My name is Chris Miller (get it? "tophermiller" I don't get it). I'm a software engineering manager in Silicon Valley CA, specializing in Java and database-backed web applications. In acronyms, that means I do Java/J2EE, JSP, SQL, T-SQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, ...

To keep current with new technology, and also for personal benefit, I have a number applications I've built in my free time as well. This site highlights my career and some of these hobby coding projects.

I have another site for my personal life with my wife, two dogs, family and friends. It's at topherchelle.com. It makes for a nice place to host my photo album software, which you'll read about here.

Career

For the real detail, please view my resumé.

Synopsis: BS, UCLA and MS USC, Computer Science. Eight years at Xerox, then finally left the big-company doldrums behind for the lure of dot com excitement. Spent time at four startups since 1998. Every one led to acquisition, but never a home run. With every acquisition, I stayed on at the new company until I was no longer needed. The most recent, Aplia, continues to this day as a thriving division of Cengage Learning.

Specialties: Web applications based in Java, SQL, Javascript. Agile software team management.

Personal Projects

Blogs

I recently started blogging about my experiences as an engineering manager and also about my hobby as an amateur poker player.