Experience

Mara Consulting

• Canada
• IT Services and IT Consulting
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Senior Software Development Engineer

  • Jul 2020 - Present

  Providing consulting services on large pension system. The application runs on Mainframe using Natural/ADABAS. Working on system enhancement using full SDLC. Extracting data for reports using either SQL server or NATURAL. Fixing data in the current production system through a process called Data Correction Requests. Providing consulting services on large pension system. The application runs on Mainframe using Natural/ADABAS. Working on system enhancement using full SDLC. Extracting data for reports using either SQL server or NATURAL. Fixing data in the current production system through a process called Data Correction Requests.



MARA CONSULTING, INC. - Consultant for CalPERS

• Sacramento, California Area

• Senior Technical Specialist/Lead

  • Apr 2013 - Jun 2019

  As a Senior Technical Lead for Data Analysis and Quality responsible for identifying data errors within the my|CalPERS application, prioritizing errors, assisting business with manual data corrections and providing technical solution to resolve data errors. The duties performed during this effort include; Team Lead on the Contracts and Retirement Enrollment with leading 6 members of the team. Assigned work to certain team members, dealt with the business regarding data issues and any general questions regarding contracts and enrollment. Provided data analysis services in all major business functions such as contract and retirement enrollment, retirement and death benefits, contribution reporting, and health enrollment. Made suggestions to improve the data quality through database design considerations and/or application design. Solved complex data issues reported by business users and then resolved those issues by fixing the data. Debugged, Designed, developed, tested and implemented into production many PL/SQL, SQL scripts during the analysis and correction of many data anomalies. Debugged the Java code to find the exact condition causing data issues whenever Java Code unique errors were reported by business users due to their inability to process the payroll, retirement benefits or service credit purchase. Performed data quality assurance on the production data and analyzed conversion transformation code to develop efficient and safe data fixes into production. Performed peer reviews of the code, technical documentation and conducted knowledge transfer sessions. Worked with both business and technical staff to prioritize and develop data corrections and analyze data Analyzed data errors to determine root cause and provide/recommend solutions to correct those errors Provided data correction metrics to management team. Technical Environment: Oracle 11g, SQL, PL/SQL, JAVA, WebLogic, XML, Toad Show less



MARA CONSULTING INC. - Consultant for CalPERS

• Sacramento, California Area

• Senior Data/Systems Analyst (Consultant)

  • Feb 2009 - Aug 2013

  Worked on major conversion and data cleaning project (my|CalPERS). Total of 49 systems were converted from various types of sources; ranging from data in Oracle, Adabas, VSAM, Mainframe flat files, Access and Excel sheets. As senior data analyst and subject matter expert to analyze the data that must be cleaned up prior to conversion and and converted into PSR. Design the data conversion mapping for California for all domains under Judges and Legislative Retirement Systems (JLRS) such retirement enrollment, contributions, retirement benefits and health as well designing and mapping the data from the legacy systems for contracts, enrollment, benefits and health for CalPERS program. Investigate and document the gaps that exist between the current legacy and PSR data. Validated the data that has been converted into PSR in all different domains (contracts, retirement enrollment, benefits and health). Technical Environment: Natural/Adabas, COBOL/CICS, JCL, VSAM, SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle 11g database, UNIX, JAVA, WebLogic Show less



Consultant for Accenture

• Sacramento, California Area

• Senior Business/Systems Analyst (Consultant)

  • Jan 2007 - Jan 2009

  Worked as a consultant for the Accenture LLC on a $300 million project to develop a pension system (PSR/ my|CalPERS) for California Public Employees Retirement System. The application developed is a web-based using Java and Oracle technologies. The duties for the role included: Gathered the requirements in the Benefits functional area and helped in writing business Use Cases based on the requirements. Extract business rules from Natural/Adabas code in the Retirement and Benefit Information System and Contribution Reporting System written in COBOL/CICS. Gathered PeopleSoft requirements for interfacing with the my|CalPERS system. Designed PeopleSoft interfaces to exchange information with my|CalPERS system. Design lead for more than 40 interfaces that exchange information with internal and external systems such as health carriers and IRS. Reviewed, assessed and analyzed the traceability matrices in the general design phase of the project. Produced general and detail design functional documents which included process flow diagrams, sequence diagrams, and business rules specification. Designed XML schemas for the XML files, and for web services interfaces using XML Spy. Facilitated JAD sessions with the client to gather the requirements and translated the requirements into interface designs and presented the designed documents to the users and IPOC. Prepared the meeting minutes from the JAD sessions. Reviewed the design documents prepared by other analysts. Produced functional design documents which included process flow diagrams, sequence diagrams, and business rules specification for deliverables. Participated in the test strategy for testing the external interfaces with third party vendors and agencies. SDLC was followed in gathering requirements, analysis, design, documenting the requirements, running the JAD sessions and presenting the design to the client. Technical Environment: Natural/Adabas, COBOL/CICS, VSAM on z/OS Mainframe, UNIX, Oracle and Java Show less



MARA CONSULTING INC. - Consultant for CalPERS

• Sacramento, California Area

• Senior Analyst/Technical Lead (Consultant)

