20 years of experience in developing and testing software.
10 years of experience managing the operations and personnel of large software engineering teams.
Specialties:
Management, Leadership, Organizational Development, Team Dynamics, Budgets, R&D Tax Justifications, Contracts, Recruiting, Hiring, California Employment Law, Cost-benefit Analysis, Return on Investment
Industry Focus:
Video Games, Software Engineering, Quality Assurance, Test Automation, Scrum, Research and Development
Technology Recently Used:
Unity, C#, Python, JavaScript, HTML5, SQL, Perl, C++, Microsoft dev stack (.NET Framework), Linux, Windows
My common mutterings:
You build it, I break it.
Never do anything twice, automate it.
Your secret sauce is not so secret.
Why death march when you can dance?
Principal QA Engineer @ Architected a new integration test automation system for a Unity-based mobile (iOS, Android, Facebook) game. From September 2015 to December 2015 (4 months) Engineering Manager @ Anything and everything to get the job done. From July 2015 to August 2015 (2 months) Software Engineering Manager @ Very similar to my prior senior manager position, but much more focused on changing the way Blizzard develops and tests software including personnel, software measurement, and large-scale automated test strategies. From June 2014 to January 2015 (8 months) Senior Manager, Support Systems, Platform Services @ High-level management of two software engineering teams consisting of 40 engineers of all experience levels. The teams predominantly develop test automation and department applications in C++, C#, ASP.NET, and Python. We closely adhere to the Agile tenets and employ Scrum to maximize our productivity.
My key responsibilities are to oversee the management and production personnel of these teams. To ensure their proper application and reinforcement of our mission statement, core values, and general best practices. This also encompasses overseeing the overall morale, budgets, headcount, policies and procedures.
Technologies used by engineering teams: C++, C#, ASP.NET, WPF, WCF, XAML, MSSQL, MySQL, Python, Silverlight, HTML5 From June 2011 to June 2014 (3 years 1 month) Senior Manager, Platform Services @ Overseeing the management of morale, career growth, budgets, headcount, projects, policies and procedures for nearly 200 amazingly talented testers, programmers, producers, and managers. Handling of legal and finance of large global outsourced projects.
Filled role of Interim Director for 1 year while our Director took on a 1 year assignment as Managing Director in our Paris, France office. Met weekly with CEO to advise and report on product quality and general department status. During this time we assisted in delivering one the first smooth and highly successful World of Warcraft expansions. Also worked to formalize the development process to reduce the number of last minute changes which heavily impacted QA's ability to properly test the product.
Technologies used by engineering teams: PHP, MySQL, C#, ASP.NET, Lua From May 2009 to June 2011 (2 years 2 months) Technical Manager, Platform Services @ Management of Technical Quality Assurance (game related support tools), Compatibility, and a Tools Engineering team.
Technologies used by engineering teams: PHP, MySQL, C#, ASP.NET, Lua From December 2007 to May 2009 (1 year 6 months) QA Assistant Manager @ Management of QA Engineering and Compatibility teams (approximately 15 employees), policy and procedure documentation, process improvement.
Technologies used by engineering teams: PHP, MySQL, C#, ASP.NET, Lua From August 2006 to December 2007 (1 year 5 months) Automated Test Engineer @ Led the QA engineering group to create applications and tools to make the test process more efficient. Mentored junior engineers for preparation in a role with some of Blizzard's lead teams.
Technologies used by engineering teams: PHP, MySQL, C#, Lua From July 2005 to August 2006 (1 year 2 months) Lead SQA Engineer @ Led a small team of professional QA analysts through several major releases and dozens of minor patches. Worked with sales and marketing to hone QA test plans for maximum testing of high profile features. Performed most managerial duties for the QA team. Given letter of recognition from CEO for outstanding performance in overhauling QA department.
Technologies used: C++, MFC, WIN32, Perl From June 2002 to July 2005 (3 years 2 months) Software Engineer @ Maintained several "owner draw" views for Arium's flagship product, an x86 ICE debugger. Designed and implemented several new features including: Device view (a user configured grid displaying memory mapped device data) and Memory map (allows the user to define memory ranges and their type).
Technologies used: C++, MFC, WIN32 From November 1999 to June 2002 (2 years 8 months) Data Security Analyst @ Maintained systems to protect data from unauthorized users. Identified, reported, and resolved security violations. Wrote several programs to streamline the analysis of user rights across a wide array of different host systems. Given letter of recognition by CIO for quick response to computer virus outbreak. From November 1998 to November 1999 (1 year 1 month)
Bachelors, Computer Science @ Cal State University Fullerton From 1993 to 1998 John Herndon is skilled in: Team Leadership, Mentoring, Software Project Management, Quality Assurance, Compatibility Testing, Technical Recruiting, Outsourcing, Process Improvement, Scrum, Leadership, Test Automation, Software Engineering, Testing, Agile Methodologies, Software Development
Websites:
http://bitsavage.com,
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,257498/