Software engineer
Ten organizations, one recurring job: be the person who figures out how the thing actually gets built. Lead engineer, chief architect, director of technology, CTO — the title changed, the work rarely did.
Currently
I teach Senior Design, the two-semester capstone where students work in groups of five on a single real project. Many are sponsored by outside organizations — Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Siemens, NASA, General Dynamics, Coca-Cola, and others — which means the deadlines and the stakeholders are real, not simulated.
More than 190 teams have come through so far. Watching that many projects succeed and fail up close teaches you which problems are actually about code and which ones only look like they are. Most are not.
I also sponsor KnightHacks, the student club that runs UCF's annual hackathon.
Before that
Game publishing, telecommunications, media, manufacturing, medical software, and a long stretch of contract work in between.
Director of technology
A Miami game publisher founded in 1984, shipping across a wide range of genres: Grandmaster Chess, Bridgemaster, Corridor 7, Terminator Chess, the Trump Castle series, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Miami Vice, Search for the Titanic, and The Dark Half.
Senior software engineer
Dev lead in MCI's digital imaging division, working on image processing and new image formats. The division served large corporate customers including The Washington Post and many universities across the Southeast.
Senior software engineer
Internet filtering systems for cities, school systems, and libraries; a portraiture system for organization directories; and imaging research. Now Landmark Media.
Senior software engineer
The Swedish manufacturer headquartered in Gothenburg — trucks, buses, and construction equipment, plus marine and industrial drive systems and financial services.
Chief technical officer
Collaboration software for medicine. Physicians and consulting personnel studied cases together online and annotated them with both graphics and text. The company sold its intellectual property in 2014.
Chief architect
A system letting physicians dispense a limited formulary from their own office — convenient for patients, a new profit center for the practice. Offices were contacted electronically overnight to query inventory and place orders.
Director of technology
Large email attachments, storage, and streaming to every device — including ordinary flip phones. The technology won awards, and the company was sold on the strength of it.
Senior software engineer
A full-service market intelligence firm working with healthcare, retail, financial, energy, and consumer product companies to turn research into strategic decisions.
Independent
Several years on my own, writing games — Expert Chess, Chess Kids, and a series of card games for Bicycle — alongside books including the Visual Studio Bible. Best of all was volleyball at the Y over lunch.
Credentials
Consulting, speaking, and sponsored Senior Design projects all start the same way — with a message.