Overview
Work History
Timeline
Generic

William Bradley Bennett

Raleigh,NC

Overview

35
35
years of professional experience

Work History

Senior SQA Engineer

Itron, Inc.
12.2010 - 11.2024
  • Company Overview: Itron produces smart metering hardware for utility companies, as well as a complete software solution for monitoring meter status, retrieving power and water consumption data, and handling the customer billing
  • In December of 2010, I converted from a contractor to a permanent hire with Itron
  • As a permanent hire, I continued in the same QA test engineer role that I was in as a contractor
  • During my first year as a permanent employee, I became the over-the-air firmware download 'prime' (primary QA test engineer)
  • The role is essentially the same, except now I am in a leadership role, more involved in the test planning and decision-making about how to test a given release and mentoring and training newer hires in the system
  • Senior software quality engineer involved in the testing and deployment of Itron's OWCE (Openway Collection Engine) and the newer OWCM (Openway Collection Manager) software products, meter firmware, meters and other devices
  • Expected to not only find issues with the products, but also to root-cause the issues to aid in the development process
  • Worked closely with development to help reproduce and troubleshoot issues, and to test experimental fixes as they were developed
  • Utilized tools such as PuTTY, WinSCP and Certicom, to connect to devices and networks, and prepare and configure them for testing
  • Utilized in-house tools such as Itron's FieldPro, FDM (Field Deployment Manager), PSEM Tool, GTI Tool (inventory tool), and many others in order to maintain and update test devices and systems
  • As a subject matter expert (SME) with a focus on software, performed activities including installs and support on Itron’s Openway Collection Engine, Openway Reporting System and maintaining Meter Data Management databases using both Oracle and SQL Server
  • Worked with Itron’s R&D and SQA teams to install, set up and test the OWCE and OWCM, meters and devices, with a primary focus on firmware download testing
  • Maintained multiple test environments and virtual machines, installing windows updates and new Itron software builds for myself and for others who shared those test environments
  • Developed and maintained test cases in the Azure environment, and performed test efforts, and reported my results into the Azure system
  • Before we migrated to Azure, I utilized TestTrack software for test case and test run management, and eventually became the manager of that software for the team
  • Setup and maintained webcam and Web Power Switch (WPS) environments for our teams in India so that they could perform tests remotely on meters and view meter displays here in the US via webcam, and control power for their test devices using WPS devices
  • Documented processes for others on the team so that they could more quickly and easily perform those same tasks as needed
  • For example, I documented the process of setting up a remote webcam system
  • Others used my documentation subsequently to set up remote systems
  • Utilized MS Office tools such as OneNote, Word and Excel to document my work and store information on many devices
  • Also used MS Outlook to store emails with important information, and often forwarded them to team members for reference
  • As a senior SQA engineer, I was often called upon to perform other activities besides testing
  • For example, Itron recently had to take down one of our networks for security reasons, and we had to rebuild several virtual machines from scratch
  • I was responsible for restoring four of those systems from scratch
  • I installed several prerequisites for our software, and then our software, and configured it all so that it would run as it did before the old network was taken down and rebuilt
  • Itron produces smart metering hardware for utility companies, as well as a complete software solution for monitoring meter status, retrieving power and water consumption data, and handling the customer billing

IT Contractor

The Select Group
Raleigh, NC
04.2010 - 12.2010
  • Company Overview: The Select Group is an IT contractor placement agency
  • My Select Group contract was a contract to hire position with Itron, Inc
  • In Raleigh, NC
  • My role at Itron was as a QA test engineer in the OpenWay SQA group
  • OpenWay is Itron’s software solution that utility companies use to monitor and retrieve information over the air from their power meters
  • I was responsible for developing and executing test plans for new meter hardware, firmware, and software as new versions were released
  • I was involved with planning, test case development, test run generation and execution, as well as follow-up testing of issues that I reported during testing to be sure the issues were resolved
  • As a contractor, I tested in areas wherever I was needed, ranging from regression/compatibility testing, disconnect/reconnect testing, service limiting testing, and over-the-air firmware download testing
  • The Select Group is an IT contractor placement agency

IT Contractor

Apex Systems
Raleigh, NC
03.2008 - 03.2010
  • Company Overview: Apex Systems is an IT contractor placement agency
  • My Apex Systems contract was a recurring six-month position with DataFlux, Inc
  • In Cary, NC
  • DataFlux develops Data Governance software that enables clients to analyze, improve and control their data
  • My role at DataFlux was to design and develop new features for the GUI side of our product suite, as well as to maintain existing functionality in our older code
  • Our GUI team mostly worked with C++/MFC using Microsoft Visual Studio as our IDE
  • My development work was not limited to C++/MFC
  • For one of our releases, I designed and developed a C# application
  • It was a GUI front end application that monitors the progress of another application in our product suite
  • It 'listened in' on a port specified by the users, and the other application would pass information about itself to that port updating its progress
  • Several instances of the other application could be running simultaneously on multiple machines on a local network, and my GUI application would periodically update itself with their current progress
  • For this C# application to use existing C++ code, I was required to develop an InterOp library that provided the C# interface to the C++ code
  • I developed part of the 'new technology' version of our product line, using WPF and C#
  • I developed a part of the GUI using WPF/XAML, and the accompanying code-behind files
  • In my time at DataFlux, I was involved in the development of three major releases of our product suite, as well as a few minor releases
  • I worked on several different applications in our product suite, doing whatever development was required of me for each release
  • Apex Systems is an IT contractor placement agency

IT Contractor

American Contract Group
Tyngsboro, MA
10.2007 - 02.2008
  • Company Overview: American Contract Group (ACG) is an IT contractor placement agency
  • My ACG contract was a six-month position with Digital Recorders in Durham, NC
  • Digital Recorders develops systems for public transportation that display informational messages (both text messages and pre-recorded audio messages) for passengers
  • The systems use GPS technology to trigger these messages, applicable to the current vehicle location in a given route
  • Digital Recorders had developed a Visual C++ GUI application that clients use to program routes and other data into the system
  • This is the application on which I was assigned to work
  • When I started, it was still under development, with much functionality either missing or incomplete
  • The application had a window that displayed maps, similar to Mapquest or Yahoo Maps, and any bus routes currently programmed into the system
  • This application was a Visual C++ ODBC database application that used SQL Server as the back-end database
  • I added functionality that enabled users to graphically select, add, edit, delete, move or rotate the points that combine to form a route
  • These points consisted of a global longitude, latitude and direction
  • The user could perform these tasks graphically in the map window by manipulating graphical points with the mouse, or by using menu items that displayed dialogs to modify data instead
  • In addition to the new functionality I developed, I was required to fix several bugs in the code, and clean up code that was left there by the contractor that preceded me
  • American Contract Group (ACG) is an IT contractor placement agency

IT Contractor

Adecco Technical
Cary, NC
01.2007 - 10.2007
  • Company Overview: Adecco Technical is an IT contractor placement agency
  • My Adecco contract was a six-month position with Credit Suisse in Research Triangle Park, NC
  • This contract was extended at the end of the contract period for another six months
  • The group that I worked in at Credit Suisse was the technical support group for the bond traders in New York City
  • We enhanced, maintained, tested and supported the proprietary software used by the bond traders
  • The back-end database was a Sybase database
  • In addition to working on the code, I was responsible for pushing out our code changes periodically
  • The software was primarily Visual C++ code, with some Visual Basic, C and C# code, as well
  • The platform was Microsoft Windows XP, with many processes running on Unix
  • The reports were generated by Visual C++ and Visual Basic applications, as well as Unix and Perl scripts
  • My experience varied as I was required to work on all of the aforementioned code at one time or another
  • Our support tasks often required immediate response, under pressure and with little supervision, as some problems could potentially cost the company very large amounts of money if not resolved in a timely fashion
  • There were some situations that required late night or weekend attention
  • Each team member was required to carry a pager on a weekly rotation to handle problems that occurred outside of regular business hours
  • In addition to maintaining our corporate software, I developed a standalone database application using Visual C++, ODBC, and with SQL Server as the back-end database
  • This application was used in-house by our support team to log, track, and report their support calls
  • I upgraded one of our important Visual Basic report-generating applications to use the latest version of Business Objects/Crystal Reports
  • The old version of our application would no longer compile due to licensing issues with that old version of Crystal
  • This was important because until this upgrade was completed, we were unable to make the required modifications to it
  • I was responsible for installing software, configuring and testing new servers we were adding to our network
  • I worked with a group to update a Visual C# project from DotNet 1.1 to DotNet 2.0
  • My role expanded to include answering support calls as needed when our phone support group became understaffed
  • Adecco Technical is an IT contractor placement agency

