Jamie Conklin
Product Manager
Location
Charlottesville, VA, United States
Toptal Member Since
July 22, 2019
For the past 18 years, Jamie has bridged the gap between users, developers, and leaders to create insightful analytical and educational applications. Jamie has extensive experience working in data science, spatial analytics, software development, program management, and executive leadership in the commercial, intelligence, defense, and educational sectors. A divergent thinker, he readily translates ideas across domains to find innovative solutions to challenging problems.
Jamie is available for hire
Hire JamieProject Highlights
Predicting Insurgent Attacks in Active Warzones
Led the design, implementation, and deployment of a spatial prediction tool that predicted where soldiers would be attacked.
Testing and Credentialing for Professionals
Led the product design of a cutting-edge learning management system, credentialing, and testing platform.
GeoMesa: Managing Big Spatial Data
Led marketing and commercial development efforts for the GeoMesa platform.
Expertise
Big DataData ScienceEducation Technology (Edtech)Product ManagementRemote SensingSoftware EngineeringTechnical Product ManagementTechnical Program ManagementEducation
Master's Degree
University of Virginia
Bachelor's Degree
University of Virginia
Work Experience
2019 - PRESENT
VP of Product
Astraea
- Defined and executed the roadmap for a complex spatial analysis platform comprised of multiple products.
- Created, led, and executed client outreach to garner industry knowledge, generated awareness, and populated sales funnel.
- Designed and led the development of eCommerce integration, customer support integration, and part of CRM integration.
- Participated in sales as initial contact and/or solution architect.
- Collaborated on company strategy and execution through product development.
- Defined role of product management in the company as the first PM.
- Conducted and evaluated user testing studies to understand behavior and identify user experience issues.
2019 - 2019
Vice President of Product
Scitent, Inc.
- Led the design of a microlearning app, learning management system, and testing platform.
- Defined the product vision in conjunction with the executive team.
- Consulted with existing and prospective customers to identify key requirements.
- Designed a SaaS product that will have a positive ROI with only two clients in 20 months and drove sales for these clients.
- Prioritized feature sets based on customer feedback.
- Developed and maintained product roadmaps, internal requirements, software architecture, and decision documentation, creating awareness and understanding of product development.
- Analyzed build vs. buy opportunities saving the company tens of thousands in development costs.
- Authored successful RFP to outsource critical development.
- Conducted market research to assess competitors and partners.
2017 - 2019
Vice President of Operations
Scitent, Inc.
- Spearheaded software/content development and project management.
- Developed a new service offering which opened up over 20 new opportunities to the company and resulted in a major shift in the company’s strategy.
- Aligned technical and non-technical teams by bridging communication gaps.
- Acquired new customers with sales engineering and proposal writing support resulting in a 33% increase in our customer base.
- Slashed annual IT spending by over 35% by reviewing software and hardware spending.
- Reorganized the company and formulated a new budget for more efficient operations at the board of directors' request.
2015 - 2017
Director of Business Development
Commonwealth Computer Research, Inc.
- Prioritized and coordinated business development activities.
- Served as a high-level product manager for multiple spatiotemporal threat prediction programs.
- Wrote numerous winning proposals winning millions of dollars of research work for the company; many of these programs are still operational.
- Defined and managed internal research and development efforts.
- Collaborated with users to identify needs in the market and translated these needs into proposals and software designs.
2011 - 2015
Director of Operations
Commonwealth Computer Research, Inc.
- Drove company growth from six in 2006 to 115 in 2017.
- Managed a portfolio of 12 contracts worth over $4 million development services annually.
- Spearheaded strategic planning with company leadership.
- Advocated for and defined a product owner role within the company.
- Led over 200 interviews to grow our teams in support of new work.
- Conducted trade-off studies, selected systems, and implemented numerous software systems smoothly and efficiently.
- Managed hiring and staffing across over 20 projects.
- Guided the design of spatial threat prediction systems across multiple projects as a high-level product manager.
2008 - 2011
Program Manager | Product Manager
Commonwealth Computer Research, Inc.
- Prioritized the development of features for a second-generation threat-prediction system.
- Deployed a spatial predictive analysis tool to Iraq and collaborated with deployed soldiers to further refine design and feature set to align with operational needs.
- Served as the voice of the customer to the development team helping the design features that met the user's needs.
- Proposed and won new contracts to continue research efforts.
