Paul Rimmer
23 Heritage Cove
De Winton, AB, T0L 0X0
(403) 616-0607

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I am an enthusiastic, highly productive, team player with strong engineering, problem solving, communication and leadership skills. Fully trained in structured software development, technically proficient, self-disciplined, articulate and able to learn and apply new concepts quickly.

Work Experience

Novatel Wireless: Consultant, Calgary (March 2007 to January 2012)

• Member of the Calgary Firmware team working on adding new functionality and debugging issues with Arm 9, Arm 11 and TI OMAP processor based 3G/4G modems and mobile WiFi hotspot devices utilizing Qualcomm's cellular stack and proprietary OS, and the Linux OS.
• Work included developing/debugging numerous functionality from web interfaces, AT and serial diagnostic commands down to U-Boot and flash, file system and USB drivers under Linux and Qualcomm's proprietary OS.
• Developed Perl build scripts with GUI's to hook into PVCS and Perforce to generate internal and external releases and to automate merges of code drops from Qualcomm.
• Setup Continuous Improvement build server to reduce time between finding and fixing build errors using the Jenkins open source project and Git version control system.

General Dynamics Canada: Consultant, Calgary (October 2004 to December 2006)

• Provided technical direction and development expertise for the implementation of the LES for Canadian Military LCSS program to provide a bridge/router/switch between Ethernet devices and the proprietary Iris vehicle network.
• Work included: adding custom functionality to U-Boot boot loader, debugging Linux kernel on new target, porting drivers from 2.4 to 2.6 Linux kernel, building web pages using shell based cgi-scripts to provide real time device information, developing set of startup Linux scripts to configure device as needed and building multiple custom applications running under Linux OS.
• Evaluated multiple OS’s and provided a paper detailing selection criteria and final recommendation (ELDK from Denx) for a new LAN Ethernet Switch (LES) for the Canadian military.

ATVFrontier.com: Webmaster, Calgary (May 2004 to Present)

• Built an Internet portal, atvfrontier.com for an online ATVing community.
• Developed custom modules requiring PHP, JavaScript and MySQL capabilities to integrate Google Maps into the portal.

General Dynamics Canada: Consultant/Team Lead, Calgary (October 2001 to April 2004)

• Hired into the firmware group to lead a team to implement portions of the firmware aspects of the Bowman communications system in Ada for the British army.
• Enabled aggressive schedule to be met by recommending the appropriate people and working with them in a close teamwork environment to meet the project milestones.
• Integrated Greenhills Ada runtime and associated tool set on Coldfire architecture target hardware.
• Was made responsible for, and then met, all requirements for first firmware milestone from a technical, problem solving standpoint.
• Made proposal to management to change the firmware development plan for one of the hardware components resulting in cost and schedule savings.
• Designed ICE/Broadcast flash capabilities taking CCA flash times down from approx. 20 to 3 mins. and giving the ability to load all CCA’s of one type simultaneously, realizing huge savings in time and money.
• Key member of an R&D design team that produced a new architecture for future GD firmware applications utilizing open source OS’s, protocols and development tools. Key goals that were achieved included: extendibility, maintainability and modularization via abstraction of key interfaces.
• Using new architecture, an open source OS (Linux based uClinux) and existing hardware we were able to rapid prototype a system providing large pieces of existing system functionality (and more) with a fraction of the resources.

Wi-LAN Inc: Consultant/Team Lead, Calgary (June 1999 to October 2001)

• Developed software for a prototype FPGA based, wireless, Ethernet bridge, including development of flash, serial, Ethernet, DMA, FPGA, DSP and other peripheral drivers for the onboard Motorola PPC 860.
• Designed, developed and debugged host processor interfaces to Xilinx FPGA based Reed Solomon forward error correction device and TI 6211 DSP.
• Led team of developers responsible for the MAC FW for the OFDM based Ethernet bridge product, that designed and implemented a proprietary, polling based, RF protocol for a fixed wireless network.
• Debugged prototype hardware using oscilloscope, logic analyzer and multimeter.
• Used BDM and JTAG debuggers (Singlestep, Code Composer) to integrate software on target hardware.
• Convinced incumbent developers and management to integrate a COTS RTOS (Precise MQX) into product.
• Interviewed and recommended personnel for hiring as software team size grew from 2 to 20 people.
• Encouraged adoption of SW processes including: peer reviews, version control, SW defect/change tracking.
• Investigated, acquired and became proficient with development tools including: Smartbits traffic generators, HP Integrated Logic Analyzer/Scope/Emulator, Sniffer traffic generation and capture SW, Codewright IDE and SourceSafe version control SW.

