Engineer Software

My original degree is in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University, and my second degree is in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida. My current professional background encompasses software engineering gratis Pratt & Whitney's Large Military Engine Business Engine Systems Group.

The chance to pursue software engineering presented itself in late '95 and seemed like a wonderful opportunity to broaden my background outside aerospace and mechanical engineering. The group supervisor appeared to make an effort typically to hire people with an aerospace or a mechanical engineering academic background rather than just an electrical engineering one. His motivation may have been that it is easier to explain software design to a mechanical engineer than jet engine design to a software engineer. Don't get me wrong. There were electrical engineers in the group but they were a minority.

The nearly five years served as a software engineer at Pratt & Whitney saw me receive a number of group and personal awards. As a team, the software group jumped the hurdles associated with the first CTOL/STOVL engines to test, subsequent development testing, and STOVL lift-system testing. The CTOL FDA FQT is something for which only I was responsible for the development and execution. A discussion of testing priorities is certainly in order.

My objective is to find a job that will allow me the chance to express engineering principles and ideas in an artistic manner or flare because engineering, in its purest/classical sense after all, is not merely a science but an art bound and governed by laws of science. My position, as a software engineer at P&W, offered me an opportunity to vent these artistic inclinations and interpretations of the software requirements via a homegrown, NOT(COTS), tool called Pictures-to-Code.

The motivation for following this artistic method is that these pictures are utilized by the customer, a perplexed and typically self-absorbed development-test engineer, to understand what is happening with the Full-Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) that is running the engine on the test-stand. In addition to this, the code also protects the engine from a test engineer who may have an axe to grind by setting limits to which the engine must run and providing unbreakable locks for those limits.

If the picture is well organized and easy to follow, then there is less chance of the standard customer misunderstanding, or needing assistance to understand the purpose of the code. This translates into lower costs, as we are not forced into taking the time to translate or interpret the pictures for the customer in addition to our current responsibilities. In the picture, the code's purpose should be self-evident. Ideally, this little amount of work up front, in the form of an organized picture, should translate into less work for us in the future upon presentation of the product to the customer.

My software career included design as well as verification and validation. The design experience included using Pictures-to-Code (an in-house tool) to develop code for the JSF CDA aircraft. This task could include any effort needed in the development of the code. The verification experience included model development, verification/validation, and checkout. This experience included, early on in the development of the CDA engine, developing a standard test and presentation package against which all subsequent releases would be tested to illustrate desired updates in the code.

The preparation for my departure from P&W and subsequent re-hiring with Belcan to work JSF Engine Interchangeability and a collection of other jobs has seen me assemble a collection of my best artistic interpretations of the JSF and JSFEI software requirements. It would be a pleasure to present this PowerPoint (digital or analog) presentation during an interview at your earliest possible convenience.

Rick Shaffer

8014 Edgemere Lane

Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410

Home: 561-***-****; Cell: 561-***-****

E-mail: **********@*****.***

QUALIFICATIONS

* Eight-year professional background in embedded logic as well as software development, design, and testing

* Member of first software group within all of UTC to attain Level-3 SEI certification

* Member of the first team in Pratt & Whitney's history to develop and utilize a Pictures-to-Code tool to generate and configuration manage engine-embedded control logic software

* Member of first software design team to utilize Object-Oriented-Architecture (OOA) in the control of a jet engine. OOA controls both engines vying for JSF contract due to the systems' complexity and the company's long-term goal of farming the software to future applications outside JSF

* Inordinately strong written, verbal, and analytical skills

* Engine test experience

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

* Software Background - Analytical Engineer with a background in control logic, embedded software, electronic verification bench (EVB) experience, software development, fault detection & accommodation (FDA) logic design, data analysis, and the creation/validation of state variable models (SVMs). A member of the first software group within all of UTC to attain a Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Level 3 accreditation and incorporate object-oriented programming into jet engine control logic.

* Holds two BS degrees: Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering. Is familiar with military specifications: 2167A and 1553 bus communications. Academic and earliest professional background (not covered in this resume) includes AutoCAD.

* Took part in Pratt’s latest effort to alter its JSF CDA code to run CDA lift hardware and integrate it with GE’s entry into the SDD level of the JSF competition - the F-136 engine.

Highest attained U.S. Government Security Clearance: SECRET.

EXPERIENCE

Belcan Senior Engineer West Palm Beach, FL: June 2001 - present

* UEET01 (March 2004 - July 2004) Ultra Efficient Engine Technology – assisted in the design the Talon X

combustor for rig testing

* Engine Interchangeability Phase IIIb for GE F-136 Engine (July 2002-March 2004) This effort is meant to provide GE’s SDD level engine with a compatible lift system without the cost of developing a lift system. We are to convert the CDA lift system, which was wholly integrated with the CDA engine system, into a freestanding piece of software to which GE can plug its SDD engine and perform the SDD level engine testing.

* JSF CDA (pre-SDD) Engine Testing (March 2002-July 2002) Provided Hamilton Sundstrand with the help they needed to run some post-CDA engine testing in an effort to get a jump on the next level of testing: SDD. They performed this testing to work the kinks out of some new hardware that Pratt was looking to develop and integrate into its newer engines. This job was, for the most part, an extension of the bench testing done earlier, but the bench is replaced with a running engine.

* JSF EMD Logic Requirements development (November 2001-February 2002) This position seemed to provide the old Logic group with specifying the requirements for each of the CSUs in the code. Since F119 begat JSF, and the F119 requirements were shaky at best on the CSU level, they needed someone who knew the code well enough to spell out these requirements ex-post-facto.

* PW6000 Engine Control Software Verification and FAA Test Auditing (June 2001-October 2001) Reviewed test data from PW6000 model test, as a third party, to insure that it met the specifications for FAA testing.

CDI/UE Senior Engineer West Palm Beach, FL: Feb 2001 - June 2001

* Continued the JSF verification effort as an outsourced engineer.

Pratt & Whitney West Palm Beach, FL: January 1996 - December 2000

* Lockheed Martin JSF CDA Software Verification Test Engineering: 1999 - 2000 Was familiar with required procedures for the verification of the Lockheed JSF control logic. These skills lead to the development of tests and tools needed to verify the logic. Many of these tests are now standardized, and all of our code releases must pass these tests.

* JSF CDA Fault Detection & Accommodation Logic Development Engineering: 1999 Responsible for ensuring that the logic controlling the JSF engines will correctly accommodate failures detected by the Full Authority Digital Engine Controller (FADEC) running the engine.

* JSF Control Logic Development Engineering: 1998 Responsible for assisting in development of control logic for both the Lockheed Martin and Boeing entries into the JSF Pratt & Whitney Concept Demonstrator Aircraft (CDA) competition.

* JSF Actuator Modeling: 1997 Assisted in laying the groundwork for the actuator models to be used in the Boeing and Lockheed Martin state variable models (SVMs) as well as validating the models as they developed during my rotation with the group.

F119 Control Logic Development Engineering: 1996 Became familiar with and applied the processes used for code generation with an in-house application called Pictures to Code (PtC).

CERTIFICATION

Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model Level 3 Assessment (1999) - for engine systems software development processes.

DiSC Behavioral Profile: Creative (Artistic)

Foreign Languages: Spanish - reading and speaking

PROFESSIONAL AWARDS & ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Belcan Appreciation Awards

* For the diligent effort utilized to release V02 of Engine Interchangeability code

P&W Appreciation Awards

* For the "enormous effort" and "dedication" involved in testing FDA (Version 11) FQT requirements for both Lockheed Martin and Boeing JSF-119 CTOL engines. We completed this task well before the deadline.

* For the release of the JSF Boeing/Lockheed Martin STOVL First Lift System to Test (FLSTT) Version 9 software

* For the release of the JSF Boeing/Lockheed Martin CTOL First Engine to Test (FETT) Version 6 software

* Annual participation in Pratt & Whitney's For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (F.I.R.S.T.) team where local high school students and we engineers design, develop, build, test, and produce a robot, in six weeks, to compete on a national level at completing a task with/against other teams' robots

Software Accomplishments at Pratt & Whitney

* Developed the tests used to verify baseline code releases for both Lockheed Martin and Boeing JSF engines. This series of tests is called CASE_TRANS and it performs snap accels and decels on an EVB at the four-corners of the flight envelopes for both CTOL and STOVL mode.

* Developed the test script used to review the data generated from the CASE_TRANS testing. This script allows the reviewer to compare two separate runs of the code. This is an invaluable/powerful tool utilized to substantiate changes in the code for both the customer and us prior to releasing the code.

* Wrote the FDA test suite for both the Lockheed Martin and Boeing JSF entries. These tests subject the test rigs to standard actuator and sensor failures and record the FADEC's response. We are under contract to illustrate that the FADECs respond in a specified manner.

EDUCATION

BS Mechanical Engineering University of Florida - Gainesville, FL, 1994

BS Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering Purdue U. - W. Lafayette, IN 1990

Contact this candidate