to replicate customer issues effectively and provided a baseline for comparison by showcasing the standard environment.
• Established a target to attain or surpass a customer feedback score of 9.2 in the first quarter and 9.4 in the second quarter. Successfully met and exceeded expectations by achieving a customer feedback score of 9.5 in the first quarter and 9.7 in the second quarter.
• We aimed to achieve an initial response time of 4 hours to address our customers' inquiries in support tickets. I consistently managed to respond within approximately 2 hours for the majority of tickets.

cPanel, LLC - July, 2016 to May, 2022

• Technical Coordinator - Siteocity (February 2018 - May, 2022) - In this role, I oversaw the operations of the web hosting company, Siteocity. My main responsibility involved testing cutting-edge versions of cPanel & WHM in a live environment that encompassed real customers. This role necessitated being on call around the clock throughout the year. The tasks encompassed:
  • Maintaining the CentOS, CloudLinux, and AlmaLinux servers by keeping them updated and secured, while ensuring a reasonable level of uptime, security, and performance across all systems.
  • Managing a WHMCS instance which handled the billing, domain names, client sign ups, hosting products and more. I also ensured the WHMCS software itself was kept updated.
  • Supervising the outsourced technical support team to ensure the delivery of top-notch technical support to our customers. Managing escalated tickets, encompassing both technical support and billing/sales inquiries.
  • Made ongoing recommendations for the continuous improvement of Siteocity and how we could better engage our customers to solicit their feedback on the product.
  • Reporting any defects or improvements in cPanel & WHM to the development teams (via JIRA).
  • Conducting comprehensive evaluations of third-party software that piqued the interest of our team at cPanel, with the intention of potential integration or acquisition.
  • I developed several tools enabling our accounting department to conveniently retrieve specific customer payment information through a user-friendly web interface linked to the WHMCS instance.

• Technical Support Application Developer (February 2018 - May, 2022) - I initiated the creation of this role for myself in response to the needs identified while serving as a Technical Support Analyst Supervisor. Upon sharing the concept with my peers, I collaborated with my manager to formalize the responsibilities and transform the evolving work into a distinct and defined position.
  
  • I developed and consistently maintained a web-based dashboard designed to streamline and provide a structured, user-friendly approach for overseeing daily responsibilities in the roles of Technical Analyst Support Supervisor or Technical Analyst Team Lead.
  • This dashboard comprised various components or modules, effectively automating both major and minor tasks that were previously managed manually. I am available to discuss these components and their functionalities upon request.
  • I established and oversaw a Grafana instance, seamlessly connecting it to multiple MySQL databases. Leveraging the data from these databases, I designed several dashboards within Grafana to optimize data visualization and analysis.
• Technical Analyst Supervisor (July 2016 - February 2018) - I led a team comprising Level I, II, and III Technical Support Analysts, emphasizing the importance of attendance and punctuality to enhance employee morale. Collaborating on the establishment of effective department procedures, the key objectives of this position encompassed:
  • Ensured team members had opportunities to reach their fullest potential.
  • Providing guidance and coaching to employees as opportunities for improvement emerged.
  • Developed and conducted semi-annual performance evaluations.
  • Conducting monthly one-on-one meetings, providing a forum to discuss areas for improvement, recognize achievements, and gain insights into employees' lives beyond the workplace.
  • Managed employee time clocks, shift scheduling, and time off requests.
  • Contributing to feedback on departmental procedures and how they could be improved.
  • I played a role in the hiring process for new Technical Support Analysts by conducting initial phone interviews as the first step in their interview process.
  • Worked with upset customers, listening to them, and working with them towards a solution that they were happy with.

Skills

LAMP/LEMP stack installation, configuration and maintenance in Linux environments
Docker, Docker Compose, Docker Swarm and building Docker images
Kubernetes, Helm
Proxy software setup and configuration (Apache, Nginx, Traefik)
Web development in HTML, CSS, Javascript
Web application development in PHP (Laravel) and MySQL
Strong familiarity in macOS, Linux desktop operating system environments
Strong familiarity in macOS and Linux server operating system environments
Cisco Networking Solutions (CCNA-level) - configuration of routers, switches and VLANs
cPanel & WHM
Email server setup, configuration and management using Exim, Postfix and Dovecot
BIND and PowerDNS - setup, configuration and management
Using iptables, nftables and fail2ban to secure Linux systems
Basic Perl scripting
Basic Bash scripting including awk, sed, for and while loops
Writing technical documentation and guides for internal and public consumption

Projects

MyVideoGameList - April, 2011 to Present

myvideogamelist.com
MyVideoGameList.com is a website which allows users to track and keep a list of the video games they're currently playing or have played amongst other statuses. It was originally written for personal use but it appears other people have found a good use for it as well. The site is built from the ground up using PHP & MySQL. It features an integration of bbPress forum software as well as CometChat. The site is an on-going work in progress, and there's still a fair amount of features and code that I'd like to get implemented.

Macintosh-Admin - November, 2007 to August, 2009

macintosh-admin.com
This is a project I started with one of my best friends while working at Small Dog Electronics. We wanted it to be a repository of knowledge including, tutorials, news, and code that we created or from others that we found useful while working with Mac OS X Server and the Apple Xserve. Since the Apple Xserve and Xserve RAID have been discontinued the site is mostly in-active. It was originally built using WordPress and integrated with bbPress. Since then the site has been moved to Octopress and no longer uses a forum.

My Blog - March, 2013 to Present

jimmyb.ninja
After going through various types of blogging software I decided most were too bloated for what I needed so I ended up developing my own. The first iteration was built from scratch using HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL and Disqus which handled comments on articles. The next major and current implementation utilized the Laravel PHP framework. I find that I am always working to improve its code, layout, and functionality.

MyAnimeList - January, 2014 to January, 2020

This web application was very similar to MyVideoGameList but was specifically made for anime. It allowed me to create a list of anime and set them to one of several statuses. It also acted as a database for hundreds if not thousands of anime titles. I built this application because the current solution at MyAnimeList.net was failing me (and others) as it was unstable and unreliable. I also prefer to store my data on my own servers. I stopped working on this and have implemented much of its functionality into my own blog.

Scribbld - July, 2007 to Present

scribbld.com
Scribbld is one of my larger projects in terms of the amount of users. It utilizes the LiveJournal source code as it's platform. Scribbld originally ran on 3 web servers and 2 database servers, however after optimizing the site, and code and upgrading physical resources I've been able to get the site to run without issue on a single physical server. Scribbld has over 100,000 users. I am responsible for daily server maintenance & backup of important data, keeping server reliability & stability high, supporting end users when issues arise, general maintenance involved in a community-based website, and maintaining multiple web servers and database servers in a secure manner. I also developed external scripts to handle paid account notifications and statuses as well as a script which allowed users to purchased purged/deleted accounts. Currently Scribbld isn't receiving any active development time, due to new projects utilizing all my development time as well as a lack of support from the LiveJournal development community.

Confessh.us - June, 2009 to November, 2011

This idea of this project originated from a friend and within a few weeks we had a working version of the site up and running. The idea behind Confessh.us was that anyone could submit a confession (anonymously if they wanted) and could read and comment on confessions left by other users. The site was built using PHP & MySQL and we integrated it with bbPress for discussions. The site is no longer active and the code has been archived, mostly as reference for future projects.

Movie Rental Web Application - May, 2009 to May, 2015

I built this application for a local general store that wanted to rent movies out to their customers. The application allowed users to store customer information, an inventory of their movies, as well as functionality that allowed customers to rent out movies. The applications also generated statistics such as whom has rented the most movies, which movies were late, late fees, and the total number of movies and customers in the database. The application has gone through several iterations, mostly UI changes. The final version used Bootstrap as its CSS framework. While the application was specifically designed for a single store, it's more than possible the application could be used by multiple places, each with their own database of movies and customers.