Mark Bulas's Resume

Dix Hills, NY 11746

Email Mark - Download MS Word version

 

Executive Summary

Senior-level Software Engineer with a track record of successful project leadership.  Offer excellent collaborative and communication skills, a proven ability to learn new skills and technologies quickly and easily, and a strong knowledge of the Win32 programming environment (C++ and C#, emphasis on Windows Services and WMI based server management applications).  Possess 14 years of experience in the software industry, including 5 years experience developing system-level software for mission critical fault-tolerant servers.  Accomplishments include numerous awards and promotions for outstanding excellence in providing work that always exceeded expectations.

 

Skills

Operating Systems:  Microsoft Windows 2008/2003/2000/NT/9x/XP/Vista/7, Unix/Linux

Programming Languages:  C++ (including the STL and Boost), C, C#, VBScript, assembly (various architectures)

Miscellaneous:  MS Win32/SCM/RRAS/IAS/MMC/CDO APIs, WBEM/CIM/WMI, COM/DCOM, MFC, .NET Architecture, WDM Drivers, OS/Kernel Programming, Debugging (kernel- and user-mode), SNMP, BMC PATROL KM

Applications:  Microsoft Visual Studio, Rational ClearCase, WinDbg, CIMStudio / WBEMTest, MS Project

Traits:  Excellent communicative and collaborative skills.  Excel at creating elegant solutions to complex problems.  Able to quickly grasp the “Big Picture”, especially relating to how diverse SW components interact, and how projects relate to the overall Corporate Strategy.

Other:  When not working, I enjoy spending time with my family of four.  Additionally, I work to continually increase the breadth of my programming knowledge through leading a popular open-source project (www.peerblock.com, with more than 500,000 downloads over the past 6 months), and hobbyist-level videogame programming.

 

Work History

12/1997 - 3/2010    Stratus Technologies, Maynard, MA - Software Engineer, SW Sustaining Engineering

 

5/02 – 3/10    SW Engineer IV

• Designed and prototyped an event based “call home” infrastructure for a new non-Stratus virtualized HPUX (managed under a Windows hypervisor) blade server platform.  Delivered the project 1 month ahead of schedule while maintaining all product requirements and quality goals.
• Designed and implemented a standalone application to monitor our fault-tolerant Windows 2000 servers for certain types of events or error conditions, and automatically, via the companies “call home” architecture, provided notification to Customer Service when such problems occurred.  Initially designed in reaction to issues showing up at one of the company’s strategic customers, this project was brought from initial concept through system test an implementation within three weeks – the customer was extremely pleased with the results of this project, and continued to be a valuable customer.  Architected the application in an extensible manner such that it was applicable to multiple problem-areas. Influenced and drove the integration of this tool into our core offering with the Development engineering organization.
• Performed consulting work with customers to integrate their software with our ftServers.  Projects included modifying our system-management software to better integrate with a customer’s management application, as well as to integrate our servers into their SNMP based BMC Patrol management software.
• Liaison from Customer Service to Software Development Engineering regarding a new driver and system-management architecture, utilizing the Microsoft .NET Framework.  Developed requirements specifications, attended document- and code- inspections, and worked directly with members of Engineering on code to ensure that the product was designed in a manner that met or enhanced our requirements to service all new products.
• Developed training materials and resources to assist in the troubleshooting of problems at customer sites, including presentations and debugging-tool design.  This included conception and development of tools to perform automated data-gathering, system monitoring, and triage-level analysis; chairing weekly “Technical Information Exchange” meetings within the Worldwide Customer Service organization (including offices in Europe and Asia); and provided technical consultation and awareness to management when needed.
• Participated on a number of cross functional teams to drive continuous improvement for our products based upon systemic user problems or product defects. Goal of these teams were to drive resolutions into current products as well as into future products.
• Project Technical Lead on a 7 person design effort to build a new automated service infrastructure.

 

5/00 – 5/02    SW Engineer III

• Led a team of 4 engineers, from cross functional organizations, in the design, test and implementation of an MS RRAS/IAS-based Windows Service to handle Call-home/Dial-in functionality under Windows 2000.  Two-month project that was completed ahead of schedule, and saved the company from shipping an unsupportable product. This project overcame a critical deficiency which was a key requirement to meet our service model architecture.
• Designed and implemented a system to alert customer system administrators of problems detected on their Stratus ftServers, including SNPP based paging, as well as MS CDO/ADO-based email.  Project brought from design to test phases well ahead of expectations, in just six weeks – including time spent evaluating and understanding applicable technologies.
• Provided project leadership for the planning, implementation and rollout to the SW Sustaining Engineering organization in order to support the system-management portion of a new Windows 2000 based fault-tolerant server offering.  Key focal point for inter-group coordination and alignment of Engineering, SQA, Customer Service, and Documentation resources with regards to this new server offering. 
• Individual contributor toward the development of a suite of system management programs based upon MS WMI and MMC, for our fault-tolerant Windows 2000 server.
• Sustained all areas of our Windows 2000 based server offering, with concentration in system management services and general debugging.  Also included driver-debug and crash-analysis using WinDbg. 

 

12/97 – 5/00    SW Engineer II

• Provided sustaining engineering support for many areas of Stratus’ proprietary VOS operating system.  Became known as the “go to” generalist of the team, able to jump into problem-analysis in any area of the product, at any time, and come up to speed quickly regardless of prior experience in that area.
• Root-caused problems, designed and implemented fixes, developed test-plans, and ensured that customer issues were addressed.

 

6/95 - 11/97    Various Software Engineering Positions

Worked as a Software Engineer at VIS Technologies (Charlotte, NC), Windward Technologies (Marlboro, MA), and as a Co-op Software Engineer at Stratus Computers (Marlboro, MA).

 

Education

Corporate Education:  Attended many training courses at Microsoft, regarding new tools and technologies.

1994 - 1996          Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester, MA

• 2 years pursuit of a BS in both CS and EE

1992 - 1994          North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, NC

• High school