SDET Analyse, Design, Implement, Execute and Report

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First worked in South Africa,14 years for a small company developing an industrial control system. I moved to the UK and started at Symbian mobile in 2006, then after they closed, moved to Desktop Virtualization at Citrix. I have worked in Cambridge over 8 years now, and am a settled UK dual-national.
I studied as an electrical engineer, but immediately switched to software. I have over 20 years of experience developing software, most of them in mission critical systems. 8 years ago I switched track to Software Quality as an SDET.

• Continuous Integration test system setups on Windows and hardware platforms
• Tools : Jenkins, Cruise Control, NUnit, Perforce, Clearcase.
• System test environment virtualization on Xenserver
• Creating test execution tools to solve problems, C# , ‘C’ and C++ developer experience.
• Powershell, Python, AutoIT and Bash scripting experience amongst others.
• In mission-critical environments for 18 years, Testing under mobile Symbian O/S. I’ve seen uses for COM, ATL, STL, OLE, OO, Agile, CVS, SVN, and even Windows DDK.
• A can-do trouble-shooter good at researching & knowledge transfer.
• Full product lifecycle experience through to automated testing systems.
• Digital Electronics background and interests in hardware and high reliability computing.

The nature of my first job in a control-system environment where people rely on your code to run 24/7/365, has taught me how a solid design, simplicity, consistent coding style and discipline directly affect defect-rate.  Primarily a Windows developer, I have also developed compact requirements-focused applications for Symbian mobile and micro-Linux, in the resource constrained world.  I consider myself a C and C++ guru, a C# intermediate, even if a little rusty. A generalist of Embedded Systems, and a GNU Linux journeyman.  I work well on my own and am completely self-motivated!

Why Software Test?

Throughout my career I have made breaking it; and then automating software verification a personal mission. I believe I can bring not only some new techniques and QA “dashboard items”, but also the extra manpower to get automated coverage in those areas we hate to test at the moment.

Citrix Research: XenDesktop –Feb 2011 – present

I currently maintain the continuous integration full-product integration BVT suite for some of the core Citrix Product. A broad set of tests which I designed and automated to run in shortest possible time and find defects commonly found in the first hour of manual testing, thus saving on manual deployments and providing basic integration for as wide a possible set of components possible.

I started at Citrix testing a Filesystem virtualization driver, then moved onto the test-automation framework team. I moved team in 2013 into the test execution team.

Clear Com (Vitec) June 2008 – October 2009

Clear Com design and market a complete hybrid digital intercom system.  Customers include Live Performance, Broadcasters, Military, Aerospace and Government.

Symbian Limited (Nokia) July 2006 – May2008

Defect fixer on USB and Bluetooth team.  Test designer + implementer to the USB project.

Bulldog, CCover

Adroit Technologies 1992 – 2006

Adroit Technologies develop an industrial control system on the Windows platform, in Johannesburg, South Africa.  I started as a junior developer on a ‘C’ device-drivers coding role and progressed to team lead after 5 years.

Network Computer Services: 1991-1992

My first full-time job, contractor installing LAN and WAN infrastructure.