Responsibilities at Asterion
Asterion sold a computerized system for streamlining the medical referral and insurance claims processes. It consisted of a suite of applications and utilities, databases, and a mainframe computer.
I was initially hired at Asterion as a C programmer. Then I solved a major sales problem by creating an Internet interface to Asterion’s product line, and eventually was promoted to Internet Development Team Lead.
Team leadership
I lead the Internet Development team at Asterion, overseeing from one to four other programmers to design, produce, install, and maintain various aspects of the Internet interface to Asterion’s product line.
In that capacity, I prioritized projects, attended high level planning meetings, hired personnel and let them go, and reported team progress to upper echelons.
Applications programming
I wrote and maintained interactive applications that lead medical professionals through the complexities of the medical referral process.
Besides acquiring specifications from co-workers and users, and designing user interfaces. This involved a massive amount of hacking into old code.
Internet GUI
We had a text-only curses-based suite of mainframe database applications.
The boss told me it was important that the suite become “Internet”: that the users should be able to “click on it with a mouse”. Also, it was supposed to look “like a modern GUI”. At first, we thought this would involve a complete re-write of the application suite. But then I had an idea.
To find out what happened, see my Achievements at Asterion.
I also initiated effort to make all of Asterion’s product line accessible from the Web. As part of this project, I wrote CGI scripts to allow clients to set up databases by filling out forms in a web page.
Finally, I oversaw the implementation of an encryption mechanism for communications between the Internet GUI client and the server.
Documentation
I completely documented the Internet GUI. This documentation includes user, administrator, and programmer manuals. I think remains the most thoroughly-documented portion of the entire system.
I documented the system’s reporting engine, and was also involved with the documentation of parts of the applications suite.