Download PDF

Work experience

Nov 2011Present

J2EE Developer

Further It training and Adhoc consultancy work

I took a break in July -Oct to repair and upgrade my 2004 Triumph sports tourer motorbike.

Massively upgraded with a total engine replacement and upgrade, along with new instrument cluster and electronics. New bike with advantages of the older model practicality.

Continuing to fill in the gaps in my J2EE and associated web technologies understanding. Its Marvelous what perspective a self  taught freedom affords.

turning now to javascript, php, css and perhaps .Net

Apr 2011Jun 2011

J2EE Team Leader

Sypaq Pty Ltd

Sypaq Is a family owned business that engages in Defence, Govt and Corporate work and has taken on its first IT support defence contract. Most of the staff work off site at various companies, which means the work environment is suitably quiet. Some of the staff are really great to work with.

Sep 2009Mar 2011

Heavily engaged in Training for Integration Architect information

Training for Integration Architect roles

... towards securing a role in this domain.

After 15 yrs SDLC in Mainframe, Fat client, and J2EE

so far, gained a solid understanding of the wider concerns of J2EE integration.

when to choose...

  • ESB or the alternative start topology
  • from 2 Tier to 3 Tier systems and the reasons why. found great website with graphics.
  • EJBs (both statless and stateful) for distributed solution versus choosing POJOs
  • MOM
  • MDBs (asynchronouse  or synchronous)
  • JMS and RMI or use the older RPCs
  • JNDI for connection between clients and EJB
  • JDBC and how session facade can improve efficiency here
  • Resource Adapters - websphere messge broker or Tibco no create n link them..
  • Java Design Patterns - Creational(5), Behavioural(11), Structural(8), System(7)
  • J2EE Design Patterns - mainly the Integration Tier ones(DAO, DS, SA and Web Service Broker)
  • Aspect Oriented Programming (AspectJ into eclipse) for cross-cutting concerns like logging , transactions, security...
  • Java specifics - widening and lowering primitive conversions, and the affect they can have on code that appears to do one thing and yet does another - Java Puzzlers.
  • Differences between Java 1.4 and 1.5(generics, new for loop, annotations, ArrayLists, autoboxing of course,..)
  • UML software aids, plugins. Java UML condensed.
  • I found a whole book on the differences 1.4 -> 1.5 alone.
  • Hibernate, that uses byte code manipulation to perform magic at the source code level using XML, design schemas and Jva code to produce object oriented database interface over the SQL older way.
  • Eclipse compiler and plugins, JVantage tools for code generation
  • Messaging strategies, point to point queues versus pub/sub topics - how they fit in the larger picture.
  • Which strategy to use (File sharing, DB share, RMI, Messaging) and where the increased complexity of Messaging is warranted.

I have been particularly spurred on by the acquisition of an overall view to how connectivity occurs from client to server  through the EJB to the resouce adapter via MOM and to the ims / cics region to the transaction to the cobol module copybooks and straight into the gen variables in the cobol module.In summary I have alternated between the bigger picture and lower level facts to achieve enough know how to perform well as an Integration Architect.

Mar 2009Jun 2009

J2EE Web Developer

Argus Connect

Argus Connect is a small friendly eHealth company est. 2000. They are low on process and procedure, high on technical proficiency, low on team work, high on time to market. I found the experience there a great introduction to JSF and J2EE web development, yet the internal confusion caused by a key staff member leaving citing differences with middle management, meant I had to leave also. I wrote a few complex stored procedures and connected them to the JAF framework they used, alongside performing JSF coding and deploying on glassfish webserver. Whilst the technology was new, the lack of teamwork and mentoring caused problems, yet I believe this company is a good fit for the right person.

Aug 2008Mar 2009

Senior Software Engineer

Thales

Aircraft Radar Tracking in the Surveilance team. This application domain was very interesting - Radar tracking no less, though it soon became apparent that this was purely a support/minor enhancement site and all the new development was occuring overseas. I like Australia. Having been to France where Thales head office resides. It was fun working with Linux (suse version 9 ) and Unix after nearly 20 years.

Oct 1994Aug 2008

Analyst Programer

NAB

Worked on the Bank's retail systems 3 years Cobol under MVS and then..

10 years C/C++ moving thru to Delphi in later part.

