Davis Ford
316 Merriweather | Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236 | davisford@zenoconsulting.biz
| 248.894.4922 | http://www.linkedin.com/in/davisford
Senior Software Architect / Technologist / Consultant
Senior technologist with expertise in both embedded/real-time and enterprise
systems architecture and design.
Challenge-driven, extremely pro-active, analytical and research-oriented yet
business practical. Experience
managing cross-functional teams. Deep understanding of software project
lifecycle for complex software
projects. Expert in UML, design patterns, and architectural tradeoff analysis.
Core Competencies: Software architecture & design, Product line design approach,
Research & development, Agile Software project management, Competitive
intelligence, Requirements engineering, Technical leadership & mentoring
Recent Performance Highlights
* 12 years of experience. 2 years in general IT. 1 year in academic research.
3 years in Silicon Valley
startups. 3 years in large corporate environment. 3 years as independent
consultant.
* Visionary technologist for next-generation systems. Lead consultant on new
global geo-spatial enterprise
system for Tele Atlas that uses a Model-Driven Architecture approach which will
allow changes in product
specifications without changing the code. Led research and design of
next-generation telematics system
architecture for GM/OnStar that decouples consumer electronics from vehicle
lifecycle; re-usable
architecture prospected to save GM/OnStar millions in warranty/cost reduction
and generate new revenue
growth through deployable services. .
* Bridging the gap between engineering/technology and practical business needs.
Identified cutting-edge
technologies for next-generation Tele Atlas production system and GM/OnStar
Telematics; stayed focused on
open-standards, competition, and product feature tradeoffs. Brokered numerous
licensing contract and
pricing advantages for GM/OnStar potentially saving the company millions.
---------------------------
Professional Experience
---------------------------
Tele Atlas, Gent, Belgium 2005-Present
Principal Consultant / Architect
The lead global provider of digital map data for Internet applications and
navigation devices.
Recruited by Tele Atlas as a lead consultant to boot-strap a new global
enterprise system. Tele Atlas acquired
Geographic Data Systems (Lebanon, NH); our team was to define and implement a
new global geo-spatial
enterprise system that worked for North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. I
began the project on a team of 7
which has now grown to 5 separate teams (~40 people). Enterprise focused on
three critical business areas for
Tele Atlas: map data product creation, quality data checks, real-time
geo-spatial editing.
* Played key role in helping define the software engineering process
(Agile/SCRUM/TDD), select the tool-set,
and define the architecture and software design.
* Mentored new team members and helped the project grow; boot-strapped new
members on technologies,
tools, and GIS domain knowledge.
* Designed and implemented new system using model-driven architecture (MDA)
which allows changes to
product specifications made in UML to drive the code (in UML, XMI/XML,
Java/JAXB).
* Designed core geographic business object model / API (in Java)
* Designed and implemented key algorithms that validate quality of data against
specifications (in Java)
* Designed and implemented business object model and relational model for
capturing quality violations and
persisting to Oracle using Hibernate 3 (in Java/Oracle).
* Designed and implemented key distributed platform that leverages the grid to
enable scalability for processing
terabytes of data, including job control framework and framework for persisting
snapshots of geographic data
to disk so work can be split among several machines (Java/Sun Grid
Engine/DRMAA).
* Built data access layer using Hibernate 3 for editing platform. Helped design
and implement new GUI editing
platform for geographic information using Java3D and NetBeans (in Java/Oracle).
-----
Test Products, Sterling Heights, MI 2006-2007
Principal Consultant / Architect
Turnkey supplier of custom electrical test equipment for automotive OEMs.
Recruited by Test Products to design and implement a Windows Mobile .NET DLL
that utilizes both Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth for capturing serial data off the vehicle bus. Target application was
for major rental car agency to
collect mileage and accurate fuel levels upon vehicle return.
* Designed and implemented application from scratch to capture key serial data
off bus using test-driven
development, including DLL, and GUI application (in C#).
* Wrote vehicle simulator for integration testing (in C#).
