Engineer Project Manager
Resume:
QA Notes
I am an experienced software engineer looking for work in the San Diego
area. I realize that I am considerably over-qualified for a QA position,
but I do have a great deal of QA experience that is only mentioned in
passing in my resume, as the resume focuses on my development experience
and skills.
I spent months working with Novatel's QA department getting them up to
speed on how to test software and hardware on a Mac (Novatel was a Windows-
only operation until they hired me and one other Mac engineer to create a
matching software offering on the Mac side, and because of this, their QA
department knew nothing initially about how to do proper QA testing on a
Mac). Much time was invested. I architected the entire testing strategy
and training process that Novatel now uses for Mac QA.
If you couple this with my iPhone development experience (which, itself,
also included a great deal of QA effort), then you should be able to see
how powerful an asset I will be as a QA Engineer.
Please, look at my resume and give me call. I can come in on day 1 and
***totally and completely*** hit the ground running.
***DAY 1
I encourage you to call any of my references if you have any questions
about how they felt about the work I performed for them or how well they
think that I can and will perform for you starting the very first day.
I talk a lot about Mac work on here, but keep in mind that I am a seasoned
developer on Windows and Linux as well, not to mention my extensive iPhone
experience. I've been doing cross-platform development for years and that
experience is sure to be utilized in my role as a QA engineer as well.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Philip George
Experience
Owner / Software Engineer, Dagg r Gems, San Marcos, CA 2009-Present
Dagg r Gems is an iPhone game development startup that began in early 2009.
My first puzzle game, "No Way Out!," is scheduled for release in the second
week of July 2010.
http://www.daggergems.com/
No Way Out! is a simple puzzle game with an elaborate and flexible theming
engine that I designed and built myself that allows the user to re-skin the
entire app (not just the gameboard) and to be able to download new and
updated themes automatically in the background while they play. The game
concept is a fresh take on an old puzzle concept by Nob Yoshigahara, called
"Rush Hour". The game is code-complete and in final testing right now.
Senior Software Engineer, Novatel Wireless, Inc San Diego, CA 2007-2009
Novatel Wireless ( http://www.novatelwireless.com/ ) is primarily a
hardware company, designing and manufacturing various mobile devices based
on Qualcomm mobile platform/chipsets (eg: 2G/3G/4G/EVDO/HSPA
Specifically, they make devices to connect desktop and laptop computers to
the internet wirelessly over a cellular connection. Novatel also has a
large software engineering department to design/write all of the supporting
software for the devices that they make.
Novatel has been in business since the 2G/3G market began, but have
historically been a Windows-only outfit. One of their hardware engineers
was a Mac guy and was also a strong software engineer, so they moved him
into the software department and hired me. Together, he and I had several
responsibilities: get all of Novatel's products working on a Mac (including
drivers, SDK(s), connection managers, installers, etc train everyone
in QA on how the software should behave on a Mac, and ensure that new
development planning is cross-platform-friendly starting at the earliest
planning stages. During my two years at Novatel, the two of us - along with
a handful of other Windows engineers we recruited/cross-trained along the
way - achieved every single one of those goals, and more.
I also was on the design team for the new cross-platform
(Windows/Mac/Linux) SDK called 'Novacore'
(http://investor.novatelwireless.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=333106) to
replace the dual/parallel-source SDK hodgepodge they had been using prior
to that point.
The other Mac engineer worked in the Canada office, so I ended up being the
single Mac pointman for all of the 3 engineering departments (software,
hardware, and firmware) at Novatel's primary office in San Diego. As such,
I also helped with many product releases from all different engineering
angles (eg: if a new firmware release for a specific device was having a
Mac-only issue, I was taken off my regular duties to work with the firmware
team to debug the issue).
I also developed the disk image creation software (called "ISO Finalizer")
that Novatel uses internally to this day to create and embed their software
onto the devices that they ship. This software was designed so that disk
images can be easily made by dragging and dropping all of the software
components and resources needed (for each platform: Linux/Windows/Mac) onto
the UI tool, and clicking a single button. The disk image is automatically
created and can be embedded into the device to act as a virtual CD on all 3
platforms, so that on first insertion of the device, the CD image will
appear and all of the necessary drivers and supporting software can be
installed by the user. The presence of the installed driver prevents the
virtual CD image from mounting after installation is complete. I was also
on the design team for the drivers themselves and the overall symbiotic
interplay between all of these components that ensured that this entire
process - collectively rerred to as 'Auto-Install' - functioned correctly.
As for the existing/legacy Mac/Linux SDK, my job - aside from basic code
maintenance - was to cross-compile the SDK for customers' various embedded
devices, as the source was closed. I cross-compiled the Novatel Linux SDK
for the Amazon Kindle, the Chumby, and dozens of other embedded systems
(typically arm-based). The customer would provide us with their unique
toolchain and my job was to figure out how to get the SDK to compile
against it. The resulting cross-compiled build of the Novatel SDK and all
of its header files, documentation, and sample code are zipped up and sent
back to the customer so that they can control an embedded Novatel 3G modem
from their own code.
