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Bryan Zimmerman, Software Developer in Washington, DC, United States
Bryan Zimmerman

Software Developer in Washington, DC, United States

Member since October 14, 2017
Bryan provides expert modern C/C++ development of object-oriented, highly concurrent, low latency, cross-platform software in the areas of big data, physics/engineering simulation/modeling, data communications, machine learning, networking, server-side, and embedded systems. He has vast experience with real-time, critical, 24/7, commercial, and defense systems.
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Portfolio

  • FireEye, Inc
    Conan, Git, CMake, CODE, Xcode, GCC, Visual Studio, MacOS, Linux, Windows...
  • Finch Computing
    Git, CMake, Eclipse, CODE, GCC, Visual Studio, Linux, Windows, C++
  • Orbital Sciences
    Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), FPGA, MATLAB, GCC, Visual Studio, Linux...

Experience

  • Concurrent Programming 20 years
  • Distributed Programming 20 years
  • C 20 years
  • CMake 7 years
  • Python 7 years
  • C++17 4 years

Location

Washington, DC, United States

Availability

Full-time

Preferred Environment

GCC, Visual Studio, Linux, Windows

The most amazing...

...thing I’ve coded was a turbo convolutional decoder and all its necessary supporting functions, encoding, ber testing, and channel simulation.

Employment

  • Senior Staff Software Engineer

    2017 - PRESENT
    FireEye, Inc
    • Served as the principal modern C++ developer of cross-platform, high performance, low latency distributed, endpoint security software. Development is in a distributed, scrum agile environment utilizing biweekly sprints.
    • Provided extensive peer code review for accuracy, completeness, and performance; as well as, mentoring of other junior and senior level programmers with a proven record of team productivity and skills increase.
    • Developed robust mathematical algorithms for a machine learning engine for malware detection. Also solely designed and implemented a significant part of the architecture of the engine.
    • Viewed as C/C++ expert of the company with regards to syntax, algorithms, concurrency, and usage.
    Technologies: Conan, Git, CMake, CODE, Xcode, GCC, Visual Studio, MacOS, Linux, Windows, Python, C++

  • Distinguished Software Engineer/Vice-President

    2014 - 2016
    Finch Computing
    • Acted as a key modern C++ developer of a green field, cross-platform, high performance, low latency distributed, unstructured big data in memory enterprise database product. Development was in a distributed, scrum agile environment utilizing biweekly sprints. Solely developed large portions of the critical core of the product, and instrumental in all other activities and aspects affecting the development of other systems.
    • Created and implemented novel data compression/decompression methods for which U.S. Patent Number 9,025,892 has been granted. Significant UTF-8 text compression rates were achieved.
    • Solely developed the JSON schema, ingestion, compression, decompression, ACID transactional logging, and memory representation systems. Contributed significantly to other systems in the product.
    • Developed a highly concurrent indexing system with dynamic instantiation of templated index structures.
    • Extensive peer code review for accuracy, completeness, and performance; as well as, mentoring of other junior and senior level programmers with a proven record of team productivity and skills increase.
    • Created the CMake build system for the project.
    Technologies: Git, CMake, Eclipse, CODE, GCC, Visual Studio, Linux, Windows, C++

  • RF Master Engineer II

    2012 - 2014
    Orbital Sciences
    • Headed system design, procurement, integration, test, and simulation of RF communications systems for Earth-centric and deep-space satellites. Significant proposal support and development for commercial/defense.
    • Designed RF communication systems utilizing detailed custom-developed RF link budgets and tools.
    • Led specification, procurement management, and oversight of integration and test for all the RF hardware necessary to create complete communication systems for Earth-centric and deep-space satellites.
    • Developed communications systems modeling, automation of testing, and data processing.
    • Designed custom RF hardware, box level products, and complete embedded industrial systems.
    Technologies: Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), FPGA, MATLAB, GCC, Visual Studio, Linux, Windows, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Radio Frequency (RF) Protocol, C++

  • Director of Embedded Systems/HW Engineering

    2008 - 2011
    Q.E.D. Inc. now CTI(Commonwealth Technology Incorporated)
    • Completed life cycle development of several defense related custom small SWaP(size, weight, and power) RF PCB’s including a S/W digital radio and several antenna tuning units in the HF to GPS frequency range.
    • Designed and constructed an effective electrically disadvantaged antennas under size and weight limits.
    • Designed and prototyped a miniature software designed radio transceiver in the HF(2-20 MHz) band.
    • Modeled, designed, and implemented antenna matching circuits in custom hardware for HF and GPS.
    • Developed a C++ algorithm for communications systems modeling and design verification.
    • Developed a C++ algorithm for communications systems modeling and design verification.
    • Developed hardware and software DSP algorithm and processed signals.
    Technologies: Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Altium Designer, AVR, ARM, Visual Studio, Radio Frequency (RF) Protocol, C++

  • RF Scientist

    2007 - 2008
    Orbital Sciences
    • Headed system design, procurement, integration, test, and simulation of RF communications systems for Earth centric and deep space satellites. Significant proposal support and development for commercial/defense.
    • Designed RF communication systems utilizing detailed custom-developed RF link budgets and tools.
    • Led specification, procurement management, and oversight of integration and test for all the RF hardware necessary to create complete communication systems for Earth-centric and deep-space satellites.
    • Developed C++ for communications systems modeling, automation of testing, and data processing.
    • Designed custom RF hardware of PCB’s, box level products, and complete embedded industrial systems.
    Technologies: Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Visual Studio, Radio Frequency (RF) Protocol, C++