All systems were those used to service the bank's retail sector rather than big business/Trading. I came up with some creative solutions in the form of scanning and polling utilities, along with assisting the bank's biggest project Homeside towards completion by removing a testing bottleneck for the mainframe team.

          - 1994 - 1997  Programmer Mainframe COBOL, IMS DC, IMS DB, Vaisoft Easytrieve, CICS, JCL,

During this time I wrote online and batch programs , Altered others to spec and worked on Y2K scans to check validity of fixes.

  - 1998 -2002

During this time I Developed and maintained C/C++ bank software for PC front end systems. I attended live problem records, and gained an award for my major upgrade of an Expert System.

  - 2003 - 2008

During this time I made the move to OO Delphi and maintained and developed software in the same retail banking space. Including Bills Trading, Guarantees, Austrac and others. This time allowed me to link the mainframe skills to automate our problem records system with auto emails to team members of incomming problems. I also managed to write a scanner to read all the branch pc's Australia wide overnight and report software usage and settings to an excel spreadsheet for management.

Jan 1991Oct 1994

Casual Programmer

University of Melbourne

I used the Turbo C tools available at the time to create a user interface written in C for the suite of Fortran Statistical modules written in house for the Research Team in Manufacturing. I created the help files and liased with the postgrad students to ascertain the meaning of the stats tests for explanation. In Addition I wrote the context sensitive help at a low level by coding the cursor movement of the word that is 'clicked on' and read in for comparison with help tokens.

Education

19931994

Advanced Grad Dip Computer Science

La Trobe University

Stopped after completion of First Year of 2 year partime course run in parallel with the Electronic Engineering course. Full Time Commercial work experience at NAB was a higher priority to consolidate the years of study thus far. this course showed me.. Software engineering methodologies were studied at Research level, discussing papers and the state of software development. Parallel computing was another component.

It was basically the 4th Honours year of a computing science degree to complement my Grad Dip Comp Sci.

19931994

Grad Dip Electronic Engineering

Victoria University

Stopped this course after First year of 2 year part time course to start Full time commercial development for a large scale technology branch of NAB. Gained insight into the field of Elec Engineering though, particularly Microprogramming state transition diagrams and particulalry the mathematics used for control feedback loops in control theory. Application of the La Place transform and Time Domain analysis of control systems. An excellent example of mathematics at work.

19901991

Grad Dip Applied Science(Computer Science)

Swinburne University of Technology

was heavily based on the C programming language. I completed an extra unit on Adv C programming with Data Structures. Other subjects included: Prolog for Artificial Intelligence SQL Database design Unix Systems Programming

19831988

Bsc Physical Science

La Trobe University

exposure to Geology n Chemistry at 1st year level but then narrowed to Physics and Pure/Applied Mathematics

an  excellent campus. Very well set out. One of the better layouts in Melb.

Skills

MATLAB
Have used Matlab fairly consistently over the last few years, in both financial and technical environments. I hold a maths degree in Physics and Maths which helps put this software into perspective. I have also worked for the University of Melb in their research area which was highly Maths focussed. Most of my work was with Matlab 6.5 however I have more recenlty started using 6.7 and 6.8   Have attended Matlab one Day Tour at Flinders st in mid April and understood from this  that Matlab now has full symbolic maths modules (MuPad) with interfaces to Java for displaying its output on websites.
concepts in J2EE- EJBs, MDBs, MOMs,JMS, R Adapt,, ESB, AOP
I have worked hard to place the J2EE technologies into perspective for integration to mainframe, digging deep enough to gain an understanding of the item   (EJB{stateless/stateful }, MDBs, JMS, RMI,Res Adapters..)  Yet not too deep to distract me from the wider picture.   I've seen how the client bean provides a copy of itself to the interface of the EJB and how the home and remote interfaces are used for this communication. I've left it at that and concentrated on the wider picture to achive the maximum overall view in the minimum of time ..months not years.   I've also strengthened my understanding of JSF and inparticular used theCore Java Server faces book by sun and the O'reilly Java Server Faces to increase my understanding of the tags and the validators and converters and binding values.
Cobol mainframe systems
I have had the benefit of bulk training in Cobol and mainframe and supporting development software like Viasoft, Fileaid, DB2 and others. This was at a time when the bank had to put 10% of its payroll into training by a government initiative following the recession in the early 90s. More importantly I've kept this knowledge and been asked to train newbies years later having left the mainframe team. I can use this to see wider scope system parameters and thereby work at a Solution Designer or even Architect role. Having worked for a large financial for nearly 15 years I am well placed ot capitalise on the years of work in traditional SDLC along with the Agile work in recent roles.
Functioning as a Team member
I have an inate ability to get along with my fellow co workers and will not disrupt the harmony within the team. By focussing on the positives and placating team members when they get difficult.  I integrate well with my fellow workers and leave a lasting positive impression on the company.
SDLC process in OO technology
I've worked continuously for NAB where the processes were mostly well defined , but I've seen how they can cripple a team when taken too far. I know what are the important processes to put in place and which impede progress and what to consider when determining this. I've seen a plethora of software version control facilities and administrative aids. I consider having worked for the one organisation with money to splash on the best practices has given me a very solid knowledge of processes in software development technology.
Java / Glassfish / netbeans JSF development
I have completed a condensed 3 month contract with Argus connect during which I developed webserver application for use in the Northern Territory to monitor messages between health institutions. This used Glassfish webserver and an inhouse framework called JAF. the company was very small with next to no process at all, leaving the workflow rather chaotic. Nonetheless it served as an excellent introduction to web development without the administration bottlenecks suffered by larger organisations.

