Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
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Cole Rudick

Mound,MN

Summary

Principal Software Engineer with extensive experience designing and delivering scalable, high-performance systems across diverse industries (Fintech, e-commerce, and healthcare). Proven ability to solve complex business challenges with technical solutions. Recognized as the go-to technical leader by executive level leadership for strategic guidance and expertise. A dedicated mentor who fosters the growth of engineers at all levels, empowering teams to thrive and think as leaders. Known for a results-driven approach, excelling in both hands-on development and driving technical vision across organizations.

Overview

10
10
years of professional experience

Work History

Principal Software Engineer

Optum
01.2022 - Current
  • I oversee the technical direction and architecture of 10+ development teams working on the consumer payments platform which delivers directed spend benefits to over 20 million members.
  • Define and oversee API development projects at scale, utilizing microservices and cloud-native technologies to ensure scalability, quality, maintainability and reliability.
  • Designed and developed an ecommerce ordering platform supporting over 20 million users and processing over $1.68 billion in orders. Allowing customers to place orders via phone, mail, or online. I integrated the system with multiple internal and external payment and order fulfillment systems, as well as defined a flexible set of APIs which allowed multiple teams throughout Optum and UHC to accept orders through websites, mobile apps, IVRs, and CRM systems.
  • Designed and built the payment platform's critical REST APIs, now used by all major partners to manage and access data from the system. The API handles thousands of requests per second and is considered one of the business's most vital applications.
  • Architected and developed a real-time dental claim adjudication system aimed at revolutionizing the interaction between members, providers, and payers. This system delivers real-time claim adjudication results, enabling dental offices to immediately determine patient out-of-pocket charges during visits and receive payments from insurance companies the same day.
  • Currently leading the architecture and development of a major transformation project to migrate Optum's legacy payment processing system, which handles 1.6 million transactions per day, to a modern platform and set of APIs. This is the company’s number one priority for the next 3 years, as it aims to reposition itself in the market and offer a new, enhanced experience to its members.
  • Rewrote critical functions of business software across teams to support multiple cloud-native technology migrations, improving scalability and flexibility. Enhanced codebases to make testing and deployments to ephemeral environments easier, allowing full automation of CI/CD pipelines. This resulted in greater team ownership of applications and significantly faster, more reliable development cycles.
  • Mentor engineers at all levels, from junior to senior, across multiple teams, fostering leadership skills and encouraging architectural thinking to support collaboration and effective technical decision-making.

Senior Software Engineer

Solutran (Acquired by Optum)
11.2018 - 01.2021
  • Designed and developed APIs to efficiently manage eligibility and transaction data, ensuring scalability and high performance.
  • Implemented an Elasticsearch stack to replace high-traffic queries against the primary database, significantly reducing database load and drastically improving the search experience and query response times.
  • Created and developed a chrome extension and a set of APIs that increased call center agent efficiency by reducing task completion time from 10 minutes to 1 minute, achieving a 90% reduction in time spent per task, saving the company tens of millions of dollars in operating costs year over year.
  • Improved API designs, observability, and error handling, reducing downtime and enhancing the overall system reliability.

QA Lead

Solutran (Acquired by Optum)
11.2016 - 11.2018
  • Developed an internal platform for managing and executing test cycles.
  • Developed suites of automated API tests and automated web browser tests.
  • Created a system for automating tests against our custom batch file processing systems.

Business Analyst

Solutran (Acquired by Optum)
11.2014 - 11.2016
  • Translated industry payment standards (e.g. ISO8583) into clear, actionable technical requirements for developers.
  • Interacted with internal customers to understand business needs and translate into requirements and project scope.
  • Created dashboards to monitor and track key performance indicators.
  • Developed customized reports, summarizing and presenting data in visually appealing format.

Education

Bachelor of Science - Economics

University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN

Skills

System Architecture at scale, API Design and Development, Database Development (Oracle, Postgres, SqlServer), Elasticsearch Stack, Kafka, Event Driven Architecture, API Management (Documentation, Gateways, Security), Payment Systems, PCI Compliance, NET, Java, Python, GitHub Workflows, Jenkins Pipelines, Terraform

Timeline

Principal Software Engineer

Optum
01.2022 - Current

Senior Software Engineer

Solutran (Acquired by Optum)
11.2018 - 01.2021

QA Lead

Solutran (Acquired by Optum)
11.2016 - 11.2018

Business Analyst

Solutran (Acquired by Optum)
11.2014 - 11.2016

Bachelor of Science - Economics

University of Minnesota

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Cole Rudick