Computing Devices Canada: Senior Firmware Engineer/Consultant, Calgary (November 1993 to June 1999)

• Senior member of the HIDS firmware team working on several portions of the IRIS Communications System for the Canadian Department of Defense.
• Led the Network Infrastructure problem resolution team responsible for analyzing and solving all problems related to the HIDS firmware infrastructure during key System Integration periods.
• Member of the small team responsible for implementing the LAN/LDN firmware for the Iris Project.
• Implemented proprietary protocols to support LAN Management and data routing in order to provide rapid determination of LAN topology and a robust and survivable network.
• Implemented algorithms to handle Simplex and Duplex devices residing on the same LAN, as well as having to support a legacy device that did not support new protocols and routing (NSR).
• Developed the Host portion of a shared memory, multiprocessor interface between a 68020 host, TI C25 Fast Packet Switch DSP and TI C52 Voice Processor DSP that allows the Host to initialize, control and act on responses from the DSPs.
• Developed Host firmware to control the virtual circuit routing on the Fast Packet Switch.
• Verified the interface to Trunk Network Interface Cards developed by subcontractors.
• Designed, implemented and integrated the man machine interface firmware for all aspects of a User Control Device from telephony, radio, intercom and menuing applications to Keyboard, Display and Audio interaction and control.
• Developed device drivers for the User Control Device including the display, serial port and keypad.
• Developed code on a UNIX system using Rational Apex environment and VADS Ada compiler and kernel, then used workstations to interface to Emulators and debug code on the Target.
• Experienced in debugging down to the compiler generated assembly level in own code and into system calls inside the kernel.
• Familiar with the issues involved in a multithreaded, real time environment including preemption, task prioritization, data protection and ISR compatibility.
• Provided informal supervision and guidance to several junior software engineers.
• Used Object Oriented analysis, design and programming techniques to develop software.
• Proficient in configuring and using development tools such as in-circuit emulators, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, terminal servers and network sniffers for target integration.
• Developed Tcl/Tk, expect, sed and awk scripts to perform automated testing of the firmware as part of the integration and problem resolution process.
• Produced documentation for software requirements and design using military standard 2167A.
• Received Secret, NATO and COMSEC security clearance levels.

Technical Expertise

• Operating Systems used include Embedded Linux, Greenhills Software runtime, Precise MQX, Rational VADS and home grown.
• Language experience includes Ada, Assembler, Basic, C, C++, Fortran, Javascript, Pascal, PHP, VB Script and Unix scripting with Tcl/Tk, Expect, sed and awk. Have developed SW/FW from high level applications to low level HW device drivers/ISR’s.
• Processors used include Motorola PowerPC 860/855/8260/5200, 680X0. Coldfires and Intel 8085.
• Trained in UML, inspection peer reviews, meeting moderation process and configuration management.
• Provide consulting expertise in various IT fields such as web, email, security, networking etc.

Education

• B. A. Sc., Electronic Systems Engineering, from the University of Regina, class of 1993.
• Researched, designed and built the hardware and firmware for a remote, weather data acquisition unit for fourth year thesis that won the 1993, Faculty IEEE award.
• Spent three semesters in the faculty of Computer Science and one semester traveling Europe.
• Graduated from Miller High School, Regina, in 1985, at age 16.
• Began High School at St. Edward's College in Liverpool, England, on an academic scholarship.

Activites and Interests

• Enjoy woodworking, soccer, hiking, backpacking, reading and restoring and modifying cars.
• Captain of a competitive soccer team in the city CMCSA soccer league.
• Owner of Ronin Technologies Inc. embedded software engineering consulting company I formed in 1997.

References

• Available upon request.