Paul Johnson

www.pjcj.net paul@pjcj.net

Software development, management, technical leadership, QA and testing,
Native English speaker, with passable German and some French.

Interests

The production of, and the processes which lead to high quality software.
Fostering a culture which emphasises quality throughout the entire software process.
I enjoy leadership, building proficient and motivated teams and helping others learn.

Experience

I have a broad range of experience and a flexible attitude gained from founding and working in a startup company and also from working in large companies.
Lead The Perl Foundation's presence in the Google Code-in programme 2011/2012. Direction of 50 mentors tutoring students in over 300 tasks.
Experienced software architect and developer.
Understanding of software development processes and ability to manage teams to ensure the production of high quality software delivered on schedule and to a budget.
Balancing of business requirements, user expectations and technical best practices.
Research into new technologies and techniques and investigation of whether they could be beneficial to the business. Determination of how best they should be deployed and devising of strategies for their use.
Comfortable working with both technical and business teams. Used to making presentations to both groups.
Devised, driven or managed the QA process in a number of companies.
Very familiar with the technical aspects of software testing and QA having written commercial code coverage tools, test harnesses and the Perl coverage module Devel::Cover.
Presented papers at eight European Perl Conferences. Won the best paper award at the 2005 conference.
Participated in the Plat_Forms 2011 web development contest / comparison study.

May 2011 - : Swisscom

Telecoms Provider

Technical responsibility for websites owned by Tamedia
Design and implementation of iPad registration website and webservices for Tages-Anzeiger iPad app.
Preparation of websites for decommissioning and transitioning to new system.

March 2010 - March 2011: Swiss Re

Reinsurance Company

Overall responsibility for QA over a programme covering numerous financial projects.
Definition of QA strategy over the entire project lifecycle.
Establishment of processes combining company policy, regulatory requirements and industry best practices.
Assistance to projects in following those processes.
Liaison between projects and other groups, such as testing, operational readiness, security, audit.
Analysis of QA gaps in projects and provision of directions for improvement.

October 2001 - December 2009 : UBS

Swiss bank

Integration of an externally developed cash management product into the standard bank environment.
- System architecture and technical direction.
- Design and implementation of interfaces to 14 subsystems including databases, messaging, web front-end, logging, packaging and monitoring.
- Design and implementation of high availability solution on backup server.
- Recovery from and analysis of production problems.
- Creation of automated testing, monitoring, reporting and support tools.
Functional and monitoring improvements lead to a decrease in production downtime of over 90%.

Previously:

Responsibility for integration and production testing of a large project unifying credit systems and involving numerous internal groups and external companies.
- Ensuring that software was fit to go into production.
- Coordinating the activities of the various QA teams. Providing support and advice as required.
- Making process improvement recommendations to the development and production teams and assisting in their implementation.
- Setting up automated testing suites using Perl and commercial packages.
- Introducing monitoring and reporting tools for the various applications under test.
- Ensuring that installation processes were complete and accurate.
The introduction of automated testing, monitoring and reporting tools, coupled with process improvements, lead to an increase in the availability of the testing systems from an estimated 75% to over 95% which lead, in turn, to improved production stability.

The working language was German, and I was able to effectively perform my work although I cannot claim to be fluent or even particularly proficient in German.

July 2000 - August 2001 : Olsen & Associates

Research into and supply of high frequency financial data

Formalised the QA process, updated and extended the tests and standardised and documented the entire test system.
Worked closely with the quality engineers to ensure the integrity of the data and the correctness of the software.
Designed, implemented, maintained and extended Perl and C++ libraries and wrote interfaces between them.

May 2000 - June 2000 : contracted to Ordnance Survey

Britain's national mapping agency

Debugged and extended the suite of Perl programs that was the backend to the National GPS Network.
Put in place a testing system. Analysed and reported upon the entire project.

1992 - 2000 : TransEDA Ltd

Provider of code coverage tools for hardware design languages

I was a founder of this company, which had a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange. TransEDA was the first company to bring code coverage analysis to the EDA (Electronic Design Automation) market.
Responsibility for all aspects of product development, including management, planning, specification, design, implementation, testing, documentation and maintenance.
Worked closely with customers, field engineers and support staff, managed sub-contractors and conducted recruitment interviews.
Designed and implemented large sub-systems of various EDA products.
Created QA strategy and infrastructure and built or selected the tools necessary to ensure high quality products. Provided training and support in this area as required.
Responsible for the introduction of Perl into the company, first for internal programs and then for products, for which it became the major development language. As this happened I conducted many internal training sessions for the company engineers.
Wrote user manuals for early products. Proof read later manuals and promotional material.

Other Experience

A web site (http://www.kw.com/) for Keller Williams Realty. I was responsible for the dynamic parts of the site including the parts which allow individual agents to manage their own sites. The site runs using Perl, mod_perl, Template Toolkit and Class::DBI with an Oracle backend. The site currently supports over 60,000 agents and their individual web sites.
A web site (now closed down) providing on-line quotes for CD replication and allowing company administration to be performed via a web interface. I designed and created the site using Perl, apache and mod_perl on the server, and dynamically generated JavaScript and DHTML on the client.
A program to help improve the reading and spelling skills of dyslexic children. It is written in Perl/Tk and uses sonic and visual clues to present phrases to children, which they then type in. It runs on Linux and Windows and is currently being used in a very successful teaching programme. My paper on this topic won the best paper award at the European Perl Conference in Braga in 2005.

Qualifications

M.Eng. (Software Engineering) Class II(1) Hons. Imperial College of Science and Technology, London.
3 A levels (Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics), and 11 O levels including English Language.

Technical

OO design and programming in Perl, C++ and other languages.
The use of debuggers, memory checkers, profilers, code management tools, shells, Unix utilities, build systems and other development tools.
Proficient in many dialects of Unix, and familiar with a number of other Operating Systems.
Familiar with various web technologies including Apache, nginx, JavaScript, jQuery, Ajax, Bootstrap, CSS, Selenium, Catalyst, Dancer and Plack.
Always keen to learn new technologies and improve my skills.