* Did end-to-end testing / integration with real hardware.
-----
Zeno Consulting, Inc., Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 2005-Present
President
Technology consulting firm specializing in agile process, Telematics, Geographic
Information Systems
Incorporated consulting firm after leaving GM to pursue career in
software/technology consultation.
-----
General Motors Corporation, Warren, Michigan 2003-2005
Senior Software Engineer / Architect
The world's largest automaker employing over 300,000 people with vehicle sales
in 200 countries.
Recruited into GM to help shape software process/infrastructure for growing
embedded software competency
within the company. Assisted in establishing a telematics software engineering
group and quickly became
technical lead. Responsible for convincing key management why GM/OnStar should
own software architecture
and IP - led the organization to achieve better, faster, more flexible,
competitive product line design for
telematics.
* As lead software architect, created architectural specification for future
embedded telematics system using
UML modeling.
* Elicited functional and business requirements from various units within
GM/OnStar. In general, I was
responsible for pulling together the large number of stakeholders at GM who had
an interest in this system
and pulling the information together to create several architectural and
requirements specifications that met
their needs.
* Prototyped numerous design alternatives on target hardware (in C).
* Did deep cross-functional tradeoff-analysis on current RTOS market for GM;
prototypes (in C)
* Did deep cross-functional tradeoff-analysis on real-time middleware (build vs.
buy); prototypes (in C)
* Project lead for end-to-end architecture for future telematics system. Led
cross-functional team of consultants
and GM/OnStar engineers to define architectural specification for complex
distributed system that bridges
embedded device to multiple enterprise systems.
* Provided technical leadership to bootstrap new supplier for OnStar; strongly
influenced supplier
architecture/design decisions through on-site collaboration overseas.
* Co-designed/wrote/tested tire inflation monitoring algorithm for body control
module (in UML/C) - a patent
was issued for this work.
-----
Switchcore AB, San Jose, California 2002-2003
Specializing in custom wire-speed switching and routing in single-chip
solutions
Hardware/Software Field Application Engineer
Recruited to assist international customer base in design of switching/routing
products using Switchcore's CXE
family of gigabit Ethernet switching devices. Involved daily in helping
customer designs and facilitating design
wins for Switchcore.
* Tracked customer issues to resolution that involved ASIC register
configurations, device driver code, and
performance issues.
* Wrote technical documentation / whitepapers detailing design solutions for
customer base.
* Led training sessions to broad customer groups on both hardware/software
design
* Conducted pre-sales device verification with V&V team using IXIA traffic
generator and test scripts
* Wrote Linux debug device driver for CXE chip to assist customer base (in C).
-----
Archway Digital Solutions, Mountain View, California 2001-2002
Specializing in production of high-density, high-performance Internet/technical
servers
Network Firmware Engineer
Recruited to develop/integrate firmware for Gigabit Ethernet L2 switch component
for blade server chassis.
Responsibilities grew to encompass other engineering areas of the company.
* Integrated switch firmware for 32-port gigabit Ethernet L2 switch using
VxWorks RTOS (in C).
* Assisted hardware team in board bring-up and power-on test
* Wrote switch diagnostic code for Power-On-Self-Test (in PowerPC assembly and
C).
* Conducted V&V on switch using IXIA traffic generator and test scripts
* Worked as part of software quality assurance to isolate fix problems with PCI
device driver code in
symmetric multiprocessor blade server (Linux), TCP/IP stack performance, BIOS
code (x86 assembly).
* Led software design and coding effort for next generation blade server
management software using Intelligent
Platform Management Interface (IPMI).
-----
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 1999-2001
Research Assistant, Computer Science Department
Worked as paid research assistant to investigate high-speed networking
technologies, protocol stack performance
and QoS technologies.
* Implemented DiffServ and RSVP QoS solutions through ATM switches using Sun
Solaris (in C).
* Benchmarked desktop operating system network stacks (Windows, Linux, Solaris)
* Investigated UNIX STREAMS performance over gigabit Ethernet and ATM (in C).
