Andre Botha Email & Phone Number

Redmond, Washington, United States

• Technical Program Manager (TPM) for three in development Surface PC products based on Intel & QualComm System on Chips (SoCs) covering power, performance & thermal.

Redmond, Washington, US

• Hired, trained & led team in China to sustain 24 Surface devices; working closely with Surface Post Launch Engineering’s (PLE’s) software, hardware & manufacturing sustaining teams on software/firmware updates &.

Redmond, Washington, US

• Technical Program Manager (TPM) for Windows customer images (Laptop 2, Pro 6 & 7, Book 3) & provisioning manufacturing software (Book 3, Hub 2S 85”); worked closely with ImProv development, test & factory validation.
• Managed schedules between software teams (Agile) & manufacturing teams (Waterfall); gathered requirements from commercial & marketing teams; created specifications; worked with drivers & firmware; specified Windows &.
• Improved workflows, documentation, training, work tracking, product sunsetting, release process; transitioned team to Azure Storage for software releases; increased use of Azure DevOps (ADO); increased integration with.
• Wrote C# tools to assist software releases, perform checks on software ECOs & interface with ADO.
• Championed improvements in imaging (e.g., standardization & use of templates), provisioning (e.g., logging temperature during production & checking certificates during builds) & removing imaging & provisioning.
• Re-defined Surface device Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) for efficiency & for software differentiation to minimize SKU count; required convincing Surface (hardware) Release Management, Customer Support Service (CSS).

WhichWay is a developer of offline guidebook mobile apps for National Parks and other recreation areas. Managed then took over development & testing of mobile app using JavaScript and Facebook's React Native cross-platform framework & incorporated Google Analytics. First version for iOS was recently released to the Apple App Store.

Redmond, Washington, US

• Firmware Development Manager for Microsoft Band 2 & 3 smartwatches (2016):
• Led firmware team developing firmware for Microsoft Band 2 & 3 until cancellation.
• Initiated & managed development of firmware signed boot / signed firmware update including infrastructure for code signing & factory deployment.
• Wrote specifications & managed development of firmware for custom Band with ANT+ Heart Rate Monitor.
• Wound down development team & handed off firmware to sustaining team.

Redmond, Washington, US

• Firmware Technical Program Manager for Microsoft Band 2 smartwatch:
• Co-led firmware development with firmware development leads & firmware released on schedule.
• Co-managed Firmware Test Team plus firmware test automation development & roll-out.
• Pioneered use of Electronic Label (E-Label) for regulatory agency compliance at Microsoft.
• Initiated & managed creation & manufacture of development boards for development, testing & automation.
• Supported integration with hardware, apps & cloud as well as Manufacturing Test Engineering (MTE).

Redmond, Washington, US

• Firmware Technical Program Manager for Microsoft Band smartwatch (2013-2015):
• Co-led firmware development with firmware development leads; successfully navigated firmware through major changes in feature sets & platform support: shipped on schedule without a day one firmware update.
• Worked extensively on creating Bluetooth architecture to support Android, iOS & Windows Phone; over the air firmware update & simultaneous Bluetooth Classic & Bluetooth Low Energy support.
• Hired & managed 25 contract firmware & software (Android, iOS, Windows & Windows Phone) engineers plus external firmware development companies to supplement internal firmware teams.
• Worked closely with manufacturing test team on production test support & with hardware & firmware teams to ensure final product is FCC & CE approved & is Bluetooth 4.0, USB 2.0 & Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL).
• In release manager & build engineer roles created builds & managed releases for testing, for over the air updates & for manufacturing via Siemens TeamCenter product lifecycle management (PLM) tool.

Redmond, Washington, US

• Technical Program Manager, Xbox 3rd Party Accessories Group (2005-2013)
• Extended & managed product approval & acceptance test process for all Xbox 360, Kinect & initial Xbox One licensed products e.g. guitars & drums for Activision Guitar Hero & Harmonix Rock Band; Activision Skylanders &.
• Provided development & test support to key external hardware & software partners for priority products including onsite production & production test support in China for RF, PCBA & final product test; help with.
• Helped setup 3rd party product testing at Microsoft Asia Center for Hardware (MACH) in China & trained test engineers.
• Wrote all technical specifications used by 3rd party partners to create products for Xbox 360 & most technical specs for Xbox One (USB specs, wireless specs, protocol specs, product requirements).
• Hired & managed hardware, firmware & software engineers to create wired & wireless reference designs for Xbox 360 accessory hardware to speed development by 3rd party partners.

Redmond, Washington, US

• Software / Firmware Technical Program Manager for Microsoft Band precursor fitness tracker:
• TPM for device firmware, Azure cloud, Windows Store device app libraries & Xbox 360 console application.
• Hired & managed contract firmware & software engineers plus external firmware development companies to supplement internal teams; managed Windows Installer XML (WiX) development & testing.
• Coordinated external software development team working on Windows Store app for Windows 8.
• Worked closely with Microsoft’s Windows Store device app team to improve device support in Windows 8.1 e.g. access to WinUSB & Bluetooth RFCOMM—all recommendations were eventually adopted by Windows.
• Wrote device specs, application SDK documentation & sample application code for Xbox 360 developers.Software Technical Program Manager for Xbox 360 wireless Bluetooth surround sound headset:TPM for Xbox 360 console.

Management: Recruited & trained 17 engineers in China & Hong Kong (new graduates & experienced). Setup engineering intern program; recruited, trained & managed 8 engineering interns in the US. Created, trained & managed CD-ROM development (using InstallShield) & test group in US, China & Hong Kong. Re-staffed & trained 12 person firmware development group.

Embedded Systems Engineer (Concord Camera Corporation): See under Concord above.

Embedded Systems Engineer (Concord Camera Corporation): See under Concord above.Digital Hardware Design Engineer (Xerox Corporation): FPGA & PLD design (including VHDL coding, simulation & synthesis), board design for PCI-bus based image processing & communications boards (IEEE-1394 “FireWire”, USB, LVDS & Fibre Channel). Oversight of board layout.