About James
About Me - James Higginbotham
I am a software architect, specializing in the Ruby on Rails platform. I enjoy helping startups from a variety of perspectives. This may involve: engaging with a customer early, assisting with analysis/requirements gatherings, sizing the project, providing an architecture for the solution, building a team, managing the development of the project through final delivery, and writing code.
Although I am familiar with the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and agile methodologies, I find that every project is different in its requirements and makeup, and therefore will most often benefit from a process built from a variety of sources to get the job done. Simple tools like Trac and Subversion, combined with a simple process of a light functional spec, short technical spec, and wireframes/prototypes go a long way to providing the details needed make a successful project.
In my 10 years of professional experience, I have worked on a number of projects, both for Fortune 500 customers as well as startups in the 2 to 20 employee range. I was previously a Principal Consultant for MomentumSI, which I helped launch in 1997 with Jeff Schneider. MomentumSI is focused on Java/JEE and .Net application development with a specialization in Service Oriented Architecture. I was also the co-author of the first enterprise Java book, Using Enterprise Java, published in 1997.
I have lived in the Central Texas area since 1993, have a beautiful wife, Talinda, and an energetic daughter, Kayla.
More details about my professional career, along with client endorsements, can be found on my Linked In profile.