OBJECTIVE 

A Release Management position in an established major organization at the forefront of technology.

PROFILE 

A highly analytical Release Manager with extensive programming experience and the ability to devise and implement Configuration and Release Management processes. A committed team player and motivator able to work under extreme pressure individually or as part of a team.

SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS 

[snip] :

1) Wrote a benchmark program to test new hardware which simulated the main application program without manual interaction. Later expanded to measure database performance.

2) The benchmark software was adopted by ORACLE. They dissected the code and analysed the queries to identify any performance issues in their Beta versions of new releases.  ORACLE were able to test their database software with a real application program.

3) Changed the hardware from Pyramid to Cray by porting the application software from the old platform to a new one. Ensured that the system operated efficiently. The new platform was operational within 1 month.

4) Ran a one week generic C programming course for 20 employees enabling them to program the main application software. One business analyst was sufficiently inspired to become a C programming contractor. 

[snip] :

Changed the part of the release mechanism releasing code into the production environment by using HP’s own release mechanism. This provided a much safer and more reliable way of releasing code into the production site. 

[snip] :

1) The entire application was upgraded from ORACLE 7 to ORACLE 8i over a period of 6 months while maintenance continued. The situation was complicated by three clients upgrading at different times. Satisfactorily ran old and new systems in parallel for six months.

2) Ported the entire application from IBM-DYNIX to SUN-Solaris within one month.

3) Changed one interface program using TCP/IP network protocol instead of X25. Saved the client additional software licence costs.

Education

01.07.1987 – 30.12.1987  Masters degree in computer science (Diplom-Informatiker Univ.).

                                          Masters thesis at the “Institut für Betriebssysteme” (Institute for Operating Systems) of the Friedrich-Alexander Universität,  Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. 

1980 – 1987                      Computer science degree at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität,  Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. 

1975 – 1979                      ‘A’ Levels (Abitur) in Maths, Physics, German and Social History at Gesamtschule Ebern Gymnasium, Germany.

Employment History

16.11.2005 –                        [snip] Release Manager at [snip] Plc

[snip] Plc acquired the software developed by [snip] Group Ltd. The newly created team is to provide quality software for its wealth management teams.

• For software delivery liaise with the stakeholders of the testing and production support teams.
• Advise to project and test managers on best practice in regards to software releases.
• Introduction of the Configuration Management tool (ClearCase and ClearQuest) currently using CVS.
• As part of the development responsible for software development as C and ORACLE developer using WINDOWS XP and UNIX (IBM-AIX).
• Reviewed and updated programming standards for C, UNIX and ORACLE Reports.
• Documented the products, processes and procedures used by [snip] aiding the set-up process at Barclays.
• Devised together with team leader the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
• Developed in-house software to assist the implementation of the SDLC.

01.11.2004 – 07.06.2005     Release Manager at [snip] Ltd

[snip] supplies services to three clients in the deregulated telephone and energy supply markets.

• Managed the Release Management team consisting of two configuration managers and three DBAs. The RM team managed the deployment of the application software to the three clients’ sites and also the internal 30+ development and test environments.
• Ensured that the release process was adhered to by all development teams according to the ITIL model.
• Created standard deployment and rollback plan for each deployment into any production site.
• Ensured that a detailed deployment and rollback plan for larger project deployments had been developed and checked by all involved parties.
• Managed the deployment schedule, which was published on the intranet. It showed all the releases for the three clients into production and their related dates, e.g. dates for billing run, code freeze, sign-off date and deployment dates.
• Deputised for the Configuration Manager (CM Synergy) in his absence. Improved performance by writing scripts to simplify repetitive CM tasks using UNIX-LINUX, SOLARIS and WINDOWS XP.

24.02.2001 – 31.10.2004     Release Manager at [snip] Group Ltd

[snip] Group is owned by [snip], one of Canada’s biggest investment banks. [snip] was founded to supply British subsidiaries of [snip] with IT solutions for their brokers and currently provides on-going development and support to clients using its front and back office software.

• Managed all releases for clients to all test environments and the day-to-day bug fixing and project work at [snip]. This included improvement to the in-house release software. As the Release Manager, organised the successful and correct releasing of the client and server side software.
• Maintained and managed the in-house release software written under UNIX (IBM-DYNIX, SOLARIS, LINUX) and WINDOWS NT and later XP in Pro*C. On UNIX there are also Korn shell scripts to build the code for three different versions of UNIX and to apply changes (like packages, views, triggers) into the database. The in-house system and the release process were constantly improved to maintain a high quality of releases in the ever changing world of software development. This software had to be adapted to provide build functionality for new hardware.
• Designed and developed major change to the release mechanism whereby the software was no longer pushed into the production site but pulled. The release can now be performed in two phases. Firstly the code is pulled into a quarantine area, which allows the client (if required) to verify the code deployment (via documentation and checksums). Once the client agrees with the deployment the code is deployed into the production site. The software to be deployed is staged on a special Windows PC to prevent unwanted access of [snip] or client staff to either computer systems.
• Advised the Project Managers on good practice in regards to possible release dates, the contents of releases and of any possible problems with a release.
• Produced release documentation including detailed module list.
• Ported the application software to several different platforms and modified the release mechanism to build the application for the new platforms in parallel with the existing platforms. The IBM-AIX port provided an additional challenge as the FORMS front-end of the application was now also to run under UNIX and not as for the other platforms under Windows, which meant that this front-end software needed to be built automatically under Windows and IBM-AIX.
• Ensured that the release process (part of the SDLC) was adhered to according to the ITIL model.

07.07.1997 – 23.02.2001     Release Manager of the [snip] team at [snip] Group

·        First appointed sole Release Manager for the [snip] team, inherited a user-unfriendly in-house system based on ORACLE Forms 3 and Korn shell scripts. Ugraded the system to provide logging information for accountability thereby simplifying the whole process.

·        Re-wrote the release mechanism after the introduction of Rational’s ClearCase, ClearGuide and DDTS. Instead of an ORACLE Forms application successfully re-wrote as a C and Pro*C application utilising the existing Korn shell scripts under UNIX HP-UX, again the whole process was simplified. A successful release to any test environment was performed by the press of a button. Manual intervention was only required in the event of build problems.

·        Involved in the upgrade project of 500 forms from ORACLE Forms 3 to ORACLE Forms 6 (three tier architecture) and 350 reports converting from ReportWriter V2.5 to ReportWriter V6. Managed the build of the old software while still being used in production into the relevant test enviroments while the new software was tested in a separate parallel test environment. Managed the cut-over of the application software build from the old software to the new software to minimise the risk of old software being released into the new system.

·        Ensured that the development and release processes (SDLC) were adhered to by the development team according to the ITIL model. 

09.12.1991 – 04.07.1997     Senior Analyst Programmer at [snip]

01.12.1987 – 30.09.1991     System Analyst at [snip] – Portierbare Betriebsssyteme, Requirement- und Softwareengineering GmbH, Erlangen – Tennenlohe, Germany