SUMMARY:

• IT professional with focus as Performance Engineer with extensive computer, systems, network, component, reliability and electrical engineering experience, along with performance testing development and design, creation of performance testing systems, engineering documentation, interviewing new resources, training new resources, leading a performance team, mentoring team members, designing data seeding systems, monitoring, analysis and extensive troubleshooting experience.

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Languages: C, C++, Java J2EE and Visual BASIC

Software and Systems: UNIX, AIX, VMS, AS400 PowerVM, IBM Websphere, Siebel, BEA Weblogic, DOS, Windows, Loadrunner, Performance Center, Quicktest Pro, Wireshark, HP Network Virtualization, SiteScope, Tivoli, Wily Introscope, LPAR2RRD, vSphere

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Confidential, Durham, NC

Performance Tester and Engineer

Responsibilities:

• Hired to start a performance practice. Grew team to as large as 15 members. 5 Fulltime Employees (FTEs) and 10 contractors.
• Created documentation templates for consistent deliverables.
• Procured HP LoadRunner and appropriate licensing for the technologies leveraged at BCBSNC. The practice leveraged up to 15 different protocols in the HP licensing mechanism.
• Evaluated and tested first major upgrade to core system architecture with IBM at an IBM testing facility in Rochester, MN. Major flaws and additional upgrades would be required to get it fully operational. Drove needed changes back to vendor and helped validate performance and functionality requirements were adhered to.
• Created code libraries that were leveraged with IBM to quickly create Remote Terminal Emulation scripts for our AS400 performance testing. This allowed IBM to bring 50% less contracting resources and code for scripting was delivered ahead of schedule. IBM estimate for project was 6 months and the team was given 2 months. Scripting was completed and verified in 2 weeks.
• Evaluated new systems with teams help the company make the best purchasing decisions. This included standalone systems, monitoring products, networking products, testing products and security products.
• Created test infrastructure to assist in validating changes at load in the company DMZ.
• Automated DMZ testing configurations to eliminate human error. These were also used by Quality Assurance testers and contractors to assist in manual validation.
• Main resource leveraged for network upgrade projects, patching and testing. Multiple team members were trained, along with QA resources for manual validation testing efforts. Support time needed was reduced by bridging that gap which enabled meeting tight deadlines.
• Participated in the needs for the data center outsourcing. Caught major errors in network provisioning and storage solution before the moves. The data center was transitioned over 4 separate moves.
• Characterized server virtualization and potential impact or advantages to main company applications. Found a major flaw in the deployed architecture leveraging the open source AIX PowerVM monitoring LPAR2RRD application. Once confirmed, changes were immediately implemented.
• Worked with management and HP to move their billing process to combine all products renewal date to the same annual renewal date. This changed the way both companies did business and saved both companies money in administration costs.
• Procured and implemented Performance Center in 2008. Drove changes to the product to HP Mercury which became part of the product. These changes helped it become more Enterprise in nature.
• Developed an Enterprise Sociability Test Suite which entailed the main applications of the company working all at once hitting common boundary systems at ~72% of the production load in the main test environment. This helped assess whether an application release would cause an issue in the production enterprise system availability. Many support procedures and guidelines were made from these sessions and helped in daily production support issues. Test included up to 125 business processes in ~54 scripts.
• Leveraged Topaz monitoring, Wily Introscope, Wily Customer Experience Manager, and Tivoli to monitor tests. Data was collated with captured data from our load tests. A common report format was created to reduce the level of effort for all levels of reports by creating one report that had all components needed. A top down approach was used with Test PASS/FAIL, Executive Summary and a Test Summary with details. Reports directly related to project test strategy documentation or test plan documentation, unless the test was heuristic in nature and was a discovery outside of the planned tests.
• Performance Testing & Engineering team increased the amount of testing per year by using a continuous review of processes use, data seeding systems, data management, and assets reuse. Average amount of tests run per year was ~1500 tests. Peak year was 1850 tests. Readiness for the ACA required maximum efficiency in order to meet the demand for our services.
• Specified and procured Empirix Hammer for Customer Relation Management phone system testing.
• Created resource capacity reports that allowed the team to grow up to 15 team members based on demand.
• Mentored team on Performance Engineering principles and set standards for the team to adhere to. These were aligned with the current company goals.
• Systems created were shared with other testing groups Quality Assurance (QA) and User Acceptance (UAT). This helped drive down testing time required for these groups.
• Procured and deployed HP Network Virtualization test tool in 2014. The ROI was instantly attained upon the first test.
• Leveraged as a resource for the worse problems due to demeanor, expertise company enterprise architecture and troubleshooting skills.
• Evaluated problems in test environments or production with SWAT teams. My broad experience helped get to issues faster with the experts in each area.
• Worked with Agile teams to support application development.

