SHIRISH . BASKARAN @ gmail.com | +1 (226) 808-5497

Software development professional with a strong technical foundation, diverse interests and a proven track record of delivery; seeking an individual contributor opportunity in new and challenging problem domains

RELEVANT SKILLS

  • Embedded systems; driver development; middleware; RTOS; Wi-Fi; networking; API design
  • Proficient: { C } Competent: { Python, Makefiles } Novice: { C++, Shell scripting, ARM Assembly }
  • Agile methodologies; continuous integration; unit, functional testing; technical & team leadership
  • IEEE 802.11, TCP/IP, DHCP, DNS; SDIO; Git, Perforce, SVN; JIRA, Bugzilla, Rally

WORK EXPERIENCE

Team Lead, BlackBerry OS / Wireless Groups
February 2012 - January 2014 (2 years)

Led a team of 4 developers assigned to time sensitive projects in need of technical expertise and leadership

  • Performed issue triage and codeline integrations in addition to being a productive developer on the team
  • Exposed to agile methodologies; adopted principles from Scrum & Kanban suited to team and projects
  • Emphasized software quality; established clear coding guidelines; thorough design and code reviews and use of wikis, continuous integration (Jenkins), static code analysis (Klocwork), unit and functional testing tools (Check, Robot Framework)

Project: Integration of a new Wi-Fi chipset on BlackBerry10

  • Led project team of 6 developers spread across multiple development sites
  • Managed relationship with a large chipset vendor and worked together to implement and support:
  • Hardware bring-up and porting to QNX/BlackBerry 10 OS
  • RF hardware calibration and validation at the factory
  • Station mode, Mobile Hotspot and Wi-Fi Direct/P2P functionality including Wi-Fi Display
  • Product Wi-Fi Alliance certification
  • Implemented functionality between the BlackBerry proprietary WLAN Manager, customized version of the open source WPA supplicant and a network driver within the QNX io-pkt stack (based on NetBSD)
  • Led investigation and resolution of complex system level issues ranging from subsystem interaction during startup to poor battery life performance

Key Accomplishments:

  • Achieved fastest productization of a new Wi-Fi chipset on a BlackBerry phone, with KPIs (throughput, power, driver stability) meeting or exceeding mature solutions
  • Championed and established processes for effective joint development with vendor

Project: Design of telephony middleware for BlackBerry10

  • Led a project team of 9 developers, a majority of whom were new to QNX and C development
  • Designed and built a critical system service from the ground up which provided:
  • A framework to support call control, call history and settings for multiple phone “lines”
  • Utilities for phone number manipulation (formatting, “smart” dialling & canonical representation)
  • A cellular phone “line” (for both GSM & CDMA technologies) as per requirements from carriers
  • High availability and reliability for emergency call scenarios
  • Implemented modules for a QNX Persistent Publish/Subscribe based JSON API parser/dispatcher; state machines for the phone/call and audio subsystems and other core framework components responsible for threading, event management and logging

Key Accomplishments:

  • Achieved design goals of building a reliable service capable of recovery from a process crash mid-call; passed architecture review board and security research group audits with no resulting change requests
  • Successfully staged deliverables to aggressively enable alpha, pre-certification and field testing
  • Mentored and built an effective agile team whose “definition of done” set a high quality bar

Software Developer, QNX Platform Team
February 2011 - February 2012 (1 year 1 month)

Member of a rapid prototyping team on the leading edge of BlackBerry’s transition to the QNX OS

  • Messaging, SMTP functionality on Personal Information Manager (PIM) prototype on PlayBook
  • Networking functionality on a BlackBerry JVM on PlayBook email over Wi-Fi demo
  • Basic Facebook functionality (get friend list, post to wall) for a native application demo
  • Driver for a tunable capacitance controller (STHVDAC-303) for a hardware team prototype

Software Developer, WLAN Radio & IP Transport
June 2008 - February 2011 (2 years 9 months)

WLAN Protocols & Firmware Developer, Intern

May 2006 - September 2007 (1 year 4 months)

Member of a team that worked on the first dual-radio Wi-Fi capable BlackBerry devices

  • Maintained the core Wi-Fi stack and ported multiple vendor network drivers to the BlackBerry RTOS
  • Implemented standard and proprietary IEEE 802.11 features covering power management, quality of service, call admission control, regulatory domain, rate adaptation, connection and scan management
  • Experienced in IEEE 802.11 and TCP/IP protocol analysis through numerous investigations of connectivity and Wi-Fi interoperability issues reported by customers and field testers
  • Implemented a DNS stub resolver for the BlackBerry IPv4 stack; also maintained DHCP, ARP clients
  • Devoted significant time and effort to maximising battery life performance; BlackBerry’s “always on” Wi-Fi use cases required aggressive power saving techniques with complex trade offs
  • Profiled and improved TCP and UDP throughput performance on multiple hardware platforms
  • Eliminated all instances where the Wi-Fi stack starved JVM UI threads beyond 60 fps budget
  • Recognized by team for taking initiative to improve code quality and eliminating technical debt
  • Developed a popular tool to perform “shelving” on Perforce clients (before it was added in version 2009.2)
  • Mentored new employees and delivered Wi-Fi training to remote product development sites
  • Involved in Wi-Fi chipset evaluation and selection for future products

Key Accomplishments:

  • Led efforts to port the core Wi-Fi and VPN stacks to the Qualcomm REX OS to support CDMA device variants; the resulting code reuse was considered a big win for the department as highlighted by the VP
  • Led Wi-Fi development on several BlackBerry phones (Storm2, Tour2, Curve 8530, Style), from hardware bring-up of chipsets to supporting Wi-Fi Alliance certification programs

EDUCATION

mcgill

B.Eng Honours Electrical Engineering – Internship Program, 2002-2008

McGill University, Montreal, Canada

CGPA 3.44/4.0

Electives

  • Microprocessor Systems, Computer Architecture, Operating Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Signal Processing Hardware, Computer Graphics, Telecom Network Architecture

Selected Projects

  • Honours Thesis: Hardware acceleration of Particle Systems using Cell Broadband Engine (2007-2008)
  • Microprocessor Systems: Project included wiring and writing drivers for peripheral devices including a character LCD, touch screen pixel LCD, Real Time Clock, and an 802.11b chip on a TI MSP430 microprocessor based development board with an Altera Max-II CPLD (2005)

HOBBIES & INTERESTS

  • Self development and continuous learning; taken MOOCs ranging from Data Analysis to Economic Policymaking
  • Fan of fantasy and science fiction books; webcomics; film, music festivals and British TV shows
  • Travel and adventure; took a year off to travel and seek out thrilling and rejuvenating experiences around the world, from snorkelling around remote islands in Palawan, Philippines to hurtling down sand dunes in Swakopmund, Namibia

Shirish Baskaran | shirish.baskaran@gmail.com