Dwayne Pivac

Osynlig New Zealand Ltd. (Neu21)
Senior Full Stack Web Developer (2020 Feb. - 2024 July)

Mostly providing back-end builds, but covering front-end and some system administration work too.

• Working in a mostly agile environment, and working closely with designers and project managers
• Converted SilverStripe 3 website to SilverStripe 4 (including re-writing custom modules)
• Built the backend for 2 headless WordPress sites, including custom modules and importers via REST
• Implemented 5 custom API data fetching mechanisms, in WordPress and SilverStripe for TourWriter, Tour Amigo, ABM, Peak 15 and Tourplan

In July 2023, Osynlig merged into, and became Neu21.
In August of 2024, Osynlig moved away from the technical side of things, and removed all development jobs from their repertoire.
I was made redundant (no more development work) and was handed a small handful of remaining clients, and started up OMI Ltd. for business.

Touch/Cast
Web Developer (2013 May - September)

In 2013, the Spark NZ Digital Channels team were outsourced to Touch/Cast.
I joined Touch/Cast as a contractor to help the transition by facilitating knowledge transfer, gained from my previous role.

• Facilitated and supported infrastructure changes including Vignette 7 infrastructure transitioning to SilverStripe
• Provide support to maintain the Spark NZ website

Various roles - Spark NZ
1996 - 2013

I was employed with Spark NZ and its various entities for 17 years. I held various IT positions during my tenure:

Digital Producer - Digital Channels (2008 - 2013)

In this role I was the Lead Developer in several projects, providing technical lead, support, third party liaison and web development.
My official title was Digital Producer, however most of my time was spent writing code, sharing knowledge, writing processes, collaborating with the designers, architects, project managers, marketing and the back-end system admin teams.

• Web design, user experience, UI design and IA
• Technical lead and developer for Tech in a Sec, Christchurch Earthquake Phone Finder, RightNow Support Chat and Telecommunity blog projects
• RightNow Support Portal - lead developer and administrator to developer accounts
• Google Search Appliance (GSA) management and administrator (including development of XSLT output)

• By negotiating rules with the System Ops team, I was able to fine tune processes that gave our developers greater access and flexibility when managing content
• Designed and developed new buttons and tabs following the brand guide, that were used on the Spark NZ websites, and a process used by the internal digital team. This was in an effort to remove the need for graphic work each time we needed a new button or tab.

Analyst-Developer - Online Delivery (2005 - 2008)

Back-end and front-end development for the Spark NZ websites and internal websites and processes.

• Provided support for the Xtra CMA environment
• Back-end enhancements to the CMS and CMA
• Development and build work for the Xtra and XtraMSN websites
• Integration support for the MOS project (implementation scripts mostly Perl)
• Lead developer for the new Xtra Web Mail build on Webedge
• Back and front-end development for Xtra TV Listings
• Technical Lead for the Spider Open Portal project (moving XtraMSN to Yahoo!Xtra)
• Built the Xtra PDA website (front and back-end) on Vignette 6
• Acting team lead support and occasionally stand-in team lead
• Involved in build process for Java apps. and contributed at CCB meetings
• Built a Java app. (with Axis), takes SOAP requests and sends back a printable PDF purchase orders to the shop floor
• Built Vignette 7 Portal, DP and VCM instances for iBase project
• Wrote tech. design documents: iBASE - Vignette Portal, 4PL, Time Sheet App., Media Manager

• I developed the first Spark NZ website for small screen devices (PDAs)
• Built an automated process that grabs external XML data, converts it and outputs to the Xtra TV Listings website. The process was passed by the security team
• With the Spider Open Portal project I helped to migrate 6 websites from XtraMSN to Yahoo!Xtra in 2 months

Quality Assurance and Tester - Xtra (2004 - 2005)

As a quality analyst and tester, I was responsible for providing test scripts and managing the quality of projects often by writing automation scripts in Bash and Perl.

• Spark NZ was an early adopter of SPF, and I had written scripts to create SPF records and read them via TCP to DNS
• I was the original QA Manager for the MPR (Mail Platform Replacement) project, which was put in place to give email users a full email experience with more space, faster response, added security and a user friendly interface
• This was a multi-million dollar project set up by the top stake holders within Spark NZ and Xtra. My role was to provide QA support for hardware and software, which included unit tests, regression, performance testing, UAT and BAT

During my time in this role I helped the internal web development team on a small project. Not long after that I was asked if I wanted to join their team. A web developer role best suited my skill set, I decided to move into this new role.

Product Support and Process Admin -
Managed Solutions (2001 - 2004)

• Level 2 support, providing processes and helping to push products to the help desk
• Admin support for the Vantive system
• Support for eSolutions products
• Created web server UI for administration and monitoring tools (written in Perl):
  Ping, Traceroute, NSLookup, URL checker, Telnet, Mass Mailer (emailer), email tester

Ecommerce Product Support - eSolutions (2000 - 2001)

• Provided support for all eSolutions products
• Created several monitoring tools, in Perl and JavaScript
• Built an intranet tool "ecBASE". Mainly used to monitor sites, and network tools such as Ping, Traceroute and NSLookup

Technical Support - Xtra Business (1999 - 2000)

• Technical support for Xtra Business products
• Created an intranet tool "eBase" used mainly for running network tests

Tier 3 Technician - Xtra (1998 - 1999)

• Provided Tier 3 support for the Xtra (TeleTech) help desk
• Find a solution to the customers problem and call to walk them through the fix
• Updated the resolution database (used by the Xtra help desk) with any new solutions
• Updated the intranet help and support pages (running on Vignette StoryServer 4)

Xtra Customer Service Rep - TeleTech (1997 - 1998)

In August 1997, my role the Xtra Help desk was outsourced to TeleTech and my role was.

• Worked on a Java built knowledge base application, KnowHow! with a small team of technicians. The project never launched due to political reasons. My role was managing the knowledge database and creating all HTML content
• Created the TeleTech "Online Bible". This was an informative intranet used by the help desk. Included interactive screen shots (using DHTML and JavaScript).Up-to-date "Informers" (like a news letter), product knowledge, processes and a JavaScript based search engine for modem AT commands
• Special Agent, helping out team leaders and providing support to other CSRs
• Team leader stand-in whenever needed

• Awarded for achieving a 100% average in Quality Assurance evaluations
• Four "Top Team" awards, for the top team of the month (Jan, May, Apr, Sep 98)
• Awarded top CSR of the month (August 98)

Customer Service Rep - Xtra (1996 - 1997)

• Help desk Support for Xtra
• Started as 'First Response', answering questions or passing the call to the relevant support tier
• Promoted to Technical Support (Tier 2) after only 2 weeks in the role