References

Lex Graber

Lex's work Reference of my skills.

Lex has worked with me in a management capacity with setting up the software development PC process at NAB. Specifically, scripts and standardised file locations to steamline the creation and deployment of our software.

Nabil Dehaini

Nabil has worked in the same team as me at NAB. he can give a worthwhile account of my work at NAB

Brendan Jagtenberg

Brendan worked with me and at one stage for me. He can give a worthwhile account of my work.

Summary

I have completed a technical Science degree and capped it off with some Post Graduate study along the Electronics and Computers stream.

  • In 1992 I took the opportunity to work in a Research environment for the University of Melbourne, developing a front end user interface in C for their in house specialised statistical test modules.
  • By 1994 I realized that I needed commercial experience in a large organization and commenced work at NAB in their mainframe department in Cobol on their Retail systems, which gave me a very solid grounding on the rigours of developing mainframe systems under MVS.
  • By 1997 I was keen to better utilize my pc skills and moved to the PC team at NAB. my first task was to perform fairly detailed analysis and enhancement of their neural network Customer rating system in C which I was given a high achiever award for.
  • Since then I learnt a lot about how PC systems can be rigorously maintained and managed in a responsible and traceable manner with the move to Delphi from C in year 2000.
  • In 2008 I gained employment in an engineering company (THALES) and found the application domain interesting , yet the support nature  was uninspiring and the new development was merely cloning systems for distribution round the world - needed new dev.
  • in 2009 I gained employment in an eHealth small company working in Java using JSF and Glassfish server developing a webserver program for use in collecting messaging statistics between hospitals, pharmacies and other health industry sites. This was a very small company with NEW DEV, which gave me a good introduction to Java programming in a small and uncluttered development environment. Sadly though, internal friction caused by a key member leaving after differences with middle management, caused problems
  • in 2010 I up-skilled in J2EE and massively uplifted my knowledge and skill in J2EE and associated technologies.I have taken both a top down and bottom up approach on a very wide technology area.
  • in 2011 I took on a role at Sypaq, which had an excellent range of technologies from Windows XP to Unix and Oracle 10g DB and full j2EE with the interface of mainframe jcl as well. Unfortunately the project I was on was poorly planned and resourced and work could not continue.

Currently choosing my next role carefully along the lines of Java technology , but using my Maths / Physics degree and Research Team experience to secure a Quantitative Analyst Role.

Java Application Frameworks

Awards

Objective

I aspire to using the accumulation of Computing, Mathematics and Analytical skills to the benefit of an employer. I am specifically heading in the direction of J2EE technologies, however I can provide guidance and leadership in many areas.

Interest

Restoring and upgrading 70's Triumph Cars n 2000's Triumph Motorbikes

Cycling road bikes,

Music - If its got Rhythm, Melody and Soul its great.

Electronics interface of computing and hardware,

Citizen Band Radio - have spoken to Far North Queensland from Melb,

Swimming - pool laps.

Tennis - social hit up, not into competition.

also see mypassions at blogger.com link at top.

Certifications

Oct 2009Present

SCJP - Java Programmer

Sun Microsystems
Jan 2010Present

SCEA - Enterprise Architect

Sun Microsystems