Seth Carstens

Technology Executive

Cheers

I'm Seth Carstens

Technology Executive, Solutions Architect, Agile Coach

  • Age 38
  • Address 4815 E Quien Sabe Way, Cave Creek, AZ 85331
  • E-mail [email protected]
  • Phone +1 (480) 203-3753
  • Focus Leadership and Technology Management
  • Superpower Dad Jokes
  • Seeking CTO or VP Positions

Download Resume

Hello! I’m Seth Carstens. Leader and Technology Executive specializing in web applications and Saas. Experienced with all stages of the development cycle for dynamic web projects. Well-versed in numerous programming languages including JavaScript, SQL, and PHP and others. Background in SAFe Agile product management, project management, IT Ops, DevOps, and Information Security.

Professional Skills

Management Culture, Character, & Capability
AWS / Azure Built, automated, deployed, budgeted.
Docker Built and managed virtualized services.
JavaScript Can build and trace custom JS
Node JS Can create APIs and functions as a service.
REACT Know concepts of core
PHP & MySQL Well versed in OOP
HTML & CSS Everything but canvas
WordPress Familiar with almost all of core
Figma / Sketch / MIRO Prototyping and some Vector

Work Experience

2021

CTO

TitanX

As CTO I provide sound technical leadership in all aspects of the business. Communicate with employees, stakeholders, and customers to ensure the company’s technologies are used appropriately. Manage, recruite, hire, and train all Software Engineering staff. Document and onboarded the entire company to use the Agile SCRUM project management operations.

• Developing technical aspects of the company’s strategy to ensure alignment with its business goals
• Developing objectives and strategies for the implementation of innovative solutions while optimizing existing systems, applications, and information
• Making recommendations and present business advantages for technology initiatives and improvements
• Supervise system infrastructure to ensure functionality and efficiency
• Leading your team in identifying, comparing, selecting, and implementing technology solutions and partnerships to meet current and future needs
• Monitor KPIs and IT budgets to assess technological performance
• Use stakeholders’ feedback to inform necessary improvements and adjustments to technology
• Communicate technology strategy to partners and investors

2018-2021

Director of Technology

Meredith Corporation

Managing multiple engineering teams with over 30+ engineers in an Agile SCRUM environment. I lead our division towards migrating and merging all 19 major digital brands onto One (Unified) CMS built on top of WordPress Multisite. Other responsibilities include problem solving and coworking with other engineering divisions, planning and strategizing with groups like Product and Project in order to align, and architecting AWS cloud architecture with the Digital Operations team in order to provide in-house enterprise scale hosting solutions for all our web applications.

In addition to technical responsibilities, I manage 15+ direct reports. As a Director I'm also involved in recruiting, hiring, and training staff on boarded into our division. Given my deep breadth of knowledge into legacy systems I also operate with administrative oversight into 3rd party systems like AWS, JIRA, Confluence, Slack, Zoom, Jetbrains and other vendors. Our leads meet frequently to assess our vendors and insure that our engineering staff is provided the best tools and utilities to be effective and efficient. We have also built a custom in house CI/CD deployment system on top of Docker which allows a like for like local development environment for our engineers.

2015 - 2018

TIME INC

Director of Technology

Time Inc acquired Fansided, and I was brought onboard to continue my role. As the Director of Technology for Fansided, a Time Inc brand, I manage all aspects of technology for the brand. This includes managing the WordPress development teams, hosting providers, service providers, and the support desk. My teams build and iterate on technologies that scale, providing editorial tools for thousands of writers and news and entertainment resources for 10+ million users. In the transition for Fansided to become a part of Time Inc, I continue to bridge gaps in technology and data in order to take Fansided from the bootstrap company it was, and help make it public company compliant.

At Fansided, we manage over 300 WordPress blogs, both multisite and single site, including social media and analytics accounts associated with each. I personally rewrote and manage the API infrastructure, with MVC architecture, to allow a scalable solution for our personalized mobile applications on both iOS and Android devices. I train and develop all of the developers I manage, as well as assisting in the training of our editorial team when it comes to technology and WordPress. We continue building products that outsmart and outperform the competition with smaller teams, lower costs, and a much higher ROI.

