Manager Engineer

Location:

Fremont, CA, 94539

Posted:

December 20, 2013

Contact this candidate

Resume:

Booni Bala, CSM

Enterprise Software Professional: Agile Transformation Coach, Scrum Master, Sr.Director of QE

*********@*******.***

Summary

Agile Coach, Sr.Director of Software QE, Director of Engineering Services:

Passionate and Experienced Engineering professional with strengths in Strategic Planning; Onshore/Offshore

Team building, Vendor management, and Effective Resource Allocation. Delivered Quality Product Releases in

alignment with company road map; Proficient in engineering budgeting and SLA management. Minimized

defect escapes in products through efficient test coverage and regression automation test coverage

Experienced over 20+ years in Engineering. Helped business stakeholders translate the product road map into

user stories with clear acceptance criteria; sprint and release planning; facilitated and shared techniques with

teams to how to slice user stories for feature delivery.

Change maker, provide key differentiating leadership to improve team dynamics, brings collaboration amongst

cross functional team members, continuously practice Agile Core values to bring teams in alignment for

successful product launches.

Aspiring Agile Coach: Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban SDLC. Transitioned Engineering Teams from Waterfall to

Agile SDLC.Coached and mentored engineers towards Acceptance Test Driven SW deliverable. Many years of

implementing Agile process across organizations.Trained Product Owners, Developers, and QA engineers on

continuous Agile adoption.

Delivered SW releases in Enterprise and SAAS applications; Highly proficient in Software Engineering

processes (CMM, ITIL and Six Sigma); Other job experiences ranging from email marketing, ad networks,

public safety, healthcare and Mortgage Industry. Excellent communication, presentation, verbal and analytical

skills.

Key contributor towards Ellie Mae's SOX, SOC compliance certification through Key Quality initiatives.

Experience

Director of Quality Engineering/Agile Coach/Scrum Master at www.elliemae.com

February 2011 - Present (2 years 11 months)

14 recommendations available upon request

Director of Engineering - Services/Agile Coach/Scrum Master at www.tiburoninc.com

December 2008 - January 2011 (2 years 2 months)

6 recommendations available upon request

Page1

Technical Unit Leader at Acxiom

March 2008 - December 2008 (10 months)

3 recommendations available upon request

Sr.Director of QA at Acxiom

August 2005 - December 2008 (3 years 5 months)

4 recommendations available upon request

Director Solution Engineering at ADX

March 2000 - July 2005 (5 years 5 months)

4 recommendations available upon request

SQA/SCM Manager at Calico Commerce

1998 - 2000 (2 years)

2 recommendations available upon request

Organizations

Geeta's Child Academy

Co-founder

August 2000 to August 2006

One of the co-founder for Geeta's Child Academy. Taught human values and music for children from 3 ages

to 12. Created many human values based lesson plans and educated the children with stories, poems and art

work. Taught them Tamil language.

Languages

Tamil (Native or bilingual proficiency)

English (Full professional proficiency)

Hindi (Elementary proficiency)

Malayalam (Elementary proficiency)

Skills & Expertise

Agile

Scrum

Testing

SDLC

Engineering

Vendor Management

Test Automation

SaaS

Team Leadership

SOA

Page2

Program Management

VMware

Data Warehousing

Agile Methodologies

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness

Bhangra

Spirituality

Spiritual Direction

Team Building

Enterprise Software

Java

Oracle

SQL

Web Services

Software Development

Enterprise Architecture

Software Quality Assurance

Selenium

Agile Project Management

Management

.NET

Leadership

Software Engineering

Microsoft SQL Server

Software Project Management

SOX Compliancy

Quality Assurance

Integration

Agile Coaching

Agile Transformation

Cross-functional Team Leadership

Process Improvement

Perl

Software Documentation

ITIL

Requirements Analysis

Unix

Cloud Computing

Release Management

Certifications

Scrum Master and Agile Coach

Scrum Alliance

Page3

Education

Alagappa University

BSEE, Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Activities and Societies: College Woman's sports captain. Represented inter-college sports and cultural

activities

San Jose State University

MSE, Software Engineerng

Page4

Booni Bala, CSM

Enterprise Software Professional: Agile Transformation Coach, Scrum Master, Sr.Director of QE

*********@*******.***

33 people have recommended Booni

"Booni is fantastic! She has been our Agile/Scrum coach, in addition to her duties as QE Director. We have

all had the ‘official’ training, but there really is no substitute for Booni's years of actual experience and

advice, given with practical and real life examples. Her coaching has taken us leaps into the future and

pushed us to a whole new level. I see Booni as a sage – someone we can all go to for advice on just about any

aspect of product development or quality engineering (or even life for that matter). She is so approachable,

available, and very accepting. She has a warm spirit and a friendly demeanor. Like all good teachers, she

instills discipline in the practice we’re learning. She’s tough, but fair, always giving constructive feedback

and challenging us to try new approaches."

Angela DeHart, Product Manager, TriNet, worked with Booni at TriNet

"I had the privilege of working with Booni for two years as a Lead QA Engineer under her leadership. She is

one of the rare managers with exceptional leadership skills as well as people skills. She built a team of 30

high performing QA Engineers and motivated each member of the team to be professionally successful. She

is an excellent mentor for new as well as experienced employees. Booni coached and trained the team during

transition from Waterfall methodology to Agile methodology. She is an excellent manager and is very

technical in development and quality assurance processes and tools. I learned many technical and new

leadership skills from her. Booni is the most compassionate human being and she built trust in people she

worked with. As a manager, Booni always went above and beyond in supporting the team. She is very good

in recognizing the strengths of each and every member of the team and gives opportunity to grow

professionally. She is great at working with cross functional teams which resulted in Quality Releases

consistently. She became a role model to all team members with her dedication, integrity and hard work.

Booni will be a great leader and an asset to any company. I highly respect her leadership."

Lakshmi Bommakanti, Lead QA Engineer, Ellie Mae, reported to Booni at www.elliemae.com

"I worked directly with Booni at Ellie Mae. I was impressed with her leadership skills and her industry

knowledge in release planning. She maintained constant communication with all of the cross functional teams

- developers, QA engineers (on-shore and off shore), as well as product owners, which resulted in quality

releases. She consistently managed all aspects of our releases and worked under extreme pressure while

remaining completely positive. Booni's high energy and positive attitude allowed her to motivate all of the

members of her team to achieve the desired goals. On many occasions I witnessed first hand how she

orchestrated all of the moving parts to release on time with the least amount of defects. Booni is a dedicated,

Page5

caring, high performing professional with a relentless commitment to quality. If I was building a QA or an

Agile team, I would definitely want her as the lead member."

Jenee Robinson, Business Analyst, Ellie Mae, worked directly with Booni at www.elliemae.com

"I have had the pleasure of working with Booni at several different companies over the years. Booni is one of

those rare strong leaders that has the perfect combination of communication, people and technical skills

needed to lead software engineering organizations. Booni can work effectively across all the different groups

in a company be it Engineering, Sales, Support, Marketing, etc. Also she has the technical skills to go with

her excellent leadership skills. She taught many technical brown bag sessions on the latest technologies,

testing tools and software engineering methodologies. As a manager, Booni is a very caring leader who is

always ready to "go to bat" for her team members. She recognizes every team members contributions and

value. Booni is awesome at building teams from the ground up. She is a great motivator. She works extremely

hard to foster team spirit and create a friendly work environment. Besides all the above Booni is probably one

of the most friendly, caring and energetic people I have known."

Vincent Pau, Automation QA Engineer, Ellie Mae, reported to Booni at www.elliemae.com

"The hardest part of scaling Agile across an organization is conveying the benefits of team success map to

business goals and measurable criteria against traditional metrics of cost, schedule, risk, dependencies and

change management. Booni excels in this endeavor by effectively translating the role of QA toward: *

product backlog grooming - helping architects/BAs/SMEs employ TDD. After all, if you do not know how to

test new software code, are you ready to write it? * defining what quality means and how to measure it -

through leadership of QA staff and associated team members, helping others to define what Done means to

them. From there, map the Definition of Done to build health, unit test writing and automation, source code

analysis (better track code changes, breakage and trends) and employing load and performance testing as

early in the design process as possible. * helping assess deployment readiness - not just are all the bugs fixed;

rather, of the detected code defects from testing and Beta, which defects map best to customer use (versus fix

them all). Booni helps the business assess which code defects matter the most to customers. * establishing

metrics/KPIs at the program and portfolio level for stakeholders through executive management to use in

understanding, "are we on schedule"? * work with Customer Support to better manage customer detected

issues - what a customer calls a defect, Development may dismiss as an enhancement. Booni is highly skilled

at guiding internal staff first listen and understand the customer issue, form a response and follow up with

timely communication (work with Sales engineers, Customer Support staff and Marketing to better manage

the impression of product quality). Booni mixes her 20+ years of hands-on technical experience in test

environments with an accurate sense of mapping delivery to schedule and business requirements. Boon

provides first class QA and Agile leadership to best understand which quality issues affect customers the

most."

