Jason Epel

VP, Engineering & Technology#

eSUB Construction Software · Nov 2019 – Present · Remote (US)

Senior Manager (2019) → Director (2023) → VP (2025).

• Lead a 22-person, four-country engineering organization (US, Mexico, Colombia, Poland), now fully remote, setting strategy across software, cloud, data, security, and business systems for eSUB's construction SaaS portfolio.
• Direct the teams delivering eSUB Fusion and eSUB Classic, their iOS/Android apps, and ERP integrations including the Windows eSUB Connector for Sage 100/300; work directly with the team to choose, build, maintain, scale, and upgrade third-party integrations that extend product functionality without building every capability in-house.
• Set technical direction for a modern AWS stack (React, React Native, serverless APIs, streaming data) and the analytics/BI foundation that turns data into decisions.
• Stay hands-on in DevSecOps and cloud operations across AWS, Azure, and GCP, balancing modern services with legacy platforms.
• Triage customer escalations personally, engaging through support to remediate issues and balancing escalation response against roadmap commitments to keep releases on schedule.
• Lead adoption of generative AI (Claude) across eSUB, from rolling out Claude for Work with Microsoft 365 to running an internal AI enablement hub and workshop program.
• Work hands-on with Claude Code alongside the team on internal MCP API services, an AWS Bedrock customer-issue triage agent, developer tooling, and automation, setting guardrails for AI-assisted engineering.
• Directed and built an encrypted design-preview publishing system for sharing unreleased designs with outside reviewers — AES-256-GCM pages decrypted client-side with access codes and a private/public repository split so only ciphertext is ever published — plus a self-service browser admin gated by Entra ID SSO with a Cloudflare Worker auth proxy holding the only repository credential behind a strict allowlist.
• Run production operations and reliability for the SaaS portfolio, including observability and alerting (Datadog, CloudWatch, Lumigo) and feature-flagged delivery with LaunchDarkly.
• Own the business technology stack (CRM, ERP, accounting, IT, security, customer-health tooling) supporting sales, finance, marketing, and operations.

Manager, Software Engineering / IT Enterprise Projects#

Kibo Commerce (formerly Certona) · Nov 2018 – Nov 2019

Joined via Kibo Commerce's acquisition of Certona, continuing to lead the personalized-search and predictive-analytics team through the transition.

• Led a 4-person team developing a personalized search API paired with Certona's proprietary ML/AI predictive analytics services.
• Administered Azure AD and on-prem Active Directory environments, plus Windows Server 2012/2016 infrastructure, and Office 365 tenants including Exchange Online integration with the Marketing and Sales CRM products.
• Consolidated and migrated Jira, Confluence, and SharePoint (Online and on-premise) across four implementations, configuring custom workflows and third-party integrations, and implemented Atlassian Service Desk as the team's help desk platform.
• Consolidated source control across Azure DevOps and a pseudo on-premises Bitbucket/GitHub Enterprise installation hosted in AWS.
• Introduced Docker and Terraform for GCP development and deployment, supported Jenkins CI/CD, and wrote Bash scripts to automate Linux VM and Docker container administration.
• Served as Scrum Master, coaching the team on story-point estimation, risk management, technical-debt budgeting, and in-sprint backlog prioritization.

Director, Engineering R&D#

BioTelemetry · Jun 2017 – Oct 2018

• Led a global, 17-person R&D QA software and hardware engineering team delivering proprietary BioTel products across web, mobile, firmware, and hardware enhancements, and ran DevOps activities within the R&D division.
• Purchased, configured, implemented, trained, and supported the Atlassian cloud portfolio — Jira Software (Scrum and Kanban across DevOps, support, and development teams), Jira Service Desk, and Confluence — and consolidated Jira Cloud instances following a merger/acquisition.
• Transformed software engineering teams from waterfall to an Agile Scrum framework, resulting in faster, higher-quality releases, reduced time to market, and more on-time deliveries.
• Introduced lean Agile testing practices to test incremental builds and catch bugs early while developers were still in the code, reducing technical debt and related risk.
• Provided ongoing Agile Scrum training and coaching to the entire engineering team and to new Scrum Masters.

Director, Software Engineering#

SmartDrive Systems · May 2016 – May 2017

• Led a 6-person QA engineering team responsible for testing proprietary webapp, API, and BI software, plus firmware for the company's vehicle-telemetry hardware products.
• Implemented Agile Scrum and coached the Scrum Masters, facilitating and coaching Scrum activities as needed.
• Directed code and test-process improvements on Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013: improved processes and data management for bugs and test cases, monitored and reviewed C# builds, reviewed code changes for risk assessment to focus testing, and used MTM for test-case management and execution.
• Mentored engineers with strategic and tactical coaching on risk management for delivery schedules, code quality, and early bug detection.

Manager, Software Engineering, QA#

BlackBerry (formerly Good Technology) · May 2012 – May 2016

Joined via BlackBerry's acquisition of Good Technology, continuing to lead mobile device management and secure mobile engineering through the transition.

