Résumé

Self-employed, in partnership with Katherine Lambacher. Responsible for all phases of software development for both small and large-scale projects, including requirements gathering/assessment, proposal, design, implementation, testing and long term support and system/server administration.

Tasks and projects included:

• Designed, developed, maintained and deployed CIOC Software, a multilingual web-based database application with over 400,000 lines of code. This application handled over 100 million dynamic page requests in 2012.
• Full stack web development for Django, PostgreSQL, AWS, Stripe and PayPal based e-commerce site Tindie
• Web application design and development, including user interface and back-end implementation
• Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database development and consulting
• Embedded System development using cross-compiled Python
• Led end-user training sessions for various software applications
• Led technical training sessions covering software development techniques and programming languages and libraries
• Customer-facing technical support and requirements gathering activities

KCL Custom Software's main client is Community Information Online Consortium (CIOC) and its membership. CIOC is a non-profit consortium providing information and referral software for community information providers, volunteer centres, and various local and provincial government agencies. KCL Custom Software has provided all technical planning, development and support for CIOC's software products and ancillary tools since 2008 (services were provided by Katherine Lambacher of KCL between 2003-2008).

Although CIOC software is not an open source project, planning for the project is open and community-based. From 2008-2012, KCL developed hundreds of features and applications on CIOC's behalf, including:

• Custom request-tracking software
• Custom feature-tracking software
• The CIOC Communities Repository, a centralized management system for CIOC's geographical classification system
• Child Care I&R module
• Google Maps integration
• Reminder / To-Do system
• Volunteer matching profiles
• Custom-designed ETLs and data exchange APIs
• ...and hundreds more: Features before November 2011; Features from November 2011 onward searchable by release

In addition to software development, other services included:

• System administration of application servers, including the creation of supportive tools
• Active failure-monitoring system that pro-actively logs and sends notifications when errors occur
• Implementation of a Plone-based community site, including message board and resource content, as well as the main CIOC website
• Creation of user guides and technical software documentation
• Set up and provided content for the CIOC Youtube training channel

From February 2013 to July 2014 most of my time was contracted to Tindie an online marketplace for maker-made products. I worked on back-end and front-end tasks including:

• Django and PostgreSQL based full stack web development
• PayPal and Stripe payment integration
• AWS Deployment and provisioning using Chef
• Embeddable Web widgets using Sqwidget
• Dynamic shopping cart/checkout UI using Knockout front end framework
• Automation of CSS inlining for HTML emails using a modified version of inlinestyler

Research group position, investigating software methods and frameworks:

• Developed and provided consultation for proof-of-concept web applications
• Explored techniques for high reliability and availability of service-oriented architectures, including the use of the Spread Toolkit
• Explored the use of AJAX techniques for advanced responsiveness in web applications
• Explored the use of Python as an alternative to Java on embedded Linux systems, to provide a high productivity programming environment with lower resource requirements

• Developed Firmware for large video system
• Implemented several audio/video auxiliary data specs (including Dolby meta-data encoding and decoding)
• Modified in-house developed RTOS kernel
• Designed and implemented software for a full card hot-swap system, including state transfer
• Assisted in creating in-house build and release management system based on buildbot

• Redesigned and implemented changes to control system on video monitoring card to use new on-screen menu display and SMTP libraries
• Implemented AVL Tree algorithm for embedded software that had no underlying OS or dynamic memory management

• 16-month industrial internship as part of B.Sc. program
• Embedded System development targeting VxWorks, ENEA OSE and Linux on MIPS, PPC, and x86 respectively
• Linux system administration tasks, including setup and maintenance of 20 servers, administration of the network between the servers and to the corporate intranet and the Internet. Services managed include CVS, WWW, SSH and FTP
• Tools development, including scripts for the synchronization of two isolated CVS repositories (limited distributed version control) and Makefile-based build systems for embedded projects

• Creation of databases, SQL queries and VBA scripts to facilitate data conversion from several proprietary systems to SAP R/3
• Creation of databases to facilitate operations in the purchasing department
• Extensive use of VBA, and SQL, including connections to Oracle databases
• Conversion of several legacy Access 2 databases for use with Access 97

• Graduated with a 12 (A+) average
• Masters Thesis investigating plug-in based image processing algorithms for medical imaging applications: "A Component-Based Architecture For Medical Image Processing"
• Courses included: Heuristic Algorithms, Pattern Recognition, Object Oriented Software Theory and a Technical Research Report ("A Primer Focussing on Handhelds, Wireless Communication and Security")
• Worked as a teaching assistant for the courses Software Requirements Gathering Activities and Distributed Systems

• Dean's list in final year of study
• Member of winning team for the inaugural Computer Society International Design Competition(CSIDC) in 2000