Soon after Mac support caught up with Windows support, we started
formulating a strategy for combing all of our UI work into a single source
tree. As the only Novatel employee at that time who had any Qt experience,
I became the pointman for that effort too. But all of the Windows
engineers at Novatel are highly capable C++ developers and quickly became
comfortable with the Qt API's. We formed a small team tasked with
rewriting Novatel's carrier-rebrandable connection manager ('MobilLink') -
which had up until that point been two parallel Win32/Cocoa projects - as a
single cross-platform project in Qt. We went from two development
teams/efforts on Windows and Mac to a single, unified project that compiles
and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux (though there was little demand for a
Linux connection manager at that time, so it was not included in the
eventual product roll out).
After two years of a very small group of us pushing hard to get Mac support
fully implemented, redesigning the SDK to work across all three major
desktop platforms, and switching completely over to Qt for UI, Novatel is
now far ahead of any of its competitor's with regard to multi-platform
support at all levels of functionality. All of these advancements have
been completed, tested, documented, and deployed. The fruits of all of
this work can be seen at any Radio Shack or Sprint store nationwide,
provided that the salesperson is willing and able to demo one of the
available Novatel devices for you.
I was a contractor for my entire time at Novatel, and was offered a "Staff
Engineer" position in early 2009. I had just gotten married and needed to
move to be with my wife so I had to turn down the offer.
Software Engineer, Softouch Development, Inc. Tulsa, Ok Mar-Sep 2007
Softouch ( http://www.easyworship.com/ ) is a small software company which
makes a best-in-class product called "EasyWorship" for a niche industry
application: presentation software specifically designed for use in tech-
savvy churches.
The version of the product that I helped with at Softouch was a leapfrog
past their next (at that time) upcoming release. It was meant to be a
complete rewrite of their flagship product "EasyWorship" for multiple
platforms and with a more robust presentation editing experience.
Because it was a complete rewrite and quite ambitious, it is actually still
in development and my NDA prevents me from discussing the details of what I
did there. But, basically my job was to help with the planning of the Mac
version of their software (which was Windows-only prior to that). Most of
the skills used were the standard, basic UI skills needed for any other
desktop UI project, but one of the more interesting pieces I worked on was
the DVD decoder/player. We bought the DVD specification and my job was to
learn it, front to back, and build a DVD player capable allowing complex
overlays and transitions between DVD and non-DVD content to embed into
their software. I left when my contract expired in September 2007 to move
to California to work for Novatel Wireless, Inc.
Software Engineer, Miscellaneous Freelance Work Tulsa, Ok 1993-2007
This list was way too long. I removed a bunch of older projects and
anything else not relevant to what I'm currently interested in.
Developed library of low-level, cross-platform classes for use with
Trolltech's Qt C++ API's as a drop-in replacement for some of the most
needed classes in the 'Qt Solutions' add-on which Trolltech (and now Nokia)
charges extra for.
Developed cross-platform vector-based GPS mapping application with full
editing support. This was commissioned by a professor of biology at Drury
University as a customized mapping solution that she could use to build
intricate topological maps of a small group of islands in the Sea of Cort s
on the east side of the Baja Peninsula, and to be able to overlay
biological statistical data gathered at different locations on the islands
onto the maps. As this project predated Google Maps/Earth, it had to be
built from scratch.
Software Engineer, Pentacost Capital Management Tulsa, Ok 2003-2004
Developed model/portfolio management and aggregation web application to
manage large aggregate buys/sells across large client rosters based on a
central portfolio model.
Education
Drury University, Springfield, Missouri - Bachelor of Arts / Computer
Science
Skills
C / C++ / Objective-C
Visual Basic / REALbasic
Mac OS X / Windows / Linux
Client/Server Architecture (including 3 and 4-tier)
Cocoa / Carbon / Core Imaging / Core Graphics / Quartz APIs
Trolltech Qt (C++)
Telephony/Telecom/2G/3G/EVDO/HSPA
DVD decoding/playback
Audio/Video Streaming
iPhone Development
SDK Development (as opposed to usage)
Embedded Development / Cross Compilation
Referrals
Charles Wang, QA Manager, Novatel Wireless, Inc. (Professional Reference)
858-***-**** *****@****.***
Hong Chen, Software Project Manager, Novatel Wireless, Inc. (Professional
Reference)
858-***-**** *****@****.***
Mark Beaulieu, Software Development Manager, Novatel Wireless, Inc.
(Professional Reference)
858-***-**** *********@****.***
Vishal Donthireddy, Software Project Manager, Novatel Wireless, Inc.
(Professional Reference)
858-***-**** ************@****.***
Gordon Scott, Staff Software Engineer, Novatel Wireless, Inc. (Professional
Reference)
858-***-**** ******@****.***
Maryam Bassiri, Software Project Manager, Novatel Wireless, Inc.
(Professional Reference)
858-***-**** ********@****.***
Jeff Taylor, Founder/Owner/Engineer, Softouch Development, Inc.
(Professional Reference)
918-***-**** ****@***********.***
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