J. David Wolf, Jr.

Summary

Technical product development management lead with over 18 years of experience in the software industry.  Accomplished software QA analyst & manager, build engineer, designer, project manager, and product development manager.  15 years of experience with video/audio codecs, professional multimedia software, digital video streaming & video broadcasting.  Specialized in shrink-wrapped product, Internet deliverable product, and full turn-key product solutions.  Extensive background involving the full life-cycle of software processes including requirements, design, architecture, coding, testing, maintenance, and support.

• Experience, from concept to commercialization, with end-user applications, SDKs/APIs, and turn-key hardware/software products.
• Excellent communication skills; proven ability to closely work and collaborate with all levels of both staff and customer.
• Successful, cross-functional leader of product and engineering teams, both local and remote.
• Proven track record of designing and implementing the necessary IT & infrastructures to allow and facilitate the development, testing, and support of products.  Proficient in adapting to and learning new technologies.  Recognized areas for internal improvement and developed action plans.
• Managed products were always brought in under or on budget and milestone targets were always on schedule.
• Grew long-term relationships with customers, capitalizing on partnership opportunities.  Maintained awareness of new and emerging technologies.

Technical Skills

• Multiple development platforms/IDEs and compilers for both the Macintosh and PC (MS Visual Studio, Intel Compiler, CodeWarrior, etc.)
• Office productivity applications (MS Office, MS Project, Visio, etc.)
• Video codecs (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, VP6/7/8) & audio codecs (MPEG Layer-II/Layer-III, AC-3, AAC)
• Web-based technologies (PHP, MySQL, HTML) & networking topology/protocols (HTTP, IGMP v2/v3)
• Video delivery equipment, signaling and applications, including QAM, DVB, SDI, ATSC, Switched Digital Video, & ETV/EBIF
• IP networking equipment, including routers and video distribution equipment
• Creative applications (Adobe Photoshop, Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Creative Suite products, etc.)
• DOS, Mac and Windows OS knowledge dating back to 1981

Professional Experience & Qualifications

Product Development Manager – Ligos Corporation, Savannah, GA     (December 2000 – Present)

Managed Development/QA, assisted in product design, co-wrote and produced technical documentation, and formalized over 12 different commercial MPEG-1/2/4, & DV products for both local and international markets.  Products included SDKs, custom contracted APIs, end-user encoding solutions, and turn-key cable broadcast encoding solutions.  Managed and coordinated with development teams across three offices — Savannah, San Jose, & San Francisco.  Coordinated and managed version control for all products.  Defined, communicated, and enforced coding standards and practices.

• Worked closely with low-level, MPEG algorithm engineers to optimize and increase the quality of MPEG encoder, focusing on motion estimation, rate control, color format conversions, and new CPU instructions when released by Intel (i.e. MMX, SSE, SSE2, etc.) to create industry leading encoder.
• Managed the technical transition of Indeo technology, which accounted for 15% of Ligos’ annual revenue, from corporate partner Intel: rebuilt, repackaged, provided documentation and implemented support infrastructure for the rebranded product line.  Created market opportunities working with Microsoft so to direct Windows Indeo users to Ligos when the codec was required.
• Centralized customer information and support across multiple offices by creating and managing the implementation and design of an internal, web-based Customer Support database.  Worked with IT and Support associates to define scope and allocate resources.  Used by Sales for contact management.  Support was capable of tracking trouble tickets from issue to resolution (managing problem resolution).  Used by Order Fulfillment and Shipping to record shipments, track assets, and keep inventory.
• Redesigned Ligos’ website; moved from outside contractors, in-house, eliminating outside contractor costs.  Provided design template, suggested back-end software, and managed tasked associates.  Created all graphics for the site.  Assisted with coding.  Achieved goal with web architectures/back-ends, allowing marketing/sales to more easily promote and disseminate brand information (product/sales information, press releases, etc.) via the corporate website; utilized SEO techniques; qualified increased hit counts.  Highly exposed Indeo leading to a 20% increase in sales for the year, post deployment.
• Acted as build engineer since 1997.  Compiled and archived all products.  Designed and wrote InstallShield setups for all products.
• Coordinated and managed version control for all products.
• Traveled extensively within both North and South America to technically collaborate with customers and assist their sales/marketing departments to better utilize Ligos’ solutions resulting in stronger and more effective corporate partnerships.

Project Manager, QA Manager – Ligos Corporation, Savannah, GA     (March 1997 – December 2000)

As project manager, helped design, develop, and QA the first real-time, software only MPEG-1 & MPEG-2 encoder (LSX-MPEG) and various real-time codec SDKs (GoMotion), including MPEG-1/2/4 SDK, DV SDK, and MPEG Editing SDK.  The GoMotion product line grew to where it was known world-wide for its quality, efficiency, ease of integration, and compliance to the MPEG specification for both encoding and decoding.  Assisted in interviewing and hiring, growing company from 20 to 50+ employees.

• Transitioned from sister company, IDS, to Ligos to assist in helping start-up release formal product to market.  Set up initial IT infrastructure, including NT Domain (PDC), logon scripts per department, common shares/storage to increase productivity and interaction across the entire company.
• Researched, evaluated, and implemented MPEG compliance and analysis solutions for MPEG encoders and decoders.

QA Manager – Integrated Data Systems, Savannah, GA     (April 1996 – March 1997)

Brought into start-up company to help design, co-create, and test VRML based authoring package, taking product from design, through development, formalized QA, to shrink-wrapped product.  Won PC Magazine, Editor’s Choice Award for V-Realm Builder, VRML Tools, Nov. 1996.

• Hired and trained QA staff; created and executed test plans and test suites; exploratory/ad hoc testing; bug documentation and regression testing.
• Established development environment; version control, defect control system, developer image including IDE, additional compilers, etc. to reduce time to get newly hired developers up and operational.

QA Associate & Build Engineer – Peachtree Software, Norcross, GA     (May 1994 – April 1996)

QA Associate assigned to new accounting product within Peachtree. Build Engineer in charge of compiling and building final gold-master package/CD prior to it being sent to distribution for replication into end-user, shrink-wrapped product.

• Wrote test cases and test plans for product based off of design specifications; integrated assets into Lotus Notes.
• Designed and wrote automated test scripts/suites based off of present test cases using Microsoft Test.  Automation helped significantly reduce testing time for repetitious events.
• Designed and wrote batch files to script and automate compiling and building of all assets from main binaries (after fetching latest source from version control) to Windows help files, video tutorials, InstallShield compilation and packaging, etc. to reduce risk and chance of error.

Support Engineer – Peachtree Software, Norcross, GA     (November 1993 – May 1994)

Supported Peachtree Accounting for DOS, Peachtree’s flagship accounting application. Consistently rewarded for high call volumes, reaching resolutions solely in almost all cases.  Showed and demonstrated skills with both DOS and Windows that allowed me to transition from the Support Department to a QA position within Peachtree in under one year.

Education

The University of Akron – Akron, OH – Major: Bachelor of Arts, English   Minor: Professional Writing  (May 1993)

The College of Wooster – Wooster, OH – Liberal Arts, 2 years.  Transferred to University of Akron  (May 1988)

Activities

• 25 yrs. of Photography experience; transitioned to digital kit doing post work in Adobe Photoshop CS4/Lightroom 2.x
• Attended John Ridgway Survival School (www.johnridgway.co.uk) – Team Building & Positive Thinking Exercise (1987)
• Aviation (Trained for Private Pilot license, 6 hours of Night Flight and FAA Check Flight remaining)

References & Recommendations

• http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=4771147&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro