John Gotts
8136 Constitution Blvd. Apt. 6
Sterling Heights, MI 48313
E-Mail: jgotts@linuxsavvy.com
Web: http://www.linuxsavvy.com/staff/jgotts/

Objective

I am seeking a satisfying and enjoyable software engineering position starting immediately. I have created financial, computer aided design, and operating system software. Specific problem domains I have continually worked on include object, protocol, user interface, database, and network design; testing and validation; and performance tuning. I have solid experience with a range of languages including C, Java, Perl, Tcl, sed/awk/sh/csh, SQL, HTML/XML, and assembly. Graphical toolkits I have used include X11/Xt/Motif, Tk, AWT, and Gtk+/GNOME/Glade. Operating systems I am comfortable programming under include all versions of Linux, Solaris, and other UNIX variants.

Work Experience

ePrize
Software Engineer
September 2007 through Present 

Maintained an AJAX-based catalog management system.


Cybernet Systems Corporation

Software Engineer

December 2005 through December 2006


Maintained the NetMAX Operating System, a network appliance-targeted Linux
distribution with a web-based GUI written chiefly in Perl; solely responsible
for 5.5 and 5.51, the most thoroughly audited VPN releases to date; fixed
challenging bugs driven by corporate and customer input; ported the system to
new network appliance hardware; overhauled Cybernet's server infrastructure,
incorporating corporate customizations into the releases; improved mail system
performance while traffic tripled; backported a Linux kernel storage driver for
a specific customer application.


F & M Financial Trading Systems, N. V.

Software Engineer / System/Network/Database Administrator

July 1999 through October 2005


Designed a 270,000-line Gtk+/GNOME/Glade tablet/desktop trading application
for the Red Hat and Fedora Core Linux operating systems in C and XML; designed
a 50,000-line database daemon using C and PostgreSQL's libpq; designed
connection daemons using proprietary libraries supplied by the exchanges;
designed a daemon to supply theoretical prices to the system; designed the
software router and overall protocol to keep the system running smoothly;
maintained the SQL schema as system requirements changed; continually tuned
network bandwidth consumption, database use, and algorithms to increase system
performance; developed the system using exchange development networks, passed
all conformance testing, and used the system in production on numerous
exchanges for a total of approximately five years.


LinuxNIC, Inc.

Head Programmer

September 1999 through December 1999


Designed and implemented the Perl/DBI/MySQL-based backend for their domain
(.linux) registration system.


Avant! Corporation

Summer Intern / Software Engineer / Tcl/Tk/Scheme/C Programmer

July 1998 through December 1998


Developed an HTML-based integrated documentation system in Tcl/Tk and Perl
to replace a proprietary system based upon FrameViewer; developed a database
visualization tool for Avant!'s next generation layout editor.


Avant! Corporation

Summer Intern / Software Engineer / Java Programmer

May 1997 through August 1997


Developed a Java-based hierarchical design visualization tool using JDK
1.1.x; constructed a framework to interoperate with their C-based
libraries.


Ford Motor Company

Scientific Research Laboratories

Summer Intern / Motif Programmer

May 1996 through August 1996


Designed a Motif user interface for an Xlib-based embedded microprocessor
execution simulator; revised the architecture of this project and added
multiple, simultaneous execution visualization modes.


Total Quality Stats

Linux Consultant / Java Programmer

April 1995 through October 2005


Helped build and maintain their Linux-based network; architected automated
FAX scripts for content delivery to their customers; maintained and extended
their Java-based sports statistics program; designed databases based upon 
PostgreSQL to ease retrieval and maintenance of their sports statistics;
created and modified C programs to use their new databases; identified and
corrected bottlenecks in their web server through hardware upgrades and
software measures, such as transitioning to the Apache mod_perl extension.


University of Michigan

Computer Aided Engineering Network

Systems Programmer I / UNIX System Administrator / Java Programmer

November 1994 through July 1998


Oversaw the operating system upgrades of approximately 50 DECstations;
designed a Perl script to allow the DECstations to report system messages via
the syslog facility; developed a web-based statistics gathering program and
other tools in Bourne shell and Perl for CAEN's AFS-based distributed computing
environment; insured the correct day-to-day functioning of the DECstation
network via log file analysis; designed a configurable, standalone or web-based
replacement in Java for their web-based Perl/CGI realtime lab viewer.

Personal Experience

Technical Writer

October 1997 through Present


Wrote DHCP mini HOWTO for University of Michigan students.  Wrote
configuration mini HOWTO's for sendmail 8.8.x and 8.9.x.  Documented Linux
configuration of the Sony PCG-C1XS and PCG-F680 laptops.  Documented Linux
configuration on the uncommon AMD K6-2+ and K6-III+ processors.


Linux Kernel Developer

November 1994 through Present


Credited Linux kernel hacker.  Contributed minor patches directly to Linus
Torvalds.  Maintained the totem and oplbeep packages.  Early contributor to the
linux-kernel mailing list.


Free Software Developer

May 1994 through Present


Developed scripts to help University of Michigan students running Linux to
connect to the various computer networks.  Became the campuswide Linux guru.
Contributed bug fixes and/or feature enhancements to freely available programs
such as SysVInit, slrn, xmille, tkman, dcon, mc, Wine, xlockmore, xscreensaver,
fontutils, fileutils, sh-utils, textutils, Mesa, xosview, nmh, gtk+extra, and
others.  Contributed the configuration front-end to gnome-socket.  Contributed
configuration suggestions and patches to various GNOME applications.  Created
simple GUI-based versions of telnet and zwrite in Tcl/Tk.  Wrote parsenews, a
Perl-based e-mail/Usenet news article beautifier.  Maintained sortmail, a
header-based mail sorting program written in Perl.  Contributed dozens of new
and enhanced RPM spec files to various projects, including GNOME.  Early
contributor to Linux development lists.


Childhood

April 1975 through April 1993


First BASIC code published at age 12 in Run Magazine.  Developed mailing
label software and a printer driver for an automotive parts warehouse's
advertising brochures.  Developed a French to English dictionary program,
complete with a redefined character set.  Spent a year learning Pascal and
developed an unfinished implementation of Solitaire as my final project.

Educational Experience

University of Michigan College of Engineering

September 1993 through April 1999


Pursued virtually all undergraduate coursework offered in Electrical
Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science for a total of 12
four-month semesters.  Postponed graduation due to financial considerations
and interesting Linux software development opportunities.


Organizations

American Mensa (Membership number 100093630)

Amateur Radio Operator (Extra class callsign N8QDW)