Michael Dominick, who holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., has parlayed his tech skills and humanities’ focus into a successful Plant City business that is ramping up.
Called The Mad Botter, the 2-year-old company was named after Lewis Carroll’s fictional character Mad Hatter, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Its back-of-office automation bot, which handles inventory and invoices among other things, was named Alice.
“From my perspective, tech is a tool,” says Dominick, who took AP Computer Science in high school and worked in tech throughout college. “At the end of the day, the tech has to be useful and has to serve people trying to do their job.”
An aerospace software development company, The Mad Botter works primarily with military contractors. It specializes in customizing familiar out-of-the-box solutions for its clients, saving them money and aggravation.
“In a lot of ways our approach definitely simplifies the operations of the app for the end users,” says Dominick, the company’s Founder. “When they see our software, it’s immediately familiar to them.”
The Mad Botter got rolling when Dominick mounted a cellphone in an airplane – and connected it with the radar system.
“We bought an iPhone right off the shelf, wrote some software for it and we were good to go,” he recalls.
On September 12, the company launched an upgrade that works with Microsoft Surface Tablets.
The company also is sponsoring
Avalonia, an open source project to enable apps to be utilized on multiple platforms, assisting with its testing and development.
Located in a Plant City office at 607 S. Alexander St.,
The Mad Botter employs five. Its staff has the flexibility to decide when they’ll show up at the office -- and most opt to come in a day or two a week.
“The metric we measure by is pure productivity,” he explains.
While he acknowledges he was a bit reluctant about remote employment at first, he’s discovered it allows for a more rested crew because it cuts the commute. He experiences that first-hand, as he lives in Riverview and it’s a 35- to 40-minute drive.
“I’ve seen productivity actually go up by embracing a remote group,” he says.
Dominick plans to more than double the company’s current staff, with the addition of five developers and one “customer champion” handling accounts and software testing. He’s currently hiring for an intermediate developer and customer champion, with the remaining positions likely to be filled within six months.
Salaries, which start around $53,000 for junior developer and customer champion openings, average in the $60,000s and are based on experience. He considers degrees, but that’s secondary to a candidate’s love of technology and interest in how things work.
What else is planned? Dominick wants to become more involved in the Tampa Bay entrepreneurial community because he believes his firm will benefit as the ecosystem grows. He would like to potentially become involved as a speaker, a hackathon host and the like.
“There’s just a lot going on in this great pipeline,” he says.
Read on to learn about other career opportunities in the Tampa Bay Area.
• The Chicago area-based Automated Industrial Machinery, Inc. announced plans earlier this month to relocate its headquarters to 14101 McCormick Dr., Tampa. It expects to invest $4 million and hire 45 local employees.
A wire-bending machinery manufacturer, AIM serves customers the automotive, aerospace, military, medical, point-of-purchase display, refrigeration, food service, agricultural and storage industries in 58 countries.
AIM also plans to enter the orthodontic appliance market through a new company, Advanced Orthodontic Solutions, Inc., which will make micro-wire bending machines for orthodontic appliances and the sleep apnea industry.
Both companies will be hiring for those positions; and salaries will average $58,000. The company’s website currently lists three openings including senior mechanical engineer, engineering technician 1, and software engineer and programmer.
Learn more.
• The online restaurant supply firm WebstaurantStore, Inc. announced plans last month to expand into Tampa, where it will create more than 300 IT and customer solutions jobs. It will be investing $1 million.
The Lancaster, PA-based company provides direct-to-door service to restaurants globally.
At its new location at 7702 and 7802-50 Woodland Center Blvd., WebstaurantStore planned to hire 155 for its IT division, with salaries estimated at above $75,000.
Positions are expected to involve database administration, software engineering, Quality Assurance engineering, systems engineering, application security, network security, and site-reliability engineering.
Another 150 jobs will be in the customer support division, where salaries are starting at $45,000.
Want to learn more? Visit the company’s website
here.