* Modified Sun Solaris fast Ethernet device driver with STREAMS priority bands
to achieve 550% latency
improvement (in C).
-----
Related Work, Michigan 1997-2001
Network/System Administrator
Worked as network/system administrator for various companies in the Detroit area
setting up firewalls,
networking equipment, servers, and writing code for Intranet deployments (in
Perl).
--------------------
Education and Credentials
--------------------
Master of Science in Software Engineering (in progress)
Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 12 of 33 credits, 2004
Master of Science in Computer Science
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 2001
Bachelor of Science in Zoology
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 1996
--------------------
Publications and Awards
--------------------
* Recognized as outstanding performer, General Motors, 2003-2004
* Received "Recognition of Exceptional Service Award", Computer Science
Department, Wayne State
University, 2001
* Walenty, A.; Van Eikema Hommes, O.; Ford, D; Rosa, D. "Method and apparatus
for detecting tire pressure,"
General Motors Corporation, Issued April 12, 2005. US Patent No. 6,877,371.
* Ford, D. "STREAMS Support for High-Performance Computer Networks," Masters
Thesis, Wayne State
University, 2001.
* Ford, D.; Zeadally, S.; "Application-To-Application Priority with STREAMS," in
Proceedings of the 26th
IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN 2001)
* Zeadally, S.; Ford, D. "BSD Versus STREAMS Protocol Stack Implementations," in
Proceedings of the 8th
IEEE Conference on Telecommunications (ICT 2001)
* Zeadally, S.; Ford, D. "Evaluating STREAMS-based Protocol Stacks Over
High-Performance Networks," in
Proceedings of the 20th IEEE International Performance, Computing, and
Communications Conference
(IPCCC 2001)
--------------------
Technology Skills
--------------------
* UML/Design: UML 2.x, MDA, XMI, OCL, Design Patterns, Pattern-Oriented Software
Architecture, Distributed Systems Design, Sparx Enterprise Architect, Rational
Rose, Rational
RoseRT, iLogix Rhapsody;
* Languages: Java, XML, C, SQL, C#, C++, Perl, assembler, XHTML, Python
(learning), Ruby
(learning), Haskell (learning), Erlang (learning)
* Frameworks / Tools: J2SE, Spring, J2ME, J2EE, JDBC, JAXB, EJB 3.0, JMX, JUnit,
DBUnit,
XMLUnit, JBoss, Apache Tomcat, Apache Commons, Java Generics, Java 3D,
GeoServer,
GeoTools, Java Topology Suite JTS, Web Services, Hibernate, TopLink, Sun Grid
Engine, Data
Mining, Apache Hadoop, JMS, Java OSGi, .NET, Visual C#, NetBeans, Ruby on Rails
(learning)
* Hardware: x86, PowerPC, 8051/8052, most 32/64-bit processors
* Operating Systems: Solaris, Linux, Windows, Wind River VxWorks, QNX Neutrino,
pSOS,
LynuxWorks LynxOS, Green Hills INTEGRITY
* Network Technologies/Protocols: TCP/UDP/IP, CDMA, GSM, Ethernet, ATM, CAN,
LIN,
GMLAN, L2/L3 Switches, VLAN, SOAP, LDAP, DHCP, BOOTP, DNS, HTTP, BGP, OSPF, RIP,
SMTP, NFS, NIS, IPSec, MAC, PHY, QoS, Firewalls, IIS, SIP, Open Mobile Alliance
(OMA),
SyncML, Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth, SSH, SSL, SMB/CIFS, VPN, GPS
* Systems Programming: device drivers, POSIX, Pthreads, sockets, IPC
* Software Project Lifecycle: Subversion, Continuous Integration, Test-Driven
Development (TDD),
Automated Builds, Apache Maven, Apache Ant, PMD, Cenqua Clover, Atlassian
Bamboo
* Database: Oracle/Oracle Spatial, Berkeley DB, HSQL-DB, MySQL, Microsoft
Access, relational
database design
|
