OBJECTIVE:

To pursue a challenging career as a Solutions Architect or Tech Lead, where I can apply my strong technical expertise in designing end - to-end solutions including but not limited to: Enterprise applications, IoT systems, embedded systems, multimodal speech recognition and IVR systems, and integrating with heterogeneous systems such as mainframes, COM+ applications ERP, REST/cloud/web services.

SUMMARY:

Creative and hardworking Microsoft and VoiceXML certified solution developer with over 23 years of IT experience and a strong background in IVR and speech recognition systems, embedded, web, Windows, automation tools, and B2B services applications. Strong industry expertise in Insurance, Retail, and Telecom domains and integrating heterogeneous systems - mainframes, UNIX, Windows, AS/400, and COM+ applications.

STRENGTHS:

• Technical leadership
• Systems design

SKILLS:

Languages: C#, Python, Visual Basic 6.0, Java, C, C++

Embedded Systems: Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Particle.io, I2C, SPI, UART, GPIO

Database Technologies: T-SQL, Stored Procedures, SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, MySQL

Distributed Technologies: COM+, XML/RPC, COMTI, REST, Web Services, J2EE, JDBC, .NET Remoting, SOA, XML, SOAP

Web Technologies: JSP, Servlets, BEA Weblogic, Apache, Tomcat, IIS, HTML, XHTML, XSL, JavaScript, CSS, ASP.NET, E4X, AJAX

IVR Technologies: Avaya, Convergys, Voxeo, VoiceXML (VXML), CCXml, SRGS - GrXml/ABNF grammars, GSL grammars, SSML, EcmaScript, Call Scheduler, Microsoft SAPI, Cisco ICM Script Editor, CTI, Nuance 8.5, Nuance/ScanSoft/Speechworks OSDM 2.x, ASR -Nuance/ScanSoft/Speechworks OSR 3.x, Avaya Dialog Designer

Architecture: UML, Microsoft Visio, GoF Design Patterns

Software Development Methodologies: WaterFall, Agile or Extreme Programming

Protocols: HTTP, SIP, VoIP, UDP, TCP/IP

Test-Driven Development: nUnit, fUnit, vUnit

Development Tools / IDE: Visual Studio.NET, Eclipse, PyCharm, Arduino IDE, Android Studio

EXPERIENCE:

Confidential, Texas

Director, Product Development

Responsibilities:

• Assists in setting up a user’s sitting and standing ergonomic posture based on hand level detection technology
• Detects the user’s presence using thermal imaging technology
• Sets up personalized standing goals based on the user’s height, weight, and BMI
• Interacts with the user with a five inches touchscreen plus a built-in smart speaker
• Reminds the user to stand, walk, exercise, drink water, eat a healthy snack, and more with onscreen and voice notifications.
• Designed and developed service client that integrates client’s systems with Amazon MWS to automate manual operations such as:
• Importing marketplace orders
• Export orders to third-party 3PL systems
• Update tracking information of shipped orders
• Update pricing and quantities
• Analyze competitive offers of other marketplace sellers

Confidential, Texas

Vice President

Responsibilities:

• Design new IVR applications for Confidential, wealth management section of Confidential
• Support current IVR applications of Confidential
• Coordinate development activities with offshore team
• Provide technical guidance to team members and offshore team

Confidential, Cleveland, OH

Tech Lead

Responsibilities:

• Designed framework for playing marketing messages in Call Steering and Self-Service applications of Progressive Voice Services (PVS) IVR system.
• Message criteria are stored in XML format. EcmaScript matches criteria against the XML document and checks to see which message needs to be played based on the criteria, day of the week, and time of day. If there is more than one message to be played, the framework automatically picks a message at random. Messages can have an optional expiration date-time.
• Led iterative speech grammar tuning cycles to improve transaction completion rate and reduce no matches in Self Service transactions of the PVS IVR system. Adjusted confidence scores and incomplete timeouts in VoiceXML grammar fields and OSDM modules to obtain the “sweet-spot” that balances successful grammar recognition and false acceptance.
• Proposed, designed, and implemented an innovative concept called “design-based testing” for automated testing of IVR applications, which is based on the Call Scheduling feature supported on the most IVR platforms. With this concept, IVR and Speech applications can be tested using a Dynamic Test Engine that renders CcXml and VoiceXML code as well as GrXml grammars for invoking and executing automated tests and does not require Hammer. This concept offers cheaper, in house, extensible, and maintainable framework for testing Speech and IVR applications.
• Proposed, designed, and implemented “Outbound Dialer Framework”, which places interactive outbound calls using the customer-specific information and templates from a backend database. CcXml and Call Scheduler are used for making outbound calls. Framework renders dynamic VoiceXML code and GrXml grammars for voice interaction with end customers. This concept offers cheaper, in house, extensible, and maintainable framework for developing outbound Speech and IVR applications.
• Led PVS effort - migrated Speech dialog modules (OSDMs) from Nuance/ScanSoft/Speechworks OSDM 1.x to OSDM 2.x and Speech Recognition engine (ASR) from Nuance/ScanSoft/Speechworks OSR 1.x to OSR 3.x. PVS IVR system brought Call Steering, Self Service, Real-Time Forms applications into one system. PVS IVR system leverages the CcXml layer for Cisco ICM interaction, CTI screen popups, better call control and offers advanced features such as 3-way conferencing, answer-machine detection using asynchronous event model.
• Refactored lot of old code using VoiceXML 2.1 features such as tag, tags. Removed unnecessary backend calls and replaced them with XMLs. PVS IVR system leverages caching feature to store documents and media on the platform side to reduce unnecessary roundtrips to the backend web servers.
• Reengineered Vehicle Grammar Framework for PVS IVR system. The new framework renders dynamic grammars using EcmaScript and XML. Vehicle grammars are context-sensitive and used for collecting vehicle make, model information from the Self-Service callers of the PVS IVR system. If the policyholder has two vehicles on the policy - 2000 Ford Focus and 2004 Toyota Rav4. The framework delivers context-sensitive dynamic grammar, which accepts valid DTMF/Speech responses for the vehicles listed on the policy. Grammars are rendered for both DTMF and Voice (Speech) modes.
• Reengineered system availability flags and application parameters for Progressive Voice Services (PVS) system. The new framework is based on XML and EcmaScripts that are run on the client-side (IVR platform) as opposed to the old platform, which was based on server-based web services that required unnecessary roundtrips to the web servers.
• Designed and developed a web-based Automated Cache Manager for Progressive Voice Services (PVS) system. This utility is based on Asynchronous Java and XML (AJAX). It automatically caches thousands of media and documents such as GrXml grammars, mu-law audio files, XML, CcXml, VoiceXML (VXML), and EcmaScript files on the IVR platform.
• Designed and developed a web-based GrXml grammar compiler for ASR - Nuance/ScanSoft/Speechworks OSR 3.x and W3C’s grammar specification SRGS 1.0 for GrXML grammars. This utility checks if the grammar is a well-formed XML, validates against W3C schema, and then compiles using Nuance OSR3’ grammar compiler (sgc.exe) to .gram (binary) format. Binary grammars may be larger to load, but if cached on the IVR platform, they are faster to run because they are precompiled to the native (binary) format of the ASR engine.
• Designed a solution for the CARD entry module for the PINless Debit project. This solution addressed problems with the existing Nuance/ScanSoft/SpeechWorks OSDM CreditCard module, which cannot collect ATM card numbers. Introduced an innovative concept called reconfirmations through this new module that leverages nbest collection of caller utterances for post-processing and EcmaScript based mod-10 algorithm for validating card numbers. This concept maximizes the success of recognizing low confident utterances and minimizes the number of card number inputs by callers.
• Designed “mixed-initiative dialogs” for collecting natural language style utterances, e.g., “I would like to make a payment of one hundred and fifty dollars using my visa card on file”. This approach leverages the “initial” tag offered by VoiceXML to collect single caller utterance into multiple grammar fields/slots. Grammars are developed in GrXML format, and grammar recognition results are processed using ECMAScript.
• Designed and developed Say-As engine for delivering synthesized speech output and same caller experience to callers. This Say-As engine does not use a native TTS engine offered by the platform. It delivers a consistent persona through the same voice talent that is used for recording application prompts/recordings. This Say-As engine is based on EcmaScripts and mu-law audio files and can speak policy numbers, credit card numbers, dates, times, amounts, confirmation numbers, etc.
• Designed solution for rendering VoiceXML code dynamically for Speech Self Service application. This solution was based on XML and XSL/T. XML was used to define IVR call flow and menu actions and XSL/T for transforming into VoiceXML code.
• Designed and developed solution for Voice User Interface (VUI) documentation. The old solution was based on Microsoft Word, which had both data and presentation in the same file, which caused problems such as the size of the document, multi-user editing, etc. The new solution is based on XML and XSL/T. All VUI modules - Say, Record, Menu, Branch, Ask, YesNo (boolean) are stored in XML format. Each module-info is stored in a separate XML file. The new solution delivers navigatable VUI documentation through XSL/T that transforms XML and renders HTML and presents an Index page which lists all modules in chronological order.
• Designed and developed a web-based user interface for vUnit (automated testing tool) using Visual Studio 2005.net. This UI executes automated tests and presents results, including hyperlinks, to call recordings.
• Designed and developed a solution that addressed problems of developers with navigating and searching in tens of thousands of source code files inside the F2.5 application. This solution, called as xStudio, was based on a plug-in for Visual Studio .NET IDE. xStudio offers source code completion features such as IntelliSense and addressed problems of navigation and searching just with a button click.
• Designed a web service that renders vehicle images dynamically using binary data of vehicle images received from the Edmunds data store.
• Reengineered the Build tool from its old version. This new version is stable and runs an average build of 5000 files in under 15 minutes, which is a huge improvement from the old version. Later, bells and whistles were added to the Build tool, including a side-by-side comparison of build XMLs, synchronization of build XMLs. Synchronization feature saves an additional one to six hours in preparing build XMLs for each Speech release. This new Build tool has been very well received and is currently being used by the Speech Self Service team to create builds for all QA and Production releases.
• Designed a data bridge between Internet Quoting (F2.5) and compare applications. Data is shared between two applications so users can navigate back and forth between the two applications.
• Proposed a new elevation process that saves developers’ time and minimizes environmental problems. This proposed process promotes off-peak hour elevates, automated testing, synchronization of changes from one server to multiple servers. This process is currently in use and has been very well received.
• Designed and developed solution for recording automation test scripts. This script recorder was called as FUnit Recorder, which records automation scripts in XML format for automation testing of Internet Explorer based web applications.
• Designed solution for preventing the use of fraudulent bank account numbers and addresses by potential buyers of auto insurance from Progressive. This solution was based on Regular Expressions.

Confidential, Bloomington, IL

Microsoft Solutions Consultant

Responsibilities:

• Designed web-based B2B systems for sending health insurance-related requests between Health Insurance providers and Confidential.
• This solution supports data transfers up to 50 MB for batch requests.
• Proposed and developed a new concept which addressed problems of software differences among servers in web farms.
• This solution offers side by side comparison of servers in a web farm. Before this solution was implemented, there were production issues due to software differences between servers. This solution minimized production issues and improved stability of the web farm environment.

Confidential, Washington, DC

Microsoft Technologies Consultant

Responsibilities:

• Designed and developed a web application for the Department of Housing & Urban Development to manage housing programs.
• Developed strategy for creating 180 custom ActiveX controls for the TRS (reports system).
• This strategy was very well received and helped the client to complete the project in three months.