Dan Willis Email & Phone Number

Hethersett, Gb

I am currently a core software engineer within the content processing team merged to become the BEAM team.The content processing team is responsible for decoding UHD (4K) HEVC, HD HEVC and MPEG-4 AVC compressed streams, and producing uncompressed outputs via a range of outputs such as SDI and ST2110.One of the first new features I worked on was HDR to SDR conversion. This was a major full-stack feature and involved a full team effort to deliver. I did a bit of everything: a low level ST2110 to NV12 kernel converter. This gave me a deep dive into the specifics of each type down to which bit was being carried where. It was also important for my code to be as efficient as possible because it had to convert every bit of data.The rest of my work for this was for the look-up tables, depending on the ranges of HDR and SDR there needed to be a different LUT so I had to add default LUT files that would be installed and selected by default. This also meant that the user had to be able to have custom LUT files, so I added LUT file upload and management to the UI. However we could only use a .bin file and LUTs were .cube files when uploaded, so I had to implement and slot in a converter to convert and store the files on upload.Recently I became responsible for learning all I could about Networked Media Open Specifications (NMOS) setting up an internal development registration server, handling complex international customer network and configuration issues, and swiftly enhancing the feature of our UI to deal with these new configuration issues.Experimenting with both the encode and decode bundles in order to find incompatibilities. Making code modifications to enable NMOS to be enabled on different hardware. This meant traversing multiple configuration maps and deamonsets. Distinguishing the differences and effect of each parameter to merge them into one deployment.

During this time I worked in the stream processing team which is responsible for the multiplexer and reliable transport components.I quickly gained a clear high-level understanding of the structure and functionality of all the microservices for both components. This was mainly achieved through hands-on experience. Filling in little pieces of the puzzle each time I worked on a new area of software. This has involved me building, testing, debugging and deploying different versions in different solution types. Learning and becoming familiar with new container-based technologies such as Kubernetes, Docker and Helm. Using new tools such as Jenkins, Artifactory, ADO, Postman, and MobaXterm.This led to me rapidly becoming independent and taking on more important features, delivering them without the need for specific support. Such as supporting ASI 204 byte input. As part of new feature development, I have been responsible for performing live or recording demos of how the new feature functions. These have frequently been shown in UK-wide component demonstrations.I have taken responsibility for non-trivial pieces of work in many different areas (feature development, integration, CI testing) Such as ‘Single server pair’. Customers wanted to be able to configure one box and all that configuration be replicated on a backup box and not have to repeat the same process on both boxes. I headed up the innovative solution to this where the boxes could be configured to communicate with each other in such a way that they sync configurations. Another example is CI UI migration. As part of another component (controller), they updated the UI, where all the buttons were and called etc. So all of our Selenium CI tests would no longer work. I went through all of the CI tests reworking them to work with the new controller version.

London, England, United Kingdom

Due to the nature of the job I worked within a small team which meant that I had more freedom and was the technical lead on multiple projects including:Replacing java micro service software with new .NET software, creating unit tests to test my own and others code, migrate an old version of SSIS packages to the latest version, early warning system that monitored critical parts.One of my more challenging projects was as part of an acquisition, we acquired a blog as a Contentful export, but we wanted it on our WordPress site. So it was my job to take the export containing a large JSON and thousands of images and convert it into XML files to be imported into the WordPress site. I worked backward seeing how and what I could import into WordPress. I created a script that generated an output I could use to import to WordPress. After that, I had to filter and map the JSON objects (Page or Post). Then remove any duplicate pages or posts. My managers were very pleased with the final result as it saved countless man-hours.Another example of a challenge I overcame is that the business was beginning to phase in the use of a third-party tool for purchasing stock from supplies. This crunches all the numbers each night and predicts what stock the business would need to buy on what day. For this to be accomplished they need data extracted from our two main databases such as sale history, purchase order history, vendors, etc. I single-handedly fully set up the data extraction with ADF. This involved communication within the business with the other team that manages the other database, the marketing team, the product team, and of course the third party themselves. I used stored procedures to store my SQL that merged our raw data into the tables required by AGR and ADF to copy/update all the data required from our databases to merge each morning. After much fine-tuning, I improved my initial design so it ran in just over ten minutes as opposed to over several hours.