Darnell Brownen, Agile Coach and Trainer, Ellie Mae, worked with Booni at www.elliemae.com

"When it comes to engineering process improvements, Booni knows what she is talking about. She applies

Agile in a way that is effective and impactful. She is not afraid to point out problems early in the process and

Page6

works with the team to keep things on track. I hope to have the opportunity to work with her again in the

future."

Rob Katz, Executive Vice President, Ellie Mae, managed Booni indirectly at www.elliemae.com

"Booni is a very unique leader with strong skills in multiple areas of engineering discipline and in Agile

SDLC. I have seen her in action with holding Agile training workshops for cross functional teams such as

product owners, developers and QA engineers. She is very hands on running backlog grooming, sprint

planning and daily stand ups. She is highly knowledgeable in Agile release planning, QA team building and

in Change management. I have seen her building high performing QA teams effortlessly and guiding them in

agile test methodologies. She has also supported me in SaaS operations when we had to move our entire

infrastructure to FlexPOD. She worked tirelessly to get the company product releases on time with least

defect escapes. There were many long weekends and months she supported key initiatives for Ellie Mae’s

success. She will be a great asset to any company in the capacity of Agile Coach, QA director and Agile

transformation lead"

Bhavesh Shah, Senior Director SaaS Operations/Infrastructure/Architecture, Ellie Mae, managed Booni

indirectly at www.elliemae.com

"I've had the privilege of working with Booni as a senior/lead QA engineer under her leadership for nearly 5

years at a previous company and again most recently. She excels at building and coaching teams, and is an

especially strong and compassionate leader who goes out of her way to support every team member. She is

committed to helping team members achieve and recognize their individual contributions and value, and is

able to motivate the team as a whole to align with shared goals and strategy. As a person, Booni is very

energetic, outgoing, motivated, caring, and hard-working. As a leader, her greatest strength is probably her

ability to bond with her team, to earn trust, and to demonstrate that she truly wants every team member to be

successful, to grow professionally, and to feel like they have a place and are making a contribution. As a

cross-functional collaborator, Booni is able to work seamlessly across the organization at all levels. Booni

would be a great asset to any company looking for a strong, motivating, seasoned, loyal professional who can

build and lead a successful QA team."

Steve Batey, QA Lead, Ellie Mae, reported to Booni at www.elliemae.com

"Booni is a very strong and compassionate leader, who works very well across cross functional teams. She is

on top of every ongoing project and issue facing QA, and makes sure all projects are executed with great

quality. She is committed to helping every team member reach their best potential, is very motivating, and

provides every opportunity to grow and make valuable contributions. She is very energetic and extremely

hard working. She values her team's input on all issues, and has a lot of experience building highly successful

teams. Her cheerful, energetic and caring attitude is valued not only in the QA team, but companywide."

Usha Maurya, QA Engineer, Ellie Mae, reported to Booni at www.elliemae.com

"Its hard to find Directors/Managers who are both knowledgeable and perceptive- but Booni defined what a

Quality Director is.Booni was a inspiration to everyone in her department at EllieMae.She set a great example

Page7

for everyone who worked under her supervision.Everyday she kept the team motivated and made the office

an enjoyable place to come to work. She is driven by rare collaborative motivations, broad-ranging technical

knowledge.I miss her sense of humor and how she really cared about her employees.Booni wanted me to

suceed and grow in the company with her leadership.She did everything she could to make sure that

happened. I'm thankful I had the opportunity to work with her."

