Software Development Manager

• May 2023 - Present

Software Development Manager

• Aug 2022 - May 2023

Lead the Lookout software development team where Lookout is a component of AWS Shield that provides a highly-available, globally Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and anomaly detection systems that operates not just at the customer or region level, but at the scale of the Internet. Lookout service is a distributed aggregation system that runs on thousands of servers across the AWS network edge, providing internal operators with customizable metrics and near-immediate aggregation. Lookout gathers telemetry from thousands of routers, customer applications, and internal service logs, analyzing it to detect anomalies and identify top talkers. The top talker and metrics, provided by Lookout, is used by detection algorithms to identify malicious traffic and protect customers using services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon CloudFront, Amazon Route53, and others. • Mentor and coach software development engineers on my team. Help them grow by encouraging them to contribute to cross-team technical discussions, supporting their ideas, and empowering them to make decisions. Actively work to make sure they are assigned to projects to develop and stretch their skills. Take the time to understand the larger picture. Also responsible for hiring and on-boarding team members. • Execution. Delivered a near real-time AWS Kinesis streaming solution to detect layer 3/4 DDoS attacks 90% faster than the previous AWS Relational Database Service (RDS) solution. Also, reduced storage infrastructure cost by 80% by migrating from AWS RDS to DynamoDB. • Operational Excellence. Reduced high priority on-call tickets by addressing repeated tickets at root cause, automated infrastructure scaling and setup proactive mechanisms to inform the team before an issue reaches the threshold to issue a high priority on-call ticket. Show less

Software Engineering Director

• Oct 2020 - Aug 2022

Led and oversaw all software development projects and activities that impact the ground control system used for spacecraft command and control. Provided strategic direction for all software teams in the Space Operations Department. Managed the Space Operations Department’s 5 million-dollar yearly budget.• Led multiple satellite start-of-service software development projects from inception to start-of-service in-orbit. Each start-of-service project is 2 to 3 years on average. This process requires cross-departmental collaboration across multiple teams and constant collaboration with the manufacture to be successful.• Strategically led software development teams to build microservice architectures that can easily be containerized, such as Docker, and managed through Kubernetes/OpenShift. This architecture can be deployed on-premise and well as in the cloud. The architecture is also cloud provider independent. Also, leading the team to move toward streaming middleware layers (gRCP, Kafka, etc). Streaming provides a near real-time update and only need to publish the data once.• Team developed a near real-time web application in C# with Blazor (WebAssembly) and IBM Streams that displays spacecraft telemetry and provides situational awareness. This new application replaced a client/server Java application with ActiveMQ. Moving to the web-based application reduced need support over 50 client-side installations and maintenance effort worldwide. Also allows the application to be platform independent.• Converted the software infrastructure from expensive, specialized hardware (ie HPE C7000 enclosures) to a VMware virtualized environment with low cost, off the shelve hardware (ie HPE DL380s). This also allowed the team to reduce HPE maintenance and operation cost. Show less

Senior Software Engineering Manager

• May 2019 - Oct 2020

Led the development of the Ground Control Systems (GCS) for both the geosynchronous and medium orbit satellites, totaling 70+ satellites. Provided leadership and guidance to the software engineering teams. Ensured our projects and objectives align with the organization’s strategic vision. Attracted and retained high quality talent. • Recruited to join the SES “High Potential Leadership Development” program. Three-year program for the top 1% of SES with a focus on becomes the future senior leaders of SES. • 360 Feedback Review with input from senior leadership, peers, stakeholders, and direct reports. Received a 4 out of 4 rating in the following categories “Treats others with respect”, “Is trustworthy and reliable”, and “Readily shares information and resources with others”. Also, completed a NEO-PI-3 evaluation which highlighted my “Tolerance for Diversity”, “Self-Discipline”, “Sensitivity to Stress (ability to handle stress)”, “Intellectual Curiosity” and “Orderliness”. • Provided strategic direction for the software engineering teams. Led the strategic vision regarding automation & continuous integration, move from bare metal to virtualization, and standardize the software development process with Agile/Scrum. • Customer focused solutions through constant cross-departmental collaboration. Built the minimal valuable product and engage product owners/stakeholder with continuous feedback loops. • Ability to influence other teams and get them to buy into the overall vision. Convinced the Space Engineering teams and Space Operations teams to use the Atlassian Suite (JIRA, Confluence, BitBucket) for change management, configuration management, reporting, etc. Worked with all stakeholders to buy into our Scrum development process and assign product owners to help define success criteria, prioritize & groom the backlog. Result was better quality, more control of software releases and happier customers. Show less