• Led a 7-person full-stack engineering team building proprietary mobile device management, secure mobile email, and secure instant messaging applications, plus SDK/platform code used by third-party BYOD apps on iOS and Android.
• Created, administered, and supported Windows infrastructure in ESX lab environments: Windows Server 2008–2012 R2 (Certificate Authority, DNS, DFS, and other roles; single and multiple forests with trusts) and Exchange (2007, 2010, 2013).
• Stood up and supported unified-communications platforms: Lync (2010, 2013), Skype for Business (2015), Domino 8.5.2+, Sametime 8.5.2+ in AD- and Domino-integrated deployments, and Cisco Unified Messaging and IM/P virtual appliances.
• Owned budgeting for the lab and messaging infrastructure, covering upfront and ongoing hardware and software costs.
• Performed Scrum Master duties: sprint management and reporting; facilitating stand-ups, grooming, planning, retros, and bug triage; unblocking resources; and managing dependency and release risk with QA, development, and IT leads.
• Managed Agile releases in Jira and Rally, test-case management in TestRail, and defect management across releases including customer-reported issues; maintained knowledge-base documentation in Confluence.

Manager, Software Engineering#

Shopzilla · Jul 2008 – May 2012 · San Diego & Los Angeles

• Led a 6-person full-stack engineering team (San Diego and Los Angeles) for shopzilla.com and related sites, spanning presentation, middle-tier, and back-end API services, including SQL, NoSQL, and BI data processing.
• Led engineering teams to maintain and improve product and process quality across a service-oriented architecture spanning shopzilla.com, bizrate.com, tada.com, beso.com, and international sites.
• Created test plans and verified new iOS applications, tracking incremental feature introduction through Agile Scrum, and worked with teams to implement Kanban, TDD, and BDD practices.
• Performed risk assessment and managed test plans using black-box, gray-box, and white-box techniques for front-end web clients and mobile apps (iPhone, iPad, iPod).
• Researched and led projects that implemented lower-cost, higher-efficiency business solutions and processes, and managed deployments of scalable web applications and services through an Agile process.
• Tested Tomcat web applications, RESTful web services, Oracle Coherence Grid, Oracle Database, and Sybase on CentOS, and performed SEM/SEO testing and analysis for changes impacting crawler traffic from Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Manager, IT#

Pima County Consolidated Justice Court · Jan 2007 – Jun 2008 · Arizona

• Led an 8-person software engineering and support team (6 Programmer Analysts, 1 Systems Administrator, 1 Help Desk) responsible for the court's Case Management System and its integration with county, state, and law-enforcement systems.
• Led development groups building n-tier web (HTML, ASP, PHP) and PC applications (VB.NET 1.1/2.0 and VB6) on IIS across three database backends: SQL 2005 on Windows 2003, MySQL on Linux, and RMS/DataTrieve on VMS.
• Managed enterprise, large, medium, and small-scale projects tied to court strategic objectives; established an SDLC process; and performed gap analysis with functional specifications and project documentation.
• Supported and expanded a Cisco network environment: internal and external DNS, multi-zone DHCP, VLAN troubleshooting, Cisco ASA and WatchGuard firewalls (including VPN), and Exchange 2003 email.
• Created the help desk process (Numara Track-It), authored project and disaster-recovery documentation, and created and managed the court technology budget, including Pima County and Arizona state funds and grants.
• Performed production QA for services and applications used by the public (1,000,000+ users), justice partners, and internal customers, and served on State of Arizona committees, including the Judicial Technology Advisory Council.

Manager, IT and Software Engineering#

Laureate Education, Inc. · May 2003 – Dec 2006 · Los Angeles, CA & Baltimore, MD

Joined Canter & Associates, later acquired by Sylvan Learning Systems; in 2003 Sylvan's higher-education business was renamed Laureate Education, Inc., where this role continued through 2006.

• Led a new unified corporate systems architecture and integration strategy, managing the projects that unified the organization's technologies, and documented the resulting procedures, standards, and end-user documentation.
• Designed and implemented a new Lotus Notes/Domino R6 architecture, upgrading R5 domains in Los Angeles and Baltimore, and built Windows 2003 test/QA servers for Domino/Lotus Notes development.
• Consolidated R5 and R6 Domino domains routing email for 100,000+ accounts (students, faculty, staff, corporate) across 30+ domains, and administered Exchange and AD DNS across 20+ domains plus backup services.
• Administered messaging infrastructure for 60,000+ accounts across laureate-inc.com, waldenu.edu, and ntu.edu, spanning Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Baltimore.
• Designed and built BlackBerry Enterprise Server (3.6/4.0), Sametime, and an SMTP gateway; implemented Postini antispam and BlueCoat DMZ reverse-proxy servers for webmail.
• Supported seven integrated messaging environments (Lotus Notes R4.6–R6.5, Exchange 5.5/2003, Sendmail on SunOS), trained admin and help-desk staff, and supported the Altiris help-desk rollout.

Infrastructure Engineer, Lotus Notes Systems Architect#

Fiserv, CBS Worldwide · Oct 1999 – Mar 2003 · Global (Singapore, Sydney, London)

• Principal Certified Lotus Notes Administrator and Developer (R5) supporting a global Lotus Notes infrastructure spanning offices in Singapore, Sydney, and London.
• Built QA certification and load-testing n-tier environments (IBM WebSphere, Java, IBM AS/400, MS SQL 2000, IIS, and .NET) for proprietary software products.
• Designed the global business infrastructure plan, standards, and resourcing, along with a new global R5 infrastructure and project plan, and traveled to manage and support project staff through the R4-to-R5 upgrade and Notes domain consolidation.
• Converted paper- and email-based development and support processes to online collaborative workflows, designing and developing Lotus Notes applications.
• Evaluated and implemented server- and client-side configuration and database-design changes to improve performance, optimize resource utilization, and minimize bandwidth usage.