  • Mar 1997 - Jun 2006

  Technical Lead for Pension Benefit Calculations, Release, Warrant Maintenance, Deduction Maintenance. Provided support on Contribution Reporting and Member Registration systems. Followed the normal SDLC to perform enhancements and production support of the CalPERS pension system with code written in Natural/Adabas and COBOL/CICS VSAM databases. Facilitated JAD meetings to gather requirements, design user interfaces and data modeling. Technical lead responsible for designing, developing and implementing interfaces between RIBS and Member and Health Benefits Systems (COMET) running on the UNIX platform. Maintained the Medicare Reimbursements for retirees and all of the interfaces dealing with the reimbursements Documented the business functional requirements and technical design requirements using the IEEE methodologies. Also, reviewed these documents prepared by other technical staff. Designed, build, tested and implemented the modifications to the RIBS application system. Setup and configured test environment to perform customer acceptance testing (CAT). Conducted smoke, integration, system and regression testing on all changes performed to RIBS application. Created test scripts and test data based on the pension system requirements. Prepared test plans for testing the mainframe system software releases and RIBS application releases. Prepared implementation plans for RIBS application releases. Performed analysis on the Y2K changes required to RIBS and system testing on the Y2K changes in Contribution Reporting and Member Enrollment system. Performed reviews of business requirement, technical specifications and the code as well as mentoring other staff members. Technical environment: Natural/Adabas, COBOL, VSAM, JCL, Z/OS, CICS, PREDICT Show less



Software AG - Board of Equlization Project

• Sacramento, California Area

• Senior Consultant

  • Mar 1995 - Mar 1997

  Participated in development of a complex tax revenue collection system (IRIS) at California’s Board of Equalization. Used RAD (rapid application development) and Object Oriented methodologies to design and develop the applications. Designed, developed and implemented applications using Natural/Construct’s Object Oriented models. Participated in or facilitated the Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions to gather, build and compile system requirements, design and specifications. Participated in development of the logical, physical, and construction design of appeals and payments sub-system. Constructed the Tax Calendar, Work Flow, Document Management, Appeals, and Payments sub-systems. Conducted unit testing of the Tax Calendar, Work Flow, Document Management, Appeals and Payments Sub-system Wrote prototypes based on the system requirements, and specifications. Used a variety of tools to accomplish these tasks including Data modeling CASE tools. Used the normal SDLC approach in requirement gathering, analysis, design, coding, testing and implementation. Technical Environment: Natural/Adabas, Z/OS, JCL, Natural Contruct, PREDICT, Natural Connection Show less



Group Health COOP of Pugent Sound

• Greater Seattle Area

• Technical Lead

  • Nov 1994 - Mar 1995

  Supported Dun and Bradstreet’s financial systems at the health management organization. Managed a team of 2 and provided technical support on all of the financial systems, and fixed production problems. Worked along with the users to gather requirements and specifications for new functions. Technical Environment: MVS/ESA, COBOL/CICS, VSAM Supported Dun and Bradstreet’s financial systems at the health management organization. Managed a team of 2 and provided technical support on all of the financial systems, and fixed production problems. Worked along with the users to gather requirements and specifications for new functions. Technical Environment: MVS/ESA, COBOL/CICS, VSAM



Mutual of Enumclaw

• Greater Seattle Area

• Senior Programmer/Analyst

  • Jun 1991 - Oct 1994

  Supported the AR/AP/Billing and policy processing system that maintained 30,000 property, and auto insurance policies Investigated and recommended AR/AP/Billing System which would fit the needs of Mutual of Enumclaw. Enhanced COTS system written in Natural/Adabas. Implemented the insurance policy billing system written in COBOL/CICS, following the full SDLC approach from the gathering requirements, analysis, design, analysis, coding, testing, implementation and post implementation support. Participated in Project Planning and Control for a multi-year project. Developed specifications for the billing system jointly with the End-Users. Helped set up the downloading of data to the field agents using IVANS network. Enhanced various systems per user specifications. Used PREDICT for data dictionary Technical Environment: DOS/VSE, COBOL/CICS, VSAM, Natural/ADABAS, PREDICT Show less



Software AG of Canada

• Cambridge, Ontario

• Programmer/instructor

  • Aug 1989 - Aug 1990

  Working as technical consultant for various clients of Software AG of Canada. Provided consulting services to company clients in systems development using Natural 2.1, Construct, AdaSQL, PREDICT and various other Software AG products. Acted as the lead programmer on conversion project. Converting code and data from Unisys 1100 machine to IBM mainframe. Performed tasks of a DBA of ADABAS database. Worked on in-house software development projects as Programmer/Analyst using Yourdon’s method of top down design and development. The SDLC approach was followed in all of the consulting services and any enhancements that were made to the client’s systems. Technical Environment: Natural/Adabas, MVS/ESA, DOS/VSE, COBOL, Natural Connection, PREDICT, Natural Construct, Adabas Case Tools Show less



Gendis Inc

• Winnipeg, Canada Area

• Programmer/Analyst

  • Apr 1988 - Jul 1989

  Worked on financial and point of sale applications for retail business. Supported the General Ledger applications, retail financial applications in Unisys 1100 environment. Converted in-house applications from Unisys 1100 environment to IBM DOS/VSE environment from COBOL to Natural/Adabas using Natural Construct. Converted data from the Unisys 1100 platform written in COBOL to IBM DOS/VSE format. Installed McCormick and Dodge financial applications written in COBOL/CICS on IBM DOS/VSE and converted the data from Unisys 1100 to IBM for these applications. Coded application to automate the warehouse inventory system. Documented the technical requirements according to the standards used by the IT department. Technical Environment: Natural/Adabas, DOS/VSE, COBOL, Natural Connection, PREDICT, Natural Construct, Adabas Case Tools Show less