Tools Team : 2015 - 2020-----------------------------Built, deployed and supported tools to increase R&D productivity, improve software quality, reduce resource demands and development costs. Evaluated and deployed open source and commercial tools where possible, designed custom tools where necessary. Pro: Some interesting work, and decent pay ; Con: Too much back-stabbing politicsPorting Team: 2005 - 2015-----------------------------------Led a small team porting products to multiple UNIX platforms. Significantly increased team productivity in order to avoid threat of the team's jobs all being outsourced to Asia... but then they outsourced them anyway. Can't win 'em all.

Networked backup systems, robotic jukebox controllers etc. Wrote and maintained RPC based code for controlling the communications across a series of connected services and systems.

Software for managing regression tests etc. Maintenance of the old (C, UNIX) product, along with design and prototyping of a more advanced replacement system. Storage of Objects (i.e. classes with inheritance etc.) in a traditional relational database.Pro: Fantastic group of people ; Con: Company future seemed a bit iffy to me

Multi-platform middleware. C code on a very wide range of UNIX operating systems - everything from AIX to Data General, SGI to Pyramid, etc. Until I worked here, I had NO idea how many UNIX variants existed !Product R&D, customer support, sales support (customer demo visits) etc.Pro: Really great bunch of people to work with, including some of the best lower & middle management I've had. Con: Seemingly out of touch UK-based senior management put a pay-freeze in place in the middle of a US jobs-boom. Unsurprisingly, there was a mass exodus.

Mostly C programming on SGI systems, doing graphics and comm's for a tool used in cockpit prototyping. Just 2 engineers initially, so we handled all aspects of the product life cycle.Pro: Interesting work, which got me my green card ; Con: missed opportunities

Since I am the world's worst navigator, it's somewhat ironic that I would be involved in navigational QC systems !Finding undersea oil is a fascinating undertaking - but expensive, so oil companies want to be very sure of the location where their surveys suggest hordes of dead dinosaurs exist under the seabed.Distributed system using RPC based comm's and a Motif UI,Pro: Enjoyable work ; Con: none - left only because I got a chance to move to California.

Worked for various Marconi companies - Marconi Simulation, Marconi Instruments, Marconi Command and Control Systems, Marconi Radar Systems, Marconi Space and Defence Systems.Started off with software for controlling ATE (Automatic Test Equipment) using a mixture of custom hardware and Pascal on Vax systems. Wrote custom compiler code, post-processors etc.Moved on to C on UNIX (mostly SGI) doing everything from comm's (UDP and TCP) to custom graphics for world-leading real time simulators for various military (and occasionally commercial) customers.Pro: Possibly the most interesting work I ever had ; Con: the salary