MARK STRAYER

I solve problems utilizing emerging technology by fusing my design sense, engineering skills, and keen understanding of business needs and impact.

Leading Sam's Club's Innovation Foresight R&D, my mission is to scout and operationalize emerging technologies for retail's future. My journey began with the inception of an innovation team, now twelve-strong, dedicated to enhancing product and engineering synergies. This initiative has flourished, contributing to transformative partnerships and quarterly strategic discussions with our C-suite leaders.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Honored for innovation at the 69th Walmart Shareholder Event. (See Sam’s Club experience)

  • Won the second internal innovation contest award for Sam’s Club showcasing a new retail experience that was presented to global leadership and fast tracked for implementation (patent). See Sam’s Club experience for press info

  • Won an internal innovation contest award for Sam’s Club showcasing voice interaction with the iOS member experience app. (See Sam’s Club experience)

  • Patented technology for association of assets utilizing accelerometers and Bluetooth. The patent that contains my invention is here (See Modustri experience)

  • Patent for inventory transportation monitoring. The patent that contains my invention is here (See Modustri experience)

  • Forge named App Store Editors' Choice and named to the “Best of 2015” (See Adonit experience)


SPEAKING

(Case Study) Show them what it feels like. How your approach to development changes with XR.

EDUCATION

B.S. Computer Science 1998

EXPERIENCE

Walmart Global Tech

Innovation Foresight R&D Leader, Network32 @ Sam’s Club

In my current role, I established and expanded a new innovation team, developing it from a concept to its first partnerships between product and engineering teams, and growing it to its current size of twelve members. This team is tasked with identifying technologies and disruptors that will impact the retail industry over the next 1-3 years. To form this team, I conducted research on business impacts and presented my findings to the CEO of Sam’s. Once operational, I met quarterly with the CEO, CTO, and Chief Product Officer to discuss innovation organization design and guidance on emerging technologies.

As the founder of this initiative, I am responsible for conducting research and analyzing business impacts. I design and lead a team to develop and test unique applications of these technologies, supporting leadership in making strategic decisions about emerging technology. Utilizing my skills in understanding technologies and storytelling, I have successfully guided senior leadership in making well-informed decisions about the latest developments, with a keen understanding of their business impacts.

Key projects I have lead include:

  • Researched and created the Sam's Club strategy around Metaverse and Extended Reality

  • Creation of extended reality (XR) prototypes for in-store (phone based) and at home (phone and headset based) shopping.

  • Developed prototyping strategy for parallel UX and engineering research

  • Overall initial generative AI strategy and early use cases for generative AI to hyper-personlize the shopping experience

  • Ongoing research using generative AI to integrate your personal space into XR

  • Ongoing research about generative AI using edge and mobile compute

  • Partnership with Creator Burger for the development of MOD burger robot technology at two locations.

  • Partnership with the McMillon Innovation Studio at the Univeristy of Arkansas to teach students innovation through the usage of design thinking and project development

  • Represent Sam's Innovation at internal and external public speaking events and by hosting workshops

  • Host internal innovation events like hackathons and guest speakers to help build an innovation culture at Sam's

Skills

  • Proactive Design Thinking

  • Technology Leadership

  • Innovation Foresight

  • Organizational Design

Honored for innovation at Walmart Shareholders Event 2022:

Kath McLay, CEO of Sam’s Club highlights our innovation idea that was rolled out chain wide the previous year.

The host of the event has a little fun with our team

Staff Software Engineer @ Sam’s Club

Worked on the core iOS app for Sam's Club, leading the overhaul of checkout and cart services integration to new APIs and implementing a new UI design.

Facilitated the merger of the Scan and Go app code base into the core iOS app. This involved unifying architectures, redesigning navigation, and integrating sensor usage. Delivered the merged app on a tight holiday timeline, maintaining a 99.97% crash-free rate and a 4.8-star average app store rating.

Innovated with the Scan and Go team to enable seamless cart additions and checkout without unpacking, including support for alcohol purchases.

On the e-commerce team, optimized user experience performance and set new user interaction standards in collaboration with the UX team.

Demonstrated innovation leadership by winning an internal challenge for best use of limited resources. Developed a voice interaction concept using SiriKit in iOS13, enhancing shopping effectiveness.

Secured another innovation award for best business impact with the "Scan and Ship" concept, revolutionizing the retail experience. Presented to top leadership, leading to fast-track implementation and recognition from the global CEO of Walmart. Here are some links to press on the pilot for this innovation.

Skills

  • Native iOS development in Objective-C

  • Swift

  • SwiftRx

  • Functional Reactive Programming

  • Product Design

  • App architecture

  • SiriKit

OST

Responsible for architecting and implementing the Bluetooth portion of a solution for the RV industry. This project used a custom built CAN->BTLE bridge that enabled the application written in Cordova running on iOS or Android to connect and control the CAN bus enabled devices in an RV. I worked hand in hand with the firm responsible for the custom hardware to create a solution that supported multiple simultaneous phone connections. This position required understanding of the different workflows and quirks of the Bluetooth stack on various versions of iOS and Android.

My research project used the HoloLens and augmented reality in a day to day healthcare setting for nursing.

Skills

  • Native Android development in Java

  • Native iOS development in Objective-C

  • BTLE

  • Bluetooth Peripheral Mode on the mobile devices

  • CAN messaging

  • Cordova

  • Javascript

  • Node.js

  • Product Design

  • Hololens Augmented Reality Development

Modustri

Created best in class applications for the heavy machinery industry and retail.  I created everything from app architecture to design and implementation of the UI/UX.  The product is an IoT offering that utilizes sensor arrays connected via Bluetooth and cellular to a backend infrastructure hosted on AWS.  

I was responsible for managing internal and external resources from cross-functional teams to deliver cutting edge solutions for our Fortune 50 customers on-time and under budget.  Our process focused on voice of customer research to ensure the products we created solved the real world problems that our customers faced every day.

This position required quick learning and application of complex technology to create a proof of concept prototypes that can be used to prove out the business case and be presented to stakeholders at Fortune 50 companies.  These prototypes are iterated on and developed into a full product offering.

While at Modustri I invented a patented technology for association of assets utilizing accelerometers. Link to the patent that contains my invention is here.

 

Skills

  • Human centered design

  • Voice of customer research

  • Resource management

  • Team Leader

  • iOS

  • AWS

  • UI/UX Design

  • Swift

  • Bluetooth including background bluetooth scanning

  • Node.js

  • Realtime Data Analysis

  • Data smoothing algorithms

  • Custom Sensor Integration

  • IoT

Omnigon

Worked on a client project for a major sports franchise.  The app has a massive audience of millions.  Written entirely in Swift.  This position required interfacing with various development and design groups within the organization to ensure a congruent customer experience across platforms.  

Skills

  • Swift

  • AsyncDisplayKit

Adonit

As the first full-time software hire for Adonit I was responsible for the stylus SDK during the Evernote Script launch. This work included bluetooth hardening as well as palm rejection and offset correction.
    
I architected Adonit's first iPad application called Forge. This app utilizes custom gestures as well as complex animations to create a seamless user experience that promotes creatives getting their ideas down quickly and iterating on those ideas. As the iOS architect on this project I am responsible for designing and helping to implement the foundation of this app as well as the direction of the architecture for further growth.  Forge was named to the "Best of 2015" list by Apple as well as Editors choice at launch.

Other responsibilities include mentoring junior members of the team, promoting code standards and methodologies, and implementing our continuous integration and deployment system.

Evernote Script Launch - SDK

For the Script launch with Evernote, I worked very closely with the Penultimate team to ensure the Script launch was a great success.  This work included re-working the palm-rejection algorithms, hardening the bluetooth code, offset correction, and general information re-architecture.  The Evernote script is the first product of its kind to use Adonit's pixel point technology that presented new technological hurdles such as offset correction.  

To see the design story on the Script, go to Behance.

Forge

Forge is the digital workspace where visual thinking – typically spread across sketchbooks and studio walls – fits onto your screen. Build your ideas, fast and focused, with Forge.

Named App Store Editors' Choice and February 2015 App of the Month.

Named to the "Best of 2015" by Apple.

Forge has been a wonderful challenge to architect and implement.  From storage space conscious and performant file formats to very complex gesture interactions that work seamlessly for the end user, every aspect of this app has been painstakingly developed to be best in class.  The development process included many prototypes to prove out concepts that then were implemented in the shipping code base.  As the architect I was responsible for ensuring the beautiful and challenging design was brought to reality in an effective way.