Sr. Software Engineer

10+ years professional experience in the development of compilers, software tools, and programming at the software-hardware interface on both production and pre-production platforms. 10+ years development of desktop applications and platforms.

Skills and Expertise

• C, C++, Java, Common Lisp, Scheme (extensive programming experience)
• HTML, Python, Javascript, Prolog, Pascal, Ada, Standard ML, Smalltalk (working knowledge)
• UI toolkit and event-driven programming
• Multi-platform development (Windows, MacOS, Linux)
• Compilers: parsing, semantic analysis, code generