March 6, 2016

Professional Year in Review (2015)

DAXOR Corporation

Multichannel analyzer end-of-life project

  • Created a project plan for implementing support for another vendor’s multi-channel analyzer; the plan listed business considerations (costs/benefits), known system components, and five objectives to accomplish the work (each with rationale, purpose, and deliverables)
  • Performed a detailed architecture and code analysis of the existing multi-channel analyzer components; deliverables included documentation of functionality, architecture diagrams, design notes, user stories, a list of known design corrections to be made — none of these assets were available before this project
  • Built a fully-functioning .NET prototype for communicating with a GBS MCA-527 multi-channel analyzer; this prototype allowed the PM and VP of Electrical Engineering to determine the next series of actions for supporting this new vendor
  • Corrected dozens of architecture shortcomings in the existing codebase so that unit and integration tests could be written; these corrections, in addition to the creation of hundreds of tests, led to increased knowledge of and confidence in system functionality
  • Conducted performance comparison experiments with existing and new hardware by measuring high-activity samples of I-131

BVA v6.0.4

  • Worked with the PM to discuss project scope, plan, schedule, and task priorities
  • Coordinated several meetings for soliciting feedback about possible features
  • Acted as the custodian for code quality and issue tracking
  • Performed regular team lead activities (e.g., issue management, code reviews)
  • Investigated and proposed several interaction design solutions to make blood volume test alerts more visually prominent
  • Coordinated with the PM and clinical support staff to create user interface mock-ups for supporting amputee scenarios; this task also involved generating a scope of work for this new feature
  • Helped the dev team investigate broken data grid search functionality after upgrading a third-party WPF library
  • Provided design feedback on the Ordering Physicians Report, increasing its readability to sales support staff
  • Created internal documentation for managing the WiX installer, making this information less siloed
  • Championed the process of incorporating monthly Microsoft updates into the installer
  • Kept the BVA base system image up-to-date
  • (This version was released to production in November 2015)

Team-lead work

Community and leadership

  • Maintained rapport with all DAXOR colleagues
  • Mentored and encouraged dev team members to become better developers through exposure to information or demonstration of techniques
  • Participated in “pay-day Thursday” lunches with the dev team and our manufacturing technician
  • Encouraged the dev team to become active in the local tech community and the community at large

Management

  • Worked closely with the PM to implement a strategy of keeping the development team productive by having a junior developer champion several internal projects (e.g., blood volume case study import, Help module for BVA v6.0.4, and a re-write of the detector characterization application)
  • Kept the PM informed about dev team performance and articulated opportunities for improvement
  • Added context to the issue-tracking system items to make it easier for other developers to find and prioritize the next tasks to be done
  • Kept notes on team members so that I could see trends in their work
  • Provided code architecture overviews and detailed feedback on submitted development work for a junior dev
  • Talked with each developer (at least twice) about their performance
  • Reviewed each team member’s training matrix weekly to ensure compliance
  • Coordinated with another dev and the PM to handle that developer’s resignation
  • Interviewed several candidates for a software engineer position
  • Transferred knowledge about development processes to the project manager as I transitioned to a new company

Recurring support tasks

  • Performed regular OSHA-related tasks (emergency lighting checks, fire extinguisher checks, first aid kit maintenance)
  • Helped field technical support calls from several clients
  • Answered customer support calls when the office was understaffed
  • Acted as gatekeeper of quality for documentation on the wiki and released documents produced by the dev team
  • Performed weekly maintenance on development tools (JIRA, Jenkins, SQL Source Control, Evernote, Trello)

Miscellaneous

  • Assisted the IT Administrator when the primary domain controller had to be rebuilt; tasks included recreating user accounts, answering internal tech support questions, and creating documentation about the process
  • Conducted an internal audit of the design control process (part of ISO 13485 compliance)
  • Helped the PM and IT Administrator evaluate LastPass as a company-wide password management solution
  • Partnered with the IT administrator to tune the performance of the virtual host running our continuous integration tools

DPRA, Inc.

JFAST

  • Implemented multiple features and fixed several bugs for Release 6 of JFAST, a system that allows military planners to perform transportation and logistics feasibility analyses for selecting the best course of action
  • Assimilated knowledge of military logistics, functionality of the legacy version of JFAST, and the architecture of the existing software solution
  • Acted primarily as a UI developer for one of three cross-functional teams; this work involved integrating XAML from a UI/UX designer into the existing structure
  • When needed, worked on core/infrastructure development and unit test development
  • Communicated frequently with the QC team to improve the quality of acceptance criteria and minimize the introduction of new bugs
  • Broke down large product backlog items for UI tasks on my team into manageable and estimable tasks
  • Encouraged and participated in cross-team code reviews
  • Paired with junior developers to help them learn the development tools and processes
  • Actively participated in Scrum-related meetings (standups, retrospectives) as well as weekly in-depth technical and functional discussions with our customers

Community and leadership

  • Maintained rapport with all DPRA colleagues (developers, quality testers, database developers)
  • Mentored and encouraged dev team members to become better developers through exposure to information or demonstration of techniques
  • Frequently checked in with project managers to both better understand DPRA’s processes and to provide feedback on how they could be improved
  • Participated in weekly cross-team lunches
  • Encouraged the dev team to become active in the local tech community and the community at large

Professional development

Community involvement

Training proficiency

  • Corrective and Preventative Action (CAPA)
  • OSHA compliance
  • HIPAA compliance
  • Cyber Awareness (Department of Defense version)
  • Basic life support