Mark Lummus

About Mark Lummus

My technology career really began with a lemonade stand!There was an Apple II computer in a storage room in my high school that came with a user manual, a few programs, including a simulation game called Lemonade Stand, and a Basic Language Programming manual. The game had graphics, animations and great music (for the time). But the included manual opened more doors. I studied the manual, learned the language and wrote my own programs. I was into creating my own games, especially space games having just seen “Empire Strikes Back,” I figured out how to animate graphics and began producing music and sound effects. I tried reproducing the music from the Lemonade Stand in my own Basic programs, but it was slow and just plain awful! So, I studied the game’s included source code to learn how the game did it.It turns out the game’s authors were not using the Basic language to play the music – they used the microprocessor’s native language, the native instruction set, the so-called Machine Code. So, I dug in, decoded the machine code of the microprocessor and figured out how to reproduce the music myself. I discovered another world hidden in the Lemonade Stand and I was in on a secret to making really great software. This experience opened my eyes to what was possible with a simple computer and opened the doors to my career.Fast forward to my AI class at Georgia Tech. The professor mentioned a hard computing problem. I quietly muttered that I had already solved that problem. My cheeky remark was overheard, and after class I was asked about it by my eavesdropper, an entrepreneurial student with a product design company at the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech. He invited me to his office, showed me their current projects, and offered me a programming job on the spot! So, there I was, a college sophomore getting paid a salary to write software using what I learned by playing and hacking the Lemonade Stand game. And the rest is history now.

Experience

1. Lead Technical Product Manager

   PayPal

   Mar 2024 — Present · Atlanta, GA, US

   Lead Product Manager focusing on Web SDKs and APIs that enable merchants to integrate with PayPal.

Education

• Georgia Institute of Technology

  BS, Information and Computer Science

Skills

• Product Management
• Product Lifecycle Management
• Integration
• Leadership
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Competitive Analysis
• Start-Ups
• Wireless
• Public Speaking
• Saas
• Executive Management
• Outsourcing
• Cloud Computing
• Product Development
• Embedded Systems
• Strategy
• E-Commerce
• Quality Assurance
• Entrepreneurship
• Lean Startup
• Software Engineering
• Networking
• Security
• Enterprise Software
• Market Research
• Strategic Planning
• Product Marketing
• Agile Methodologies
• Business Intelligence
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Process Improvement
• Outsourcing Management
• Mobile Applications
• Web Applications
• Project Management
• Strategic Partnerships
• Mobile Internet
• Software Product Management
• Software as a Service (Saas)
• Business Development