  • Director of Engineering

    1997 - 2007
    Avtec Systems, Inc.
    • Led an engineering team responsible for the production and delivery of high rate communication and data processing systems earning several million dollars a year in company revenue (40% of the division).
    • Oversaw all aspects of costing, scheduling, tasking, and manufacturing coordination both, in-house and with vendors, are controlled during the full product life cycle development process from the initial proposal preparation to the delivery of a viable commercial product to the customer.
    • Delivered numerous custom FPGA-based high speed digital, analog, and RF boards for PCI- and cPCI- based systems, which utilized many modern design concepts, such as controlled impedance traces, matched trace lengths, proper decoupling, noise minimization, and low-loss dielectric materials.
    • Verified RF communication systems utilizing detailed RF link budgets and EMI analysis; confirming the results of said systems and components with state-of-the-art test equipment and custom designed RF hardware. Systems included custom modulators, receivers, and a LEO tracking system.
    • Developed the C++ algorithm for the simulation, modeling, and decoding of data communication channels, as well as object oriented cross platform, high performance, multi-threaded design for data processing and control of custom designed hardware.
    • Implemented engineering team and manufacturing process changes to streamline production efficiency and increase profit by creating uniform base components, standardizing/automating repetitive testing, and promoting common hardware/code reuse across systems where possible.
    • Developed Windows drivers for the communications and control of custom industrial PC boards.
    Technologies: Perforce, Radio Frequency (RF) Protocol, Visual Studio, Windows, PCB Design, FPGA, C++

  • Sr. RF Engineer

    1996 - 1997
    CFW Communications (now NTELOS Inc.)
    • Coordinated the site selection, installation, evaluation, and optimization of a PCS-1900 CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) wireless cellular system serving a large geographic region.
    Technologies: Visual Studio, Windows, MapInfo, Microsoft Excel, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), C++

  • Sr. RF Project Engineer

    1991 - 1996
    Allied Signal Technical Services Corporation (now Honeywell)
    • Served as the technical director of a 5-person team responsible for the design, procurement, assembly, and testing of a global Ku and C-Band satellite data/communications system for the bent pipe transfer of LEO satellite data.
    • Designed PCB for digital communications.
    • Created the C software for the scheduling and tracking of LEO satellites.
    Technologies: pSOS, GCC, Visual Studio, Linux, Windows, PCB, C, Radio Frequency (RF) Protocol

Experience

  • In Memory Unstructured Big Data Enterprise Database (Development)

    Developed a green field cross-platform, high performance, low latency distributed, unstructured big data analytics in memory enterprise database product in modern C++, i.e. C++ 11/14/17. Solely wrote more than 75% of the core of the product covering JSON document schema verification, ingestion, compression & selective decompression, ACID transnational logging, indexing, thread pools UTF-8 support, and many other low-level libraries.

  • Excel C++ XLL Library (Development)

    Developed a C++ library for the creation of Excel XLL add-ins. The library wraps Excel SDK components such as XLOPER12 and manages conversions to and from Excel along with necessary memory management. The project has wide applicability to engineering, physical, and financial modeling and computation.

  • Turbo Convolutional Decoder (Development)

    Solely developed a multi-threaded turbo convolutional block decoder based on an older version of CCSDS 131.2-B-1. At the time this was written there was no commercially available hardware or software implementations. In order to fulfill requirements the following components were created in C++: encoder, soft symbol frame synchronizer, decoder, PRN Bit Error Rate(BER) testing, and channel simulator. Delivered product operated at 10x required rate in worst channel conditions.

  • HF Software Defined Radio (Development)

    Developed a small SWaP(size, weight, and power) HF transceiver Software Defined radio with tunability in 2-20 MHz range and -130 dBm noise floor. Board was approximately 3 x 4 inches and designed with Altium including schematic, layout, and routing.

  • High Speed PCI64 I/Q NECL PCB (Development)

    Created a custom high-speed FPGA board for the transmission or reception of high-speed digital NECL data to and from receivers and modulators at rates over 1.2 Gbps. Board was designed for CCSDS communications in custom industrial PC systems running Windows operating system. This also involved driver development.

  • Machine Learning Mathematical Algorithms (Development)

    Green field development of robust modern C++ mathematical algorithms for a machine learning engine for malware detection.

Skills

  • Languages

    C, C++17, C++14, C++11, C++, Excel VBA, XML, Python, C#, Fortran, Assembly, Embedded C++, Embedded C, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), SQL

  • Frameworks

    Boost, CODE

  • Tools

    PCB Layout, GCC, CMake, Microsoft Visual C++, Microsoft Excel, Altium Designer, Word 2016, Microsoft Access, Arm Cortex-M3, Microsoft Visual Studio, Subversion (SVN), MATLAB, Git, GitHub, Perforce, Visual Studio, Xcode, Conan, Microsoft Word, MapInfo

  • Paradigms

    High-performance Computing, Distributed Programming, Concurrent Programming, Agile Software Development, Waterfall Development, Radio Frequency (RF) Protocol

  • Platforms

    Android, Windows, Linux, Windows Server 2016, AVR, Embedded Linux, AVR (8-bit MCU), MacOS, Eclipse

  • Other

    Embedded Hardware, Digital Design, PCB Design, Digital Signal Processing, RF Design, Concurrency, Multithreading, Windows Servers, Multithreaded Development, FPGA, ARM, PCB, pSOS

  • Libraries/APIs

    ZeroMQ

  • Storage

    JSON, SQL Server 2016, PostgreSQL

Education

  • Master's degree in Electrical Engineering
    1989 - 1990
    Georgia Institute Of Technology - Atlanta, GA
  • Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Physics
    1986 - 1988
    James Madison University - Harrisonburg, VA

Certifications

  • HackerRank Rating
    JANUARY 2016 - PRESENT
    https://www.hackerrank.com/bryanzim

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