Objectives

My main objective is to secure a full time position as a software engineer. Optimally I would be able to work somewhere that would utilize my skills and make use of the experience that I’ve gained as a freelance developer. A company with quality advancement opportunities is also strongly desired.

Education

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan

B.S., Computer Science (with honors), December 2009
Cumulative GPA: 3.81 / 4.0
Computer Science GPA: 3.96 / 4.0

Course Work:

• CSE 320 – Computer Architecture (C, Sparc Assembly)
• CSE 331 – Algorithms and Data Structures (C++)
• CSE 335 – Software Design (C++, Visitor Pattern, Mediator Pattern, Adapter Pattern, etc.)
• CSE 420 – Computer Architecture (VHDL, MIPS Assembly)
• CSE 422 – Computer Networks (C++, TCP, UDP, Streaming Video)
• CSE 450 – Translation of Programming Languages (C, C++, Lex, Yacc)
• CSE 480 – Database Systems (SQL, PHP)
• CSE 484 – Information Retrieval (Machine Learning, Indexing, Data Mining)
• CSE 490 – Independent Study – Prototyping new CI system (Python)
• CSE 491 – Introduction to Database Backed Web Development (Python, Subversion, ExtJS)
• CSE 890 – Independent Study – Open Source Capstone (Python, Django, Thunderbird)

Corporate Experience

MSU Senior Capstone Course

Working with TechSmith Corporation
September 2009 – December 2009

Highlights:

• Working on a team of four students
• Developing Silverlight client to Visual Studio Team System (C#)
• Working directly with customer to refine project goals and features

Details:

Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) has an extension for Visual Studio called Team Explorer. This extension works fine for PCs and for developers, but does not work at all for Apple (since Visual Studio is windows only). TFS also has a web interface, but it only works in Internet Explorer (which again excludes Apple). For this project, I am working with three other students to develop a Silverlight client. Silverlight is available for both PC and Apple, and runs in almost all browsers. Since the TFS API doesn’t ship with the Silverlight client, we are implementing a collection of .NET web services to connect the Silverlight client with an intermediate server. This intermediate server makes all of the TFS API calls, allowing us to make a cross-platform application.

By the time this project ends we will have implemented an authentication mechanism, a full search, and item creation/modification in a cross-platform/cross-browser usable interface.

Jackson National Life

Software Engineering Intern
May 2009 – Present

Highlights:

• Researched and implemented continuous integration system (Hudson, Sonar, Maven)
• Connected continuous integration system with version control repository (StarTeam, Java)
• Worked on a team to redesign intranet site (Enterprise CMS, JavaScript)

Details:

I started at Jackson working on the web development team to complete a redesign to one of their intranet sites. There was a very quick deadline that I was able to help them achieve. I mainly worked on transferring old pages into the new design and transferring some content into their enterprise CMS. I also developed a timezone script in JavaScript.

After completing the site redesign, I moved to the special projects team. My first task was to research several open source technologies (Hudson, Sonar, Emma). After setting up all of the tools, the research transitioned into figuring out how to implement the continuous integration system (the tools I was researching) into the current build/development cycle. Once most of the specifications were in place about how the system would work, I began developing a program that would monitor their version control repository for changes (since there was no post-commit hook or equivalent). This program was eventually able to monitor several repositories of differing structure and create projects in the continuous integration system if they didn’t already exist, as well as trigger builds for projects that had been changed.

Also during my work in the special projects team, I created several plugins for Hudson (the open source continuous integration system I had researched). I was also able to create a patch for a bug that I found in Hudson’s core code, which was implemented by one of their regular contributers. There were also several small projects that I worked on during this time when I was waiting for direction from my superior.

TrueVektor Development

Owner/Developer

December 2001 – Present

Projects:

Riverview Church

January 2007 – Present

Highlights:

• Led project team while maintaining full time job
• Created custom web framework that simplified development and sped up deployment (PHP)
• Developed custom AJAX RIA applets that enhanced user experience (jQuery)
• Modified open source CMS (Movable Type, Perl)

Strategic Breakthroughs

Dec 2001 – April 2009

Highlights:

• Learned several new web technologies to make dynamic productivity tools
• Managed translation of several tools from ASP to PHP
• Hired and managed three temporary contract workers for several mid-sized projects

Lansing Christian School

March 2007 – December 2008

Highlights:

• Managed full site redesign
• Integrated CMS into design allowing client full control over content (Perl, PHP)
• Connected Gallery2 into frontend for seamless design (Smarty, PHP)

T & T Trading, Inc.

August 2005 – June 2006

Highlights:

• Created transfer protocol/framework for Adobe Flash
• Integrated PayPal into custom shopping cart
• Developed custom CMS system

Skills

• C, C++, C#, Java, Python, Perl, PHP, Visual Basic, JavaScript, ActionScript v1 & v2, jQuery, ExtJS
• RDBMS, SQL, Linux Shell, Smarty, Lex, Yacc, Django, Adobe Flash, Silverlight, (X)HTML, CSS, AJAX

Activities

• Local band, sound and recording engineer
• Intramural soccer, manager/player
• After school Scratch programming course, instructor
• High school youth group, adult volunteer