SmartCOMM Developer at IBM (2025-10 – Present)
Led SmartCOMM development efforts for the Humana Medicare Modernization Project, supporting the optimization and modernization of a large portfolio of member communication templates across multiple states and product variations.
- Directed the design and implementation of state-specific business, benefit, and regulatory logic to ensure accurate, compliant, and highly tailored Medicare communications aligned with plan rules and market requirement
- Architected reusable SmartCOMM components including Dynamic Shared Content, Dynamic Enclosures, and Dynamic Layouts, creating a scalable template framework that improved consistency, reduced duplication, and simplified long-term maintenance
- Spearheaded the consolidation and refactoring of legacy templates by identifying shared content, variable data structures, multilingual requirements, and conditional business rules, helping streamline configuration and reduce overall template complexity
- Developed and maintained detailed form designs and technical specifications including template usage, derivation rules, variable logic, data mapping, styles, layouts, and output behavior to support accurate development and cross-team alignment
- Served as a SmartCOMM Subject Matter Expert across the Thunderhead product suite, including Advanced Template Designer, Business Content Studio, Business Object Studio, and Data Modeler, providing technical leadership and functional guidance to project teams
- Partnered directly with business stakeholders, compliance teams, and client leaders to gather requirements, clarify communication objectives, and translate complex Medicare regulations into precise, production-ready SmartCOMM solutions
- Oversaw end-to-end validation activities including QA, smoke, regression, and user acceptance testing, ensuring template quality, business rule accuracy, and production readiness prior to deployment
- Managed code migration and release coordination across development, test, and production environments, maintaining development standards, supporting issue resolution, and ensuring stable promotion of communication assets
- Contributed to project planning, delivery timelines, and implementation strategy by identifying dependencies, evaluating technical effort, and aligning template development activities with broader modernization goals
- Drove continuous improvement efforts by identifying opportunities to standardize SmartCOMM development processes, improve workflow efficiency, and enhance the scalability, maintainability, and security of communication solutions
- Provided mentoring and technical support to junior team members through knowledge sharing, design discussions, and process guidance, helping strengthen team capability and maintain high development standards across workstreams
- Supported enterprise communication delivery across batch, on-demand, and interactive processing scenarios, with strong working knowledge of omni-channel output strategies including print, digital, and regulated member correspondence
- Worked closely with integration and IT teams on data mapping and backend dependencies to ensure accurate business object alignment, reliable data flow, and successful generation of downstream communication outputs
- Applied strong system analysis and workflow evaluation skills to assess business functions, define operational objectives, and recommend SmartCOMM-based solutions that balanced regulatory requirements, business goals, and technical feasibility
SmartCOMM Lead Analyst / QA Lead – Federal Client: Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) at Alight Solutions (2020-12 – 2025-09)
Engineer and maintain enterprise-grade SmartCOMM (Thunderhead) applications supporting over 6.7M federal users, delivering scalable, compliant, and high-performing document automation solutions.
- Lead modernization of an $800B federal retirement platform migration, rebuilding XML/SQL pipelines and SmartCOMM templates with zero critical issues post-launch
- Design, develop, and optimize SmartCOMM assets, eliminating branding drift, boosting performance, and ensuring full compliance with federal and client standards
- Collaborate cross-functionally with developers, analysts, and data governance teams to ensure seamless data exchange, integrity, and traceability across DB2, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB environments
- Build and harden CCM workflows to integrate with upstream and downstream systems, securing automated, clean data transfer at scale
- Drive end-to-end QA strategy, leveraging Functionize and Selenium to automate regression and smoke tests—cutting execution time by 35% and increasing release cadence
- Perform backend data validation and API testing for RESTful and batch interfaces, guaranteeing data accuracy across hundreds of thousands of transactions
- Enforce release discipline and CI/CD standards, ensuring code reviews, version control, and zero "blind deployments"
- Pull requirements directly from business users—cutting through vague requests, locking in technical standards, and eliminating scope creep
- Personally handle escalation-level defects—never let a production issue live longer than 24 hours
- Harden CCM batch processing to handle high-volume spikes without failure
- Own all aspects of functional and API testing for mission-critical interfaces, including RESTful services, DB2/Postgres databases, SmartCOMM document automation, and nightly batch jobs, ensuring data integrity across hundreds of thousands of records
- Manage requirements traceability and risk mitigation across 100+ federal-facing workflows, ensuring full alignment with PWS and Section H-level documentation standards—directly supporting governance audits and regulatory checkpoints
- Champion stakeholder collaboration by leading solution walkthroughs and defect triage meetings, translating complex system logic into executive-friendly language for program managers, federal auditors, and compliance teams
- Utilize Functionize and Selenium to automate regression and smoke testing of highly sensitive data workflows, reducing test execution time by over 35% and improving release cadence without sacrificing coverage
- Perform backend validation using SQL across DB2, MongoDB, PL/SQL, and PostgreSQL environments
- Provide mentorship and coaching to junior testers across multiple U.S. time zones
- Enable secure and compliant cloud migration efforts by validating identity management flows (Okta SSO, MFA), performing load testing in pre-production environments, and verifying infrastructure provisioning via Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools
- Support production monitoring and post-implementation validation through CloudWatch dashboards, anomaly detection scripts, and real-time error log parsing—resulting in 99.9% uptime post-deployment
- Mentor and lead a distributed team of QA analysts and business testers, providing guidance on test strategy, Agile ceremonies, and technical upskilling to elevate team velocity and quality benchmarks
- Serve as SME for all SmartCOMM (Thunderhead) Suites of Products, including Advanced Template Designer (Business Content Studio)
Client Technology Analyst / SmartCOMM Developer II at Alight Solutions (2017-11 – 2020-11)
Supported large-market clients across healthcare and benefits IT and QA administration via the Total Benefits Administration (TBA) platform, including Fortune 500 companies such as HII, Sysco, BestBuy, Nokia, and Johnson & Johnson—ensuring scalable, compliant, and personalized communication delivery. Demonstrated strong leadership during high-stakes Open Enrollment periods, coordinating across product owners, QA, and implementation teams to ensure flawless execution of time-sensitive communications.