Software Engineering Manager

• May 2017 - May 2019

Led a globally based software engineering team in the United States & Europe responsible for the development and maintenance of multiple Ground Control Systems (GCS) used to fly and maintain a fleet of 50+ geosynchronous satellites. These satellites also provide data services and government solutions.• Managed all day-to-day activities and long-term strategic goals within the software engineering development team. This includes working with team leads on task prioritization, budgeting, resource allocation, milestones, and dependencies.• Directed the efforts regarding approximately 10 to 20 software engineering projects per year. Projects include adding new satellite bus types to the GCS, increasing the command/telemetry throughput by an order of magnitude, automated payload commanding, and remote customer telemetry access. • Lead GCS anomaly resolution. Led inter-department (Spacecraft Engineering, Operations, Software Engineering, IT-Networking) efforts to determine root cause and implement a solution. Critical anomaly that impacts spacecraft commanding or safety have service level agreement of 24 hours.• Set yearly objectives and development plans for the team. Held the annual performance reviews. Approved expense reports. Resolved conflicts within the team and stakeholders.• Held bi-weekly tagup meetings with each one of my direct reports where we maintain open, honest communication. These tagup meetings build connection, trust and opens the line of communication. Show less

Senior Software Engineer

• Aug 2012 - May 2017

C# software developer lead and architect for Ground Control Software (GCS) used to fly and maintain a fleet of 50+ satellites. • Responsible for architecting, designing, and implementing the GCS software. Responsible for the presentation, domain, and persistence layers of the C# portion of the GCS. This included satellite commanding, telemetry, alarm limits, and status alerts. Presentation layer is implemented in Windows Forms and the persistence layer is implemented in ADO.net. Design goal is to code to abstract classes and interfaces and not code to concrete classes; this includes the Factory Pattern and Dependency Injection. • Maintained the legacy domain tier implemented in C/C++. Employed the Adaptor Patten when possible to ensure the legacy baseline that remained untouched as much as possible. This reduced the need for re-testing the legacy baseline and the possibility of causing unintended software bugs. • Led the GCS project in an Agile manner. Responsible for working directly with project owners, stakeholders, creating agile sprints, and maintaining backlogs. Worked to provide early prototypes to ensure product owner's requirements were met. • Documented our software development process along with defining quality gates. This ensured quality is built into the software from the start and reduces the number of software bugs found in production. • Consistently received the highest possible ("Highly Effective") yearly performance rating. Show less

Staff Software Engineer

• Jan 2002 - Aug 2012

Staff software engineer that developed embedded flight software in C++ for the BAE RAD6000/RAD750 On-Board Computer (OBC). Successful projects included the Air Force’s next generation Global Position System (GPS-III) which improves accuracy and availability for military and commercial users, the Navy's next-generation narrowband tactical satellite to significantly improve ground communications for United States military forces, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA)'s weather satellite, Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) which provides more timely and accurate weather forecasts. • Develop embedded flight software residing on A2100 satellite spacecraft. Mainly responsible for the Power and Thermal application software for over 20 communication satellites programs. Also responsible for implementing payload safety, fault detection & correction, and on-board stored commanding software. • Led the MUOS-2 flight software development activities and was responsible for ensuring the software was developed and delivered on-time while within budget. Found opportunities for cost savings while maintaining the schedule delivery dates. • Used Model-Driven Design with Rhapsody to auto-generate source code from UML class diagrams. Also used Rhapsody to auto-generate the Software Design Document (SDD) from other UML diagrams and defined relationships. • Supported over 15 satellite launch activities to ensure the spacecraft operated nominally from launch through transfer orbit until the spacecraft reached its operational orbit. Monitored telemetry and analyzed memory dumps to ensure no anomalous behavior. • Received multiple awards from LM for both individual and team efforts for constantly achieving mission success. Received 4 SPOT awards, 2 Special Recognition Awards, a Space Systems Team Award, and LM's highest award, the NOVA Award for Teamwork. Show less

Rank: Captain

• Oct 1996 - Oct 2005

Officer in Charge of the Electronics Section of the 270th Engineering Installation Squadron. Supervised a 25 person team and managed the installation of Command, Control, Communications, and Computer (C4) systems to include secure and non-secure computer networks, secure and non-secure telephone systems, ground-to-ground radios, and ground-to-air radios. Received numerous awards and was the only Distinguished Graduate in my class from the Communications Officer Training Course at Keesler AFB, MS. Show less

Software Engineer

• Sep 1999 - Jul 2001

Automation programmer and tester for pacemakers and defibrillators. Applications developed in C and tested on prototype hardware. Found countless defects in the development cycles. All software anomalies encountered were documented and resolved with the development team. None of the defects reached production. Automation programmer and tester for pacemakers and defibrillators. Applications developed in C and tested on prototype hardware. Found countless defects in the development cycles. All software anomalies encountered were documented and resolved with the development team. None of the defects reached production.