Resume of
Michael L. Rowand, Jr.
21222 NE 60th Place
Redmond, WA 98053
Email:
Cellphone: 425-985-1445
OBJECTIVE:
Obtain a position as a senior software development engineer with a fun, growth-oriented company where I can contribute my knowledge and skills to the overall success of the organization.
OVERVIEW:
I have over twenty years experience in the information technology industry. I have been involved with the design and development and localization of numerous products: LLS (Logos Library System), Encarta Encyclopedia ’98, ’99, and 2000, Encarta Language Learning, developer support for various Microsoft Internet technologies, and the build engineering and release system for Windows XP, XPSP1, XPSP2, Server 2003, Server 2003 SP1, Vista, Vista SP1, Win7, and Win8. I have been responsible for the creation and implementation of an Intranet-based documentation system at two separate small companies, and the creation and ongoing maintenance of the internal Wiki used to document the Windows build process. I have founded a Configuration Management department and guided it to the point where I managed a team of 4 full time employees. I have been responsible for daily builds of Windows for multiple languages across nine major product releases, often involving concurrent work and complicated resource tradeoffs. I have managed teams of up to 11 direct reports and been one of the key people that worked on the ground-up design and implementation of the localization process currently used for Windows. I have been involved in long-term design and architecture of the large scale build process used to build and release Windows, as well as the various software development kits that ship with Windows.
I have an excellent foundation in Windows development with expertise in C, C++ and MFC. I have extensive experience in developing code that does various kinds of string manipulation in both C/C++ and Perl. I have a working knowledge of ATL and have extensive experience maintaining and improving existing code bases. I have a working knowledge of JavaScript, ASP, ADO, and SQL in a Web-based environment. I have a good knowledge of localization procedures and techniques. I have a strong understanding of build systems and release processes. I have a solid understanding of the importance of information flow between departments and between members of the individual teams. I have experience with ways to facilitate and improve that flow with minimal overhead. I have experience in creating, maintaining, and evangelizing bug-tracking solutions. I have experience with processes that are applied inside the development department to enable the company to produce products better, faster, and cheaper. I have strong communication skills and a proven ability to communicate status at a project level to a broad audience. I have a proven ability to find and make targeted changes to processes and tools that result in measurable improvements to the ability to deliver product. I have a proven ability to design and architect processes and systems to help ensure high quality results for the products built using those systems. I have a proven ability to tackle large, complicated, and detailed problem areas in processes and implement both short and long term solutions to them.
EXPERIENCE:
Senior Software Development Engineer
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA 01/2010 to current
Environment: Perl, Cmd Script, NMake, Product Studio, Source Depot, Microsoft Windows Build, LocStudio, C, C++.
Duties:
· Transitioned into a senior IC role for Windows 8 and focused on improving the build and release process of the various kits (SDK, etc.) from Windows to increase external developer mindshare and help improve application quality through better kits.
· Tasked with designing and implementing the build processes used inside Windows to build modern applications both to ship on the App Store and to use as test collateral for Windows itself.
· Continued to be the “go to” person for all issues related to localized build processes in Windows.
· Continued to own and drive improvements in the Windows build process Wiki.
· Continued to play a key role in developer support for the Windows build process.
· Continued to be a key contributor to various parts of the Windows build process and build.exe utility used to drive the builds.
· Participated in peer mentoring for several of my former direct reports to continue providing them ongoing career feedback and guidance.
· Received an MS Engineering Excellence award for my work on the Dependency Based Build (DBB) improvements made for the Windows 8 build process. This technology is now in use by multiple organizations across Microsoft and has been recognized company-wide for it’s contributions to product development. This technology has been submitted for patent protection.
Senior Software Development Lead
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA 01/2005 to 01/2010
Environment: Perl, Cmd Script, NMake, Product Studio, Source Depot, Microsoft Windows Build, LocStudio, C, C++.
Duties:
· Moved from the production build team into the Build Engineering team, and built a new small team focused on a total redesign and reimplementation of the localized build process for Windows, using lessons learned from previous releases.
· Collaborated with teams across Windows to implement the new language pack and MUI-based technologies used to deliver all languages in Vista and above.
· Implemented a system that allowed any of 100+ languages to be built by any developer in any branch at any time, while reducing costs and increasing quality through more testing earlier in the product cycle.
· Drove the creation and use of “pseudo-localized” daily builds across Windows to radically improve product quality for localized languages, and reduce overall test cost by ensuring that bugs got found earlier and automated tests could run on all languages.
· Collaborated with key teams inside Windows on the deployment and servicing technologies to ensure that they worked in all scenarios in all languages.
· Used the same system to deliver 100+ languages for Windows 7 and on into Windows 8, with no architectural changes needed. All new business needs have been incorporated as part of the original design of the system, radically reducing costs in this space over multiple product releases
· Became the “go to” manager in my area for managing difficult employees and working with them to improve their performance, or manage them out if needed.
· Managed my team to ensure that up and coming talent was nurtured, cultivated, and ready to step into expanded roles when needed. Many of my direct reports moved on to have successful roles elsewhere in Windows, and I was able to repeat this cycle multiple times before transitioning back to an IC role.
· Created a new internal documentation site for Windows build process documentation, and eventually transitioned it to a Wiki-based site. This site became one of the key models for how internal documentation was handled across Windows and has become a well regarded and well referenced authoritative source of information.
· Drove improvements in our developer support process so that developers with questions could seek help when needed and quickly get authoritative answers to their questions about how to best use the technologies and processes available to them.
· Took over ownership of the build.exe utility used to drive Windows builds and helped improve it to have many new and advanced features around dependency detection and management that directly impacted our ability to release high quality versions of Windows.
· Researched and documented multiple areas of historical information about the Windows build process so that future changes could be made with knowledge of the history. Many key “old timers” from the original days of Windows were leaving during this time, and capturing this knowledge became very important to planning and testing future improvements to the build process.
· Received special recognition for my work on the localized build process for Vista. Key pieces of the overall process received an Microsoft Engineering Excellence award.
· Was part of the v-team that created, implemented, and rolled out the Dependency Based Build (DBB) system for the Windows 8 builds. Received an MS Engineering Excellence award honorable mention for this work, even before the technology was rolled out for broad use across Windows.
Build Lead
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA 03/2003 to 01/2005
Environment: Perl, Cmd Script, NMake Raid, Source Depot, Microsoft Windows Build, LocStudio, C, C++.
Duties:
· All previous duties, plus being responsible for USA builds as well.
· Responsible for more team members, and additional parts of the Windows build organization as business needs dictated – I have had at least 4 direct reports, and as many as 11 during this period.
· Continued to decrease the delta at which international builds were released, while increasing both the build frequency and overall build quality without adding additional headcount.
· Continued participation in a multi-year project to improve the internal tools and processes used to create international versions of Windows and other Microsoft products.
· Responsible for shipping the “PDC Preview Build” of Windows “Longhorn”, and Windows XPSP2.
· Received special recognition for my contributions to shipping Windows XP SP2.
· Responsible for design and coding work that needed to be done to the production version of the tools and process used to build Windows. This focused on short-term fixes to problems found, adding features and capabilities to meet changing business needs, and targeted evolutionary changes to the process to ensure the builds could be produced in a timely and effective fashion.
· Collaborated with the Windows Sustained Engineering organization on how to improve out tools and processes for better/faster/cheaper ways to service existing builds of Windows. This focused on fostering better communication between the teams and through that communication, ensuring that the processes we created would be suitable for producing ongoing servicing releases and “hot fixes”.
· Collaborated with the Build Engineering team and with key developers and architects for Windows on how to improve our process moving forward, including all long-term and large-scale changes to the process. This focused on bubbling up the needs of the production build team and of the Sustained Engineering team so that our requirements were included into any long term or large scale process redesign work that was being done.
· Responsible for making sure that the short and long term needs of the international builds were met so that we could continue to produce builds for an ever growing list of languages to meet the needs of our customers.
International Build Lead
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA 02/2001 to3/2003
Environment: Perl, Cmd Script, Raid, Source Depot, Microsoft Windows Build, LocStudio, C, C++.
Duties:
· Lead a team of four builders responsible for producing daily international builds of Microsoft Windows.
· Originally responsible for “Tier 1” languages; eventually grew to include ownership of all languages other than USA.
· Collaborated with the USA Build Team on process changes and build scheduling.
· Collaborated with key decisions makers across the Windows organization on deliverables, priorities, and deadlines.
· Responsible for daily reporting of the status of and short-term plans for the daily builds of Windows to everyone involved with producing Windows - approx 10,000 people – so they could plan their work appropriately.
· Responsible for ensuring build breaks were resolved in a timely fashion and that builds were available for testing on time.
· Decreased the delta at which international builds were released, while increasing both the build frequency and overall build quality without adding additional headcount.
· Participated in a multi-year project to improve the internal tools and processes used to create international versions of Windows and other Microsoft products.
· Responsible for shipping Windows XP, Windows XP SP1, and Windows Server 2003.
· Received special recognition for my contributions to shipping Windows Server 2003 by being invited to attend the “product launch” event in San Francisco.
Configuration Management Manager
Conversational Computing Corporation, Redmond, WA 03/2000 to2/2001
Environment: C, C++, MSDev 6.0, C5Raid, Microsoft Visual Source Safe 5.0 and 6.0, StarTeam, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, JavaScript, ASP, ADO, SQL 7.0, Exchange, ISWI 1.x and 2.0, Microsoft Installer 1.x.
Duties:
· Founded the CM department as an independent unit separate from QA and took over management of the existing build engineer/setup developer.
· Took over responsibility for a Development Intern and managed the assignments, tasks, and progress for them. Eventually hired that person as a CM Associate Engineer.
· Defined roles and responsibilities for all CM team members as we grew the department staff. This included separating the Build Engineer and Setup developer roles into a dedicated CM Build/Intranet Engineer and CM Setup Developer. Hired an extra CM Setup Developer to handle our expanding product line.
· Handled build and setup responsibilities for 6-8 products at varying places in the development cycle.
· Participated in the scheduling, design, development, and final release of each of these projects. This was done across multiple release cycles (1.0, 1.5, etc.)
· Attended a 5-day Leadership training class sponsored by the company that was aimed at improving the leadership skills of those involved through a variety of lessons and examples.
· Participated in a broad effort to define, document, and fine-tune our overall product development process. Assisted in the publishing of the documents for this process to the Intranet so people could reference it as needed during their daily work.
· Helped design and implement an internal process to “dog food” our products.
· Created a document template used to describe the detailed design for our setup programs in an easy to read and comprehend fashion and began implementing the user of this template for all products.
· Helped create and debug our setups using InstallShield for the Windows Installer and Wise Installer.
· Attended a 5-day training class on ISWI.
· Did initial work on creating an MSI-based setup for our new CE-based products.
· Handled many IT/Helpdesk duties for the Engineering department for the first few weeks after the company moved to a new building so that the engineering staff could be productive again as fast as possible.
Configuration Management Engineer
Conversational Computing Corporation, Redmond, WA 11/1999 to 03/20000
Environment: C, C++, MSDev 6.0, C5Raid, Microsoft Visual Source Safe 5.0 and 6.0, StarTeam, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, JavaScript, ASP, ADO, SQL 7.0, Exchange, ISWI 1.x and 2.0, Microsoft Installer 1.x, Wise Installer.