- Applied Agile management techniques to track and manage numerous technical projects.
- Grew threat prediction programs by 40 times and opened up work with several new clients.
2006 - 2011
Research Scientist
The University of Virginia
- Led the Predictive Technology Lab in crime and threat prediction-based work.
- Delivered crime-analysis tools with spatial-prediction tools to a law enforcement software developer.
2006 - 2008
Senior Systems Engineer
Commonwealth Computer Research, Inc.
- Designed and developed a web app to predict the location of future asymmetric warfare events.
- Refined prediction algorithms to improve threat prediction performance and identify key predictive features resulting in improved accuracy and reduced processing time.
- Collaborated with users to design a user interface that aligned with the key use cases.
2003 - 2005
Systems Engineer
The Aerospace Corporation
- Conducted trade studies across multiple advanced technologies.
- Designed enterprise architectures for large agencies.
- Supported the architecture for a future satellite ground system.
Project History
Predicting Insurgent Attacks in Active Warzones
Led the design, implementation, and deployment of a spatial prediction tool that predicted where soldiers would be attacked.
STRIPE was a threat prediction tool deployed to the United States Army to predict IED events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Building upon my company's predictive algorithm, I designed and built a tool that all intelligence officers—even those with little background in statistics—could use to plan their missions.
As a product manager, I've traveled as far as Baghdad, Iraq, to collaborate with end-users in their operational environment. These experiences provided invaluable insights into the specific analytical questions our users were trying to answer and the broader context in which they were working in. As our solutions competed against other tools, my ability to articulate and address the real needs of our users gave us a tremendous competitive edge.
Development-wise, I led our team by defining user stories, teaching the group about the military domain and language, and testing and evaluating the tools to ensure they met user needs.
This tool has been used to support vital military missions and helped save lives by providing essential intelligence information to users in operational, relevant terms and timeframes.
As a product manager, I've traveled as far as Baghdad, Iraq, to collaborate with end-users in their operational environment. These experiences provided invaluable insights into the specific analytical questions our users were trying to answer and the broader context in which they were working in. As our solutions competed against other tools, my ability to articulate and address the real needs of our users gave us a tremendous competitive edge.
Development-wise, I led our team by defining user stories, teaching the group about the military domain and language, and testing and evaluating the tools to ensure they met user needs.
This tool has been used to support vital military missions and helped save lives by providing essential intelligence information to users in operational, relevant terms and timeframes.
Testing and Credentialing for Professionals
Led the product design of a cutting-edge learning management system, credentialing, and testing platform.
The Propel 2.0 LMS system is designed to be a state-of-the-art commercial learning content management system that's capable of offering testing, microlearning, and credentialing to associations and certifying boards.
For this effort, I led the design of the platform back-end and content management tools.
I also architected the badging-and-credentialing engine that will support credentialing agencies in the future.
For this effort, I led the design of the platform back-end and content management tools.
I also architected the badging-and-credentialing engine that will support credentialing agencies in the future.
GeoMesa: Managing Big Spatial Data
http://www.GeoMesa.orgLed marketing and commercial development efforts for the GeoMesa platform.
GeoMesa is the leading spatial database for big data apps. Designed to support hundreds of billions of spatial data points, GeoMesa provides spatial analytics capabilities on top of HBase, Accumulo, Dynamo, Cassandra, and Google Bigtable.
I served as the program manager for this project, and I initiated efforts to open-source GeoMesa. Once open-sourced, I led the early business development and marketing efforts to provide a suite of services around the system. This included a quick-start package in which we could get organizations started using the tool for a reasonable, one-time investment.
GeoMesa has been adopted by numerous government agencies including the US Army which sponsored the original development. GeoMesa has also been integrated into Google's Bigtable environment to support cloud deployments.
I served as the program manager for this project, and I initiated efforts to open-source GeoMesa. Once open-sourced, I led the early business development and marketing efforts to provide a suite of services around the system. This included a quick-start package in which we could get organizations started using the tool for a reasonable, one-time investment.
GeoMesa has been adopted by numerous government agencies including the US Army which sponsored the original development. GeoMesa has also been integrated into Google's Bigtable environment to support cloud deployments.
Education
2001 - 2003
Master's Degree in Systems and Information Engineering
University of Virginia - Charlottesville, VA, USA
1998 - 2003
Bachelor's Degree in Systems and Information Engineering
University of Virginia - Charlottesville, VA, USA