2014 - 2015

FANSIDED

VP of Technology

Working closely with the Partners to execute their vision for the product and technology. Responsible for all technical operations from managing servers & up-time monitoring to front-end product development. Managing relationships with SaaS vendors, hosting companies, and products/services used for development (Parse, GitHub, MailChimp, Mandrill, etc). Responsible for maintaining 99.9% up-time and mending the technical infrastructure. Building a development team including hiring/firing and maintaining a great company culture. Responsible for managing the and coding build-out of new products as well as maintaining current products from the Desktop product to FanSided Daily, Mobile App and any future products. Helping to move over, maintain, and solidify any domain & site acquisitions and non-FanSided templates. Travel on business to help land any adverting sales that require information technology collaboration. Constantly be striving to put out a best-in-class product solution. From Desktop to Mobile, to Apps and Email, FanSided should always strive innovate and iterate. Help operating Fansided with the Lean Start-up model and Agile Development methodologies to beat the competition. Growing a team of all-star coders! Building great tools on top of WordPress to help make the Editorial process as seamless as possible for writers. Increasing Engagement across all products to earn additional revenue. Cleaned up legacy code and simplified the code base.

2013 - 2014

RAPID RECOVERY

Web Developer

Rebuilt and enhanced existing ASP B2C site with ASP.NET 2.0 Framework and tools. Technology consists of ASP.NET 2.0 (C#), IIS, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Stored Procedures & PayPal Instant Payment Notification.

1997 - 2014

SETHMATICS INC

Webmaster / Web Developer

When I was 14 years old I started a technology consulting company. We have done everything from training, consulting, networking and wiring, websites, marketing and digital design, to literally moving office IT equipment during business moves. We now specialize in "Website Design and Programming" but have a wide array of abilities. I have operated as owner of Sethmatics even while acting in all my other jobs duties. We are "Helping people speak 'Computer'".

2003 - 2004

ANTHEM EDUCATION GROUP

New Media Developer

Increase quality assurance (QA) by reducing website content errors and server errors from 30% to 1% in just 5 months. Merged all 8 website brands into 1 global brand and moved thousands of pages of website content into a WordPress as a CMS saving the company over $100,000 a year over using retail proprietary CMS. Decreased load speed on recorded by Google to from 14 seconds to about 6 seconds of load time per webpage. Manage the Intranet and its documents and content for company with about 1600 employees. Used internal initiatives to increase social interactions on Facebook by having campuses compete for “viral” awards. Also responsible for an array of online services like streaming video, live chat, analytics and A/B testing services, SVN/GIT, project management, and website and server monitoring utilities.

Technologies Used

Education

2002 - 2006

Bachelor Computer Information Systems

Arizona State University

1998 - 2002

High School Diploma

Desert Mountain High, Scottsdale AZ

Story

Autobiography

The Short Story Of Seth’s Leadership Life Born in the small town of Navado, California, I was brought to the earth at 9 pounds 11 ounces. Shortly after my second birthday I was moved to Arizona. I bounced around different parts of the technology world until I found that I have a unique talent in Web Development, Digital Marketing, and internet application services. I now spend my days as a web developer and my weekends as a golfer and father.

Seth’s Vision

Many people are uncomfortable with new technology, but we are starting to breach the learning gap in all generations. Coming into the information age, I want to make technologies “work for people” instead of people “working at technology”. I’m an efficiency nut and I use website development and online services to automate things that used to be tedious and cumbersome.

Awards and Achievements

PERSONAL

Graduating college, getting married and becoming a father are all amazing achievements I’ve made personally. Our annual community service project SaveAChristmas.com is one of my most prized personal goals to have met. I’m now the President of the non-profit corperation CCF Foundation. We help foster children every year. Of course my continued involvement with WordCamp Phoenix, and local WordPress meetups around the valley is another personal achievement worth mention.

Get Involved

PROFESSIONAL

I started my own business at 14. As I entered college, earning the Leadership Scholarship Program awarded me a full ride to ASU. Graduated Cum Laude from the W.P. Carey College of business started me down my career path. Eventually I helped be a founder of FanSided, and together we sold the publishing business and became one of the largest online digital brands at Time Inc. After Time was sold to Meredith Corporation, I rebuilt from the ground up a foundation for a new CMS that would unify all brands into a single creator studio platform. Before I left, we officially onboarded all major Meredith brands into the new platform that our team of 100+ engineers.

Learn More

From The Blog

Visit My Blog

Interests

Professionally I enjoy website engineering and development architecture as well as team leadership and management.

  • Watch Movies
  • Tech Hardware Reviews
  • Playing Tennis
  • Swimming

Contact Us

Feel free to contact me

  • Phone +1 (480) 203-3753
  • LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethcarstens/
  • Address 4815 E Quien Sabe Way, Cave Creek, AZ 85331