Profile

A highly competent, enthusiastic and diligent software engineer looking to obtain a challenging position in web/software development. I have a thirst for programming and over the last 10 years have taught myself a comprehensive portfolio of languages. Familiar with developing in multiple environments, and am very comfortable working with the Codeigniter PHP framework for rapid web development. Fully embrace jQuery for client-side scripting (no point in re-inventing the wheel). On the desktop side am equally at home on Windows (C#.NET) or Mac (Obj-C).

In addition to my day job I am currently engaged as an advisor to a new start-up based out of Oakland, CA dealing with video streaming and as an independent developer of various iOS apps.

Although I live in the UK I work mainly with companies in California, USA so am accustomed to being self motivated, remote working, team engagement using subversion, flexible time management to enable interaction with teams on the West coast in their timezone and business travel requirements are common place to my family.

Took a career change in 2007 from being a highly successful optical store manager to software engineer at TellX, Inc and then 1 year later to senior engineer responsible for R&D.
Want to know why?

In summary I have significant experience in following an engineering project through its lifecycle (design, implementation, QA, deployment) in various languages and have considerable knowledge in video technologies and packaged media (DVD, Blu-ray).

Strengths

• Problem solving - in DVD there are only 16 x 2 bytes of memory available and there was a need to store the state of multiple flags and values. This required extensive use of AND / OR to manipulate individual bits, splitting some 2 byte blocks into 2 nibbles, and finding alternative methods to traditional for loops as these don't exist.
• Pushing the envelope - for one of the more recent projects there was a need to add interactivity/bookmarking/watermarking to DVD in sync with the video playback. Due to the players memory, the extremely restrictive DVD language and the fact that there is no way to interrogate the video this was thought to be impossible to achieve.
• Ability to integrate different languages to create a seamless solution - the TellX Director project utilises Obj-C, PHP, MySQL, C#.NET, C++ and XML all working together. The project required Mac OS X for front-end, a backend server and Windows-based worker clients for handling 1000's of queued jobs.
• Following best practices.
• Almost nerd like attention to detail.
• Happy to work remotely or office based. When remote, cognisant of the need to have flexible working hours for daily video conferencing.
• Used to traveling to the US for extended periods of time when the need arises (current record is 3 months).
• Never afraid to ask (why waste time searching for the answer, when it lies with the person in the seat next to you or is just a video conference away).
• Always willing to help a co-worker if they are struggling with a problem (even when they are too proud to ask).
• Loyal, I am not one for working with a company for a few months and then moving on. I prefer the long haul (as can be seen by my experience).

Technology

Experience

Senior Software Engineer Tendeka (2011 - present)

• Oversaw and inplemented versioning across the entire portfolio; where previously there was none
• Responsible for innovative and exciting new enhancements to existing projects
• Project lead on $100,000+ contracts
• Published a coherent list of software objectives for other internal developers to implement (coding standards, UAC control, code reviews and clean-up, commenting, memory leaks etc)
• Obliged to carry out installations to customer specifications wherever in the world they are situated

Senior Engineer R&D, TellX, Inc (2007 - 2011)

• Built DVD and Blu-ray engines from design through deployment. DVD engine is created at compiler runtime, and is different for every title. The Blu-ray engine is written in Java, networked and is consistent across all titles, however the binary data dump which is read at runtime from the disc is unique to each title. Neither require any user input.
• Interacted with Hollywood movie studio and distributors for design and delivery of enhanced DVD (eg 'The Code').
• Co-developer of proprietary client applications to enable video interactivity in thin client (PHP/javascript) and thick client (Obj-C); with a MySQL backend and interfacing with the DVD/Blu-ray muxers (running on Windows - C#.NET). On time and within budget.
• Pioneered new ways to incorporate Dynamic Bookmarking and Watermarking in DVD Video.
• Added to TellX Patents for Video Interactivity.
• Documented TellX Specifications and developed cross platform XML architecture.
• Developed custom video and audio analysers in C++ for dual use in C#.NET and Obj-C software in all the major DVD and Blu-ray codecs.

Lead Engineer, BlueOcean Networks, Inc (2009 - present)

• Responsible for all of the PHP and javascript coding.
• Designed PHP integration into Auth.Net payment gateway and to USPS/UPS/Fedex.
• Prototyped thick client application.
• Responsible for database architecture and implementation.
• Developed an XML versioning system for the content on each webpage.

Co-developer, Howling Dog Apps (2011 - present)

• Co-developer of various iOS apps.
• Integrated automatic RSS feed reading for dynamic updating of the MySQL database via cron.
• Responsible for database design and implementation, and all server-side code.

Co-developer, Escrow Monkey (2008 - 2009)

• Implemented a secure web based document management system.
• Made extensive use of jQuery and Ajax for Web 2.0.
• Designed PDF generation classes in PHP for server side invoicing.
• Built several C#.NET based thick client applications.

Independent Developer (2001 - 2007)

• Developed NuMenu4u, the only DVD menu decompiler (at that time), which interacted with other community driven and some commercial software.
• Researched then built DVDPlanner, which was a fully compliant DVD muxer. This required video and audio analysis at the binary level with hex editors to determine how a DVD disc worked. Later became part of the TellX suite of tools.
• Scn Automator was command line driven and designed to automate key strokes for a commercial application which had no command line interface.

Education

• Online Tutorials / Books (2004 - 2007) in programming.
• Bradford University, Bradford, UK (1991 - 1994) studying Dispensing Optics; passed with Diploma (highest grade available).
• Thomas Adams School, Wem, Shropshire, UK (1985 - 1991); achieving 8 GCSE's.