Performance Engineer

Responsibilities:

• Specified, installed and configured a Dell PowerEdge 6300 server used for Loadrunner. Installed Loadrunner to multiple servers to perform as load generators.
• Learned Java and Mercury Interactive (HP) LoadRunner to load and performance test a worldwide trouble ticketing system used by Worldcom (and now Verizon). Initially performed all testing and development for the load testing. Application was a 4 - tiered system with a java stand-alone client, BEA Systems WLS as a client broker, BEA Systems WLE as the data broker, utilizing DB2 connect to an IBM mainframe using DB2 as the database. The midrange systems were IBM AIX Winterhawks.
• Created systems and documentation so that anyone on the Quality Assurance team could test using Loadrunner.
• Created guidelines so that developers could create the drivers needed to quickly generate parameter based scripts. This was an extension of the original development and required working with the other developers to create more functionality in testing.
• Utilized remote software to drive servers around the world for load testing (5 time zones). This testing drove down system costs and stopped new product development from being distributed to the user base until bottlenecks or code related problems were resolved and validated. Performance tests were executed along with Winrunner scripts to analyze system software changes such as OS upgrades or patches. The results were compared and measured by a user base agreed upon SLA (Service Level Agreement).
• Create templates in Excel that took the raw data from tests and created reports in an agreed upon format that tracked average response times, 90 percentile response times and trended each transaction using a major release as the baseline.

Network Engineer

Responsibilities:

• Support for the MCI Business Development group. Automated development tools deployment.
• Installed, upgraded and configured Windows NT servers. Installed and managed print queues.
• Configured RAID arrays. Created backup scripts and grandfather archival systems.
• Supported all network failures and problems for the department.
• Configured Cisco 4000 and 5000 routers in an Ethernet environment
• Create install packages for development team using Installshield Professional. Supported install issues and network issues for the application.
• Leveraged Winrunner to present loads against systems. Automated a recovery procedure that paged out support when failures occurred and also auto-logged defects.

Reliability Engineer

Responsibilities:

• Performed Critical Operation Stress Testing (C.O.S.T.) which was early design analysis before the beta build. Problems found drove down the cost of design by implementing changes before full inventory for build was sourced. Savings were in the millions.
• Developed and implemented an interactive laboratory tracking system using dbase and Clipper. It was a network based Lotus Notes type of application preceding Lotus Notes by several years.
• Created a paperless tracking system for the product lifecycle process from inception to field work leveraging Fortran, Pascal, Clipper, Visual Basic for Excel and Access.
• Created engineering documentation for all hardware tested using IEEE standard formats with testing specifications for reference and final reports with suggested fixes.
• Participated in teams reviewing manufacturing procedures driving down costs.
• Evaluated data on manufacturing process and failures, providing improvement and solutions in manufacturing process.
• Prepared, organized and presented trends on yields and failure rates to manufacturing management teams on a regular basis.
• Trained and leveraged Kanban, Total Quality Management, and Just In Time (JIT) practices in order to stay agile in a hardware production environment competing with AsiaPAC.
• Member of the company network backbone committee. Helped drive the company to a single wire out of the back of every PC.
• Used scanning electron microscope to analyze components used in designs to identify component quality issues to submit to vendors.
• Trained to be a master troubleshooter.