AeroInfo/Boeing

I was a senior member of the iOS team at AeroInfo, a subsidiary of Boeing in Canada, where we developed an iPad application for pilots called ecoAFP. The app was designed to wirelessly collect onboard signals related to fuel consumption during flight, creating detailed charts of different parameters overlaid with a chart of fuel consumption, allowing pilots to learn the best strategies to optimize fuel savings. We used a third-party iOS chart component from a company called Shinobi, but due to their limited resources, we faced many issues trying to integrate it into our app. This caused delays in the project schedule. Despite spending several months trying to resolve the issues, even direct collaboration with Shinobi's developers couldn't fix the problem. Since we did not have access to the component's source code, we couldn't solve the issues without Shinobi's help. I proposed to re-implement the Shinobi chart component in-house, using my expertise in high-performance iOS graphics (OpenGL) that I gained from developing games before joining AeroInfo. I successfully reproduced the features from Shinobi component we needed and integrated them into our product. As a result, we finally got the project moving forward with a charting component under full company control and with access to the source code. This allowed us to complete the app to the original specifications without needing to twist existing third-party component's features to make them fit our requirements.

LiveSwitch (Surrey, BC)

As a senior software developer at LiveSwitch, I was responsible for creating and maintaining a number of backend .NET microservices using C#. One of my first tasks was addressing stability issues with the recording service, which was frequently encountering corrupt recording metadata files. To quickly resolve the issue and address customer complaints, I implemented a solution that was automatically analyzing and fixing corrupt files as they arrive to recording service. This allowed us to resolve the immediate concern, giving us time to investigate the root cause of why recording metadata files were created as corrupt. Another project I worked on was improving the efficiency of the event service, which tracks video streaming activity and bills customers accordingly. LiveSwitch was using Google's "BigQuery" service to store and access large amounts of events, incurring significant costs of Google billing for BigQuery usage. To decrease Google storage costs and increase LiveSwitch profitability, I proposed and implemented a solution to offload and aggregate data to general-purpose cloud servers that were significantly cheaper than dedicated big data storage from Google. Additionally, I discovered an alternative and significantly cheaper method of using the Google BigQuery API, further reducing costs. As a result of these efforts, LiveSwitch was able to dramatically decrease costs and improve profitability.

DirecTV/AT&T

I was part of a team developing streaming clients for NFL games on different programmable TV platforms for DirecTV, a subsidiary of AT&T. When I joined the team, it was shortly after Apple conference where it was announced that the Apple TV platform would now open up to custom-built apps. This presented an opportunity for DirecTV to develop an app called "NFL Sunday Ticket" for AppleTV, so we had to start the development from scratch. In the spring, management thought it would be unlikely that we could finish the app before the start of the next NFL season in the fall of the same year. They believed the app would be available to customers during the next year NFL season only. However, our team exceeded expectations by completing the app in time for the fall of that same year, opening up new NFL income stream of Apple TV subscriptions for DirecTV one year earlier than expected. Additionally, we were able to finish the project with extra time left, allowing for two more UI redesign iterations, making the final app have a polished and beautiful UI that received many compliments from senior management. There were many challenges in this project, particularly with the Apple TV video streaming component, which had very limited customization options. We had to be very creative in figuring out how to make the component work according to specifications.

Top Producer Systems/Move

I joined Top Producer Systems (a former subsidiary of Move) during a crucial time for the company as it was in a process of planning a transition from selling boxed software for real estate agents and brokers to a fully online, subscription-based system. I played an active role in all three stages of this transition. The first stage involved the release of the final version of the original software to ensure that the company could continue to offer a competitive product while transitioning to an online system. This was an essential step as it gave me extensive knowledge of the domain-specific features of the software that had been in the market for a while. I used this knowledge in the following stages of the transition. The second stage involved developing a transitory project that kept the Windows forms user interface the same but connected the application to online databases. This was a custom project for the real estate branch of the Cendant corporation. By adding online support to the existing offline product, we were able to synchronize data between the local application and Cendant's large, cloud-based real estate system. To accomplish this, we had to understand the API interface and internal data structure of the Cendant system. The project was successfully completed. The third stage involved designing a fully cloud-based online system from scratch. I played a key role in designing the database structure for the lead subsystem and was the key developer for the lead reporting subsystem. This included designing an OLAP database and developing an ETL tool to load and aggregate data from the transactional lead database. The transition was successful, and the company fully switched to an online real estate system offering.

Netgear/Arlo (Richmond, BC)

As a senior member of the iOS client team at Arlo, a company that offers Smart Home devices such as wireless cameras and doorbells, I played a key role in the development of the groundbreaking new product, the Arlo Pro3 Floodlight. The camera provides a very bright LED floodlight powered by a battery with a minimal impact on battery life. With a strict deadline to implement new product support across all software components, including firmware, backend, and three clients (web, Android, and iOS), it was essential that we work quickly to ensure that the software was ready in time to be loaded into the first batch of cameras shipped from Taiwan. My responsibility was to add Arlo Pro3 support to the iOS client. I participated in weekly integration meetings hosting representatives of all software components to discuss completed work and plan next steps, and War Room cross-component debugging sessions to troubleshoot problems. Despite the challenges of coordinating multiple teams, we were able to successfully complete software support for the Arlo Pro3 on schedule and without any delays.