Senior Software Engineer

Per-Se Technologies
Durham, NC
02.2001 - 10.2006
  • Company Overview: Update: Per-Se Technologies is now McKesson
  • I was part of a development team that enhanced and maintained Per-Se's ORSOS application that handles scheduling, inventory and revenue maximizing functionality for clients
  • My primary responsibilities were the design and implementation of Graphical User Interface (GUI) enhancements and bug fixes to the ORSOS application
  • Worked closely with the functional analysts in the early stages of requirements, discussing with them the ramifications of requested features, then designing and developing the features
  • Designed and developed the interface for an important utility that aided ORSOS customers in upgrading their old database format (Btrieve) to our newer formats (SQL Server or Oracle)
  • Designed and implemented many enhancements to the GUI interface of the ORSOS application, including the shortcut bar feature that enabled users to add shortcuts for often-used menu items to their shortcut bar, which was dockable to the ORSOS desktop, for improved workflow
  • Designed and implemented the Crystal Report print preview window used throughout the ORSOS application
  • This consisted of utilizing the Crystal Reports ActiveX control in our application, and tailor-fitting it for the needs of our application
  • Completed many ongoing enhancements to the ORSOS screen system by replacing old screens with new MFC screens
  • This enabled us to add more functionality to screens that was not possible in the old, proprietary screen system because of design limitations
  • Assisted other team members in converting our application to a larger-scale application for use across multiple client-facilities, a large improvement to the previous single-installation version
  • Assisted other team members in developing a new edit control framework for our application
  • This was a part of the conversion from our old screen system to the new MFC screen system
  • Assisted other team members in developing and implementing a persistence framework for saving user-customized settings to the database to enable their customized settings to 'follow' a user from computer to computer in a client network
  • Maintained an in-house developer utility, used for compiling old-style (non-MFC) screens into binary data files used by the application
  • It was previously not very easy to use
  • I enhanced the interface to make it much more efficient to use, saving developers time with each use
  • Update: Per-Se Technologies is now McKesson

Senior Software Engineer

SoftPro Corporation
Raleigh, NC
05.1992 - 02.2001
  • Completed two Visual C++ training classes and the basic and advanced InstallShield classes
  • Designed and developed the interface of three Windows-based database applications, including a trust accounting application, using Visual C++, MFC and ODBC with SQL Server or MS Access as the back-end database
  • I worked on the database back-end, as well
  • However, most of my work consisted of designing and developing the interfaces of these applications
  • Designed and developed three DOS-based database applications, similar to the windows applications referenced above
  • Maintained a suite of Windows- and DOS-based applications, completing several updates
  • Developed in-house applications and DOS batch files on demand to assist in the day-to-day operation and needs of the company
  • In summary, I designed and developed new and maintained existing Windows- and DOS-based applications
  • I was primarily responsible for the interfaces of these database applications
  • I was the chief developer, working closely with the company owner, for my first two years with the company
  • As such, I was required to play many key roles, including technical writing for product documentation and sales information, training, and technical customer support

Freelance Tutor

Independent Instructor
Raleigh, NC
05.1990 - 03.1992
  • Freelance Tutor of the C and Pascal programming languages while still a student at NCSU

Timeline

Senior SQA Engineer

Itron, Inc.
12.2010 - 11.2024

IT Contractor

The Select Group
04.2010 - 12.2010

IT Contractor

Apex Systems
03.2008 - 03.2010

IT Contractor

American Contract Group
10.2007 - 02.2008

IT Contractor

Adecco Technical
01.2007 - 10.2007

Senior Software Engineer

Per-Se Technologies
02.2001 - 10.2006

Senior Software Engineer

SoftPro Corporation
05.1992 - 02.2001

Freelance Tutor

Independent Instructor
05.1990 - 03.1992

Similar Profiles

CREATE PROFILE
William Bradley Bennett