Software Developer and Tester (Life Insurance Calculator)
2008 - 2014Grazer Wechselseitige Versicherung AG- Developed a new calculation core for life insurances in C# .NET.
- Allowed the core to calculate all life insurance products and contract changes of the company and its foreign subsidiaries (~1000 products). Implemented a solid software design that included all products without duplicating code.
- Replaced three other existing calculation cores with our new one.
- Created a testing framework (both GUI and MSTest accessible) to ensure consistent quality of the core.
- Supported another team within the company with their software design for a similar calculation core.
Technologies: C# .NET, SQL, SQL CE, XML, ASP.NET, VPMS, Excel/VBA, TFSScientific Software Researcher
2010 - 2012VIRTUAL VEHICLE Reserach Center, Graz- Implemented 3D data processing and visualization of computational fluid dynamics results with C++ and VTK for my diploma thesis.
- Created a novel algorithm for understanding and visualizing large air flow data sets.
- Developed an evaluation framework to compare my algorithm with existing solutions and aid in the selection of the best algorithm.
- Typeset my thesis in LaTex, using a highly customized style to achieve high typographic detail and quality.
- Received the Best Thesis Award by the "Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD".
Technologies: C++, VTK, ParaView, Qt, LaTeXJunior Functional Tester
2007 - 2008IBM SkillTeam at Fortis Bank (Brussels, Belgium)- Developed and executed software test scenarios for a major Global Markets banking application (J/Rates).
- Was hired as a Junior Functional Tester due to my young age, but was very quickly assigned the same tasks as Senior Functional Testers.
- Was ultimately responsible for testing the whole interest rate derivatives branch.
- Performed unstructured exploratory testing before important releases as the only member of the team because of my strong analytical abilities.
- Collected my first foreign job experience within an international environment.
Technologies: IBM Rational Functional Tester, SQL, VBASoftware Developer and Tester
2006 - 2007Grazer Wechselseitige Versicherung- Tested and developed software for the company and its foreign subsidiaries.
- Carried out these tasks part time next to my studies and learned proper time management skills. Used Tim Allen's "Getting Things Done" philosophy ever since.
- Worked directly within the life insurance department and acquired know-how about efficient communication with "Non-IT" people.
- Gained practical knowledge about the unique requirements of insurance and finance products.
- Experienced working in the environment fostered by a large, conservative company.
Technologies: VPMS, C# .NET, Excel/VBA, SQL, Pascal, XML
Scientific Computing Developer in Saint Paul's Bay, Malta
Member since November 22, 2013
Benjamin is an algorithmic problem solver with a strong background in C# and C++. His university education emphasized computer graphics and computer vision. He is looking to strengthen his presence in other areas, especially ASP.NET and Android development.
Benjamin is now available for hire
Portfolio
- Grazer Wechselseitige Versicherung AGC# .NET, SQL, SQL CE, XML, ASP.NET, VPMS, Excel/VBA, TFS
- VIRTUAL VEHICLE Reserach Center, GrazC++, VTK, ParaView, Qt, LaTeX
- IBM SkillTeam at Fortis Bank (Brussels, Belgium)IBM Rational Functional Tester, SQL, VBA
Experience
- SQL, 7 years
- C#, 6 years
- Qt, 5 years
- C++, 5 years
- Scientific Computing, 3 years
- Data Visualization, 3 years
- VTK, 2 years
- Android SDK, 1 year
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Windows 10, Visual Studio, VSCode, Git
The most amazing...
...honor I've received is the the best thesis award for my master's thesis on processing and visualizing computational fluid dynamics results.
Employment
Experience
- Master’s Thesis on large 3D CFD datasets (Development)http://benjaminhopfer.com/2014/04/10/masters-thesis-technical/
In my Master’s thesis, I used C++ in conjunction with the VTK framework to process CFD datasets of up to two gigabytes in size. The main problem was to cluster a large, dense, three-dimensional CFD simulation result into homogeneous areas that could be used for graph based simulation and visualization.
- Life insurance calculation core in C# (Development)
During my studies I worked part time in the life insurance math department at the GRAWE. After smaller initial projects, I started working on a novel C# .NET program for prototyping new life insurance products.
- 3D Data Visualization with Open Source Tools: A Tutorial Using VTK (Publication)How do we understand and interpret the huge amounts of data coming out of simulations? How do we visualize potential gigabytes of datapoints in a large dataset? In this article I will give a quick introduction to VTK and its pipeline architecture, and go on to discuss a real-life visualization example.
Skills
Languages
C#, C++, SQL, Java, PHPFrameworks
Qt, .NET, Android SDK, ASP.NET Web API, ASP.NETLibraries/APIs
VTK, Windows Forms, PCL, jQueryTools
Microsoft Visual Studio, CMake, Git, LaTeX, MSTest, Microsoft Team Foundation Server, Android StudioParadigms
Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Object-oriented Design (OOD), Unit Testing, Functional Programming, Logic ProgrammingPlatforms
Windows, Android, LinuxOther
Computer Vision, 3D, Computational Geometry, Computer Graphics, Scientific Computing, Machine Learning, Data VisualizationStorage
Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, MSSQLCE, MySQL
Education
- Master's (with distinction) degree in Computer Science2008 - 2012Graz University of Technology - Graz, Austria
- Bachelor's (with distinction) degree in Computer Science2004 - 2007Graz University of Technology - Graz, Austria