Nagamani Nagaraj, Functional QA Analyst, Ellie Mae, reported to Booni at www.elliemae.com

""Booni is an exceptional leader skilled in both the business and people values. I found her to be a gem of a

person and thoughtful leader. She is a team player & supporter and makes sure that projects are executed on

time and great quality. Her people management skills is outstanding.She is a particularly strong manager who

has been a role model for many QA engineers.Booni is a great leader and takes great care to involve and

guide his project team in setting timelines, driving key decisions, and delivering high quality results.I would

highly recommended her""

Manjula Palasamudurm, Quality Assurance, Ellie Mae, reported to Booni at www.elliemae.com

"Booni is a true QA leader who is always passionate about delivering high quality releases. She built the

entire QA team and we are fortunate to be part of the team. Her continuous coaching on Agile testing

methodologies, how to look at QA risks and resolve them with clarity, improve test coverage and most of all

how to be a good mentor. The relationship she built with her peers, developers and within the QA team is

very positive. She is very dynamic, positive and truly cared about all her team members. She has been a great

asset to the company. Her understanding of QA methodologies, automation capabilities and applying agile

core values were very thorough and we all learn a lot from her. She is very compassionate, understanding and

made connections with many in the organization"

Manjunatha Subbarya, Solution Architect - Enterprise search, EMC, was with another company when

working with Booni at www.elliemae.com

"Booni is one of those rare managers who naturally serves as an inspiring mentor for the whole staff. She has

a great positive attitude that motivates others to care about a project and be invested in its success. At

EllieMae, she helped grow the QA team and implement agile methodologies. She has vast experience

working in the Silicon Valley and is very well connected. She is a great asset to any company."

Kulsum Arif, Sr Software Engineer, Ellie Mae, worked indirectly for Booni at www.elliemae.com

"I've worked with Booni for over 2 years and have a high regard for her talent in organizing and maintaining

a cohesive and efficient QA team. She has a lot of good, positive energy and she uses that to motivate her her

talented, effective team. I highly recommend Booni."

Chris Woodmansee, Sr. Software Engineer, Ellie Mae, worked with Booni at www.elliemae.com

"I would like to commend on Booni’s leadership, planning and execution skills during my tenure at Tiburon

Inc. Booni exhibited excellent Team Building abilities and guided the Team by setting short term and long

Page8

term goals thus steering it in the right direction. She provided excellent and timely Technical Leadership to

Engineering team and Engineering Services Team. Her efficient management of local and global teams were

key contributions in doing the right thing at the right time by right people. Booni very well identified and

facilitated with Training for team members thus enabling them to be effective and efficient in their day to day

tasks. Booni provided an honest Quality status Senior Management thus keeping them informed about good

and bad news. She provided excellent Leadership efforts for infrastructure setup for staging and production

environments for flagship and next generation products. Booni’s Leadership in Agile Development and QA

activities were vital for company’s Agile methodology adoption and execution. Thanks for the opportunity to

recommend Booni for her leadership at Tiburon Inc. -Vijayendra"

Vijayendra Kulkarni, Technical Team Lead, Tiburon Inc, reported to Booni at www.tiburoninc.com

"It is a great pleasure and an honor to recommend Booni. Booni and I have known each other for about 15

years. As a recruiter I have watched her successfully grow and develop her career from managing a small

team of QA Engineers to to where she is today, capable of directing large, geographically dispersed, global

teams. Booni is one of those rare managers that always takes the time to know you as an individual and goes

out of her way to facilitate your growth. As you might expect, she has a very loyal following. I highly

recommend Booni. Connie Connie Dorigan, CPC Dorigan & Associates “I find hidden tech talent for

companies” 503-***-**** tel 503-***-**** fax *******@*******.*** www.dorigan.com"

Connie Dorigan, Owner, Dorigan and Associates, was a consultant or contractor to Booni at Public

Safety Sector

"Booni is a joy to work with! She is an upbeat, positive person who builds trust with her colleagues by her

attention to detail and never wavering follow through on projects. Booni takes strong ownership of her

responsibilities and her work ethic and attitude are one of the most positive that I have come into contact

with."

Megan Thornton, Corporate Recruiter, Acxiom Corporation, worked with Booni at Public Safety Sector

"I worked quite regularly with Booni in scheduling candidates she wanted to interview for her team. At times,

it could get complicated due to the varying schedules of her interview team, but Booni was always very

accommodating and flexible in meeting scheduling needs. She was very passionate about the work she and

her team did and I have a great respect for her."

Laurie Boudler, Recruiting Support Specialist, Acxiom Corporation, worked indirectly for Booni at

Public Safety Sector

"I was fortunate to work as a Documentation Manager for Booni at Tiburon, where she was responsible for

building an Engineering Services organization from the ground up. Her group supported both ad-hoc

project-related software upgrades; and handled QA on a quarterly release model for legacy software, and for

new development on .NET using an Agile/Scrum software development process. If that weren't enough, she

also managed the documentation group--which is where I come in. She is one of the best managers I've ever

had. She eschews bureaucracy in favor of timely updates. Hires and manages intelligently, and allowed me

Page9

the leeway to run and manage my own organization--while providing timely guidance and support. She also

made it a point to mentor her reports (myself and the other QA leads) so that they are in a position to move to

the next level. Without question, I learned a great deal from her on how to navigate the executive level with

grace."

G. Karmarkar, Manager, Technical Publications, Tiburon, reported to Booni at Public Safety Sector

"I had the pleasure of working with Booni for over 3 years at Digital while she headed the SQA department.

Booni is a natural senior leader/mentor. Her staff absolutely loved her and I can say without reservations that

she had one of the strongest cohesive teams at Digital. I watched her assemble this team quickly and

successfully bring/retain some great talent. She was great at driving process and structure without bringing

things to a halt. She really took the quality/release of our flagship platform several notches higher."

Ashok Rajan, Sr. Director, Client Engineering, Acxiom Digital, worked with Booni at Public Safety

Sector

"Booni is very decisive, action-oriented and results focused professional offering over 20 years of experience

in the software industry. It amazed me to see how she overhauled the QA processes at Acxiom Digital thus

increasing the efficiency, accelerating customer satisfaction and reducing error rate. Her achievements are

quite unparalleled and speak volumes of her experience. Booni is a great people person; and very

approachable."

Sushant Prasad, Software Consultant, Acxiom Corp Inc., worked indirectly for Booni at Acxiom Digital

"I have rarely seen anybody who builds and manages teams as effortlessly as Booni does. She is truly a

people person and loves to build and nurture productive relationships across the organization. She efficiently

combines her people skills with her core strengths in R&D to create an effective QA organization wherever

she goes. I have no hesitation in recommending Booni for any leadership position in an engineering

organization."

Kondala Rao Palaka, Solution Architect, Acxiom Corporation, worked with Booni at Acxiom Digital

"I have worked with Booni at various companies for over more than 10 years. She is a good leader and

mentor. she cares about her team very much. She always motivates her team to get the job done. She

encourages her team work as a big family. She is a true leader."

Shaw-Shya Lin, Manager, Acxiom, reported to Booni at Acxiom Digital

"I had the pleasure of working with Booni while we were both at Acxiom Digital. She is an inspirational

leader who motivates her staff to go the additional mile to accomplish their goals. She has a razor focus on

building a quality team both on shore and off shore. She brings a business ability to make the entire engineer

team better."

Nancy Enzminger SPHR, Human Resources Manager, Acxiom Digital (Formerly Digital

Impact), worked with Booni at Acxiom

Page10

"I had the great pleasure of being able to place Booni Bala in a Director QA position for a client company. If

only every resume that came across my desk was a candidate like Booni! She is the candidate that every

recruiter dreams of getting their hands on. She is highly competent, very professional and such a friendly,

lovely person – I could not have been more delighted to represent her. At the time I served as her recruiter in

presenting her to my client, I remember she had at least 2 or 3 other offers with great companies and luckily I

was able to place her in the best role. She is one of those candidates who will always be in high demand as

she has a tremendous background and is well respected by everyone who gets the opportunity to work for her

and/or with her. All of the feedback I had received on her was of the highest praise. Booni is an accomplished

and highly principled technology professional and manager. I give her my highest recommendation."

PreTec Group, was Booni's client

"Booni is an experienced professional who helped our business tremendously through her hands-on work, and

through her building a strong, well-managed team."

Bill Park, CEO, Digital Impact, managed Booni indirectly at ACXIOM DIGITAL

"Booni's contribution to Acxiom Digital (A D) as Senior Director of Quality Assurance was profound. Before

her arrival, the QA team consisted of a handful of individuals who merely performed brute force functional

testing. Booni immediately augmented and enhanced her staff, building a high powered team that changed the

face of quality at A D. From practically nothing, Booni implemented a comprehensive suite of testing

including functional, performance and regression testing. Furthermore, Booni drove the team to build and

deliver an automation suite, adding over 8,000 automated tests in a short period of time. As a result of her

efforts, software quality improved dramatically at A D."

David P. Mariani, CTO, Acxiom Digital, managed Booni at ACXIOM DIGITAL