SDET for Hire

Senior SDET | Automator of all of the things!

About

In 1992 I started out coding C and C++ device-drivers at a small company developing an industrial control system, based in Johannesburg. I emigrated to the UK in 2006 landing a QA job at Symbian mobile which switched me into a tester, quickly learning about USB, Bluetooth and GSM. When Symbian wound down in 2008, I moved to Clearcom, testing a digital-audio and Voip solution on micro-linux. Joined Citrix in 2010, in a virtual desktop/remote-desktop testing role mainly Windows with some Linux work. Joined DisplayLink in 2018; once again covering desktop testing but with an embedded display-docking station, for a short contract filler. I worked at Arm in the IOT division over 2019, eventually favouring a shorter commute to work at another smaller Cambridge origin company, RealVNC.

I have worked as an SDET in Cambridge for 18 years now, and am a settled UK dual-national. Making over 32 years experience developing software, most of those in mission critical systems.

Key Skills

The nature of my first job in a manufacturing control-system environment where people rely on your code to run 24/7/365, has taught me how simplicity and discipline directly affect defect-rate. I love to automate all things infrastructure and quality related. I’m also a troubleshooter and mentor, and love to capture team knowledge to share.

• I have designed, built and then maintained CI/CD where there previously was none, and in a variety of tough environments
• Learning to take on variety of Dev-OPS tasks
• Continuous Integration test Framework creation on Desktop and various hardware platforms
• Jenkins, Teamcity, Cruise Control. And AWS/Azure Experience
• Familiar with the Atlassian products and the Zephyr TCMS
• Tools like Perforce and Git, with CPPUnit, NUnit and custom test tool-chains and pytest
• Python lover and lately refreshing my BASH-scripting
• Have coding experience on Symbian O/S, Arduino, micro-Linux. Covering C/C++, Java, through C# .NET, VB scripting and even Cobol and x86 assembly
• A can-do trouble-shooter good at researching & knowledge transfer

Work History

RealVNC July 2019 - November 2024

• Snr test Engineer, Mobile apps and Desktop test automation.
• I added a full Selenium integration to our Python-based test stack to support Browser tests as well as Appium for Android and iOS mobile app tests.
• I managed mobile release and publishing tasks.
• Adopted/championed use of Zephyr plugin for Jira to use as TCMS.
• On the API and Cloud side of things I added Mobile Device Management (MDM) testing to our suites using Microsoft Intune, to deploy app configurations.
• Python, git. Some C++, groovy, java

Arm July 2018 - June 2019

• Joined the arm IOT system division to help design and implement system tests.
• This is an embedded testing role using Jenkins, Github, some amazon Cloud integration.
• Tests run on-target in a distributed system.
• Python and C/C++, git. This is an open source project https://github.com/ARMmbed/mbed-os.

DisplayLink Jan 2018 - June 2018

• 6 month contract, Snr Test engineer.
• Laptop display docking stations, testing codec performance and inter-op regressions.
• Python and C/C++, Powershell, Subversion

Citrix Research: XenDesktop 2010 – 2017

• Started as a Contractor testing a Windows filesystem device driver.
• CPPUnit/C++ based around the wine test framework.
• Permanent joined a team created to deploy a turn-key test-automation framework (Continuous Integration). This involved writting a DLS Domain specific language to make it possible to create thousands of tests.
• We delivered a turn-key testing environment in a Windows Active-Directory distributed environment. Testing framework used by teams worldwide. I got involved in release and publishing tasks.
• Jenkins, Teamcity, Jira
• Python, C++ and Powershell+BASH. Perforce, git

Clear Com (Vitec) June 2008 – October 2009

• Clear Com design and market a complete hybrid digital intercom system. Diogital audio for Live Performance, Broadcasters, Military, Aerospace and Government.
• Designed and implemented an Ethernet LAN auto-discovery for at-scale testing using TCP and UDP-broadcast protocols.
• Writting tests in C# on Windows and some BASH and ‘C’ for linux embedded targets.
• CPPUnit, Cruise Control and GDB.

Symbian Limited (now Nokia) July 2006 – May 2008

• My first QA role, helping test USB, Bt and Wifi in the smart-phone RTOS that evolved from the Psion portable organizers.
• Prod code defect fixing and test implementation
• C/C++, Perforce, arm toolchain. Google robot. Bulldog code coverage

Adroit Technologies 1992 – 2006

• Adroit Technologies develop an Industrial Control system on the Windows platform, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
• Perform technology presentations to customers. Gather customer requirements, then write a plugin driver.
• I started as a junior developer on a ‘C’ coding role and progressed to team lead after 5 years.
• C/C++, Multithreading. Visual Studio, SourceSafe and svn, Ethereal/ Wire-shark.

Network Computer Services: 1991-1992

• My first full-time work involved installing LAN and WAN for a contractor.
• I ran a 2-3 man team, eventually specialised in troubleshooting networks and tackling difficult LAN installations.

Early Studies

• 1991: I trained in formal software development, with a full-time COBOL and Data-Processing concepts course at the well known Van Zyl and Pritchard institution, Johannesburg.
• 1989-1990: Military service: Kept myself busy with basic radio maintenance working in the signal corps. Got hooked on programming after using a base admin computer at night to write a ration-ordering prediction program in Pascal.
• 1988-1989: Electrical Engineering Light Current at the Cape Town Technicon (equivalent to a polytechnic).
• 1987: High school final year, taught myself 8086(Intel) MASM, and Borland ‘C’. I then helped write parts of a data-capture application for DOS.

Hobbies

• While at school I self-designed and built a Switched Mode 15A voltage regulator, without a kit on vero. At the same time I learned to program in C and in x86 assembly.
• I’ve dabbled in electronics coding ever since and still build tiny Arduino gadgets.
• Campanologist, and a bad singer, I also own and operate a chainsaw.
• I really like RPG PC games. I also read Sci-Fi and Fantasy books made of dead trees.