Work

Dominos is the first role I ever accepted where I was recruited, instead of applying for -- not bad for an ego boost after leaving your previous firm. I joined the pizza giant early in 2024, entering their eCommerce department, specifically the Core Platform Services team as a Technical Business Analyst -- this team handles the creation and maintenance of all core services that support online ordering, and all above-store franchise support services. Working in eCommerce, and ultimately food service, was a major departure from my previous time in mortgage finance, but a change I felt ready to make.

Astonished by the complexity and sheer volume of their backend services, I was immediately impressed learning how much was going on under the hood of what I first thought was an ordinary QSR.

My first problem to tackle was modernizing their Store Locator for online/mobile app customers. The existing service was starting to show its age, and significantly more modern technologies had appeared in the years since it was originally made.

One of the great aspects of working at Domino's is how well-rounded team members in the backend services were encouraged to be. With so many different critical services, everyone in the department had a working knowledge of every dark corner, which is great for when you are getting up to speed, and keeps you feeling relevant at all times. There's rarely a "that's not my problem" moment.

I later owned the next initiative to modernize Dominos' proprietary Call Center Application service, used to quickly facilitate franchise call orders more efficiently, and save franchises labor hours. This one was a doozy as you can read in the project page.

Domino's is an incredibly impressive organization, and is without measure much more than just a pizza company. The amount they accomplish and actively maintain with a relatively lean US tech presence is a sight to behold.

You've heard of Rocket. And chances are if you're a US homeowner, they've heard from you too.

After exiting UWM in the early spring of 2020, I joined Rocket Mortgage as a Senior Product Owner in their Data Intelligence unit. The familiarity of remaining in the mortgage industry that I had grown to know very well was comforting, and this role provided an opportunity to move away from the Compliance and Operations side of the business, and into the Data, Analytics, and Origination side.

To say Rocket is a large organization is a massive understatement. Rocket is an incredibly wide, incredibly diverse, sprawling enterprise, with hands in every possible aspect of the homebuying process. There is not a moment in the home buying lifecycle -- from the moment some starts considering homeownership, to closing on the loan, to a future refinance -- that Rocket does not play a role in.

My newly established team was first responsible for building new Digital Marketing algorithms, as well as maintaining Rocket's impressive fleet of Predictive Consumer models, fine tuning exactly when consumers are most approachable for a financing opportunity.

As the velocity of the mortgage market moved faster and faster in the early post-pandemic years, I bounced from initiative to initiative in the data science department, helping stand up more and more new teams designing new models in pursuit of capturing as much of the high flying markets as possible.

My final project with the firm was acting as a quasi-Product Manager of their newest foray into Prospecting Marketing. A brand new product supported by a heavy multi-million dollar investment, this one was incredibly fun and naturally quite stressful.

All in all I found Rocket to be an exciting company that bucks some of the stereotypes many have formed about it (at least in the Data Science department!) and am glad I took the role when I did. With the mortgage market not faring well in 2023 due to rising interest rates and skyrocketing home prices, I made my voluntary exit and began looking for my next role shortly after.

UWM was my first full time position after graduating from MSU. I entered the firm in their rotational program, and settled in within their Compliance department, moving from analyst to product owner of two teams - the Compliance IT Team and the Fees IT Team.

• Our team focused primarily on the tech implementation of Dodd-Frank regulations, such as TRID and Qualified Mortgage Testing
• Constructed the new Loan Estimate (LE) and Closing Disclosure (CD) docs per TRID regulations
• If you’ve received an LE or a CD from a UWM affiliated broker (40%+ of the broker market) then you’ve seen my handiwork :)
• Implemented timing mechanisms across the mortgage process to comply with TRID - system blocks, mandatory timing to issue new documents, closing blocks, et al.
• I designed and implemented a complete overhaul of how mortgage fees and credits are applied to every loan in order to support a successful QM restructuring.

Following the heightened attention on VA loans driven by Senator Elizabeth Warren, the company did a deep dive on all VA loans and new regulations:

• I owned the backlog for all VA loan regulation implementation, particularly the controversial VA IRRRL program, implementing system blocks for invalid loan structures and hard time-to-recoup guide rails
• Implemented the 2018 new VA “Type 1” and “Type 2” refinance loans, ensuring underwriting standards matched the newly issued compliance regs, and building hard closing blocks
• Trained the company on VA loan rules, how to test each loan for compliance, and how to speak to brokers about it

I also owned and maintained the relationship with their mortgage document provider, DocuTech, since that has a direct tie in with Compliance and Fees. I met regularly with their team from Idaho to design new documents, test and validate new ones, and put out fires when a misdeployment of code would inevitably print invalid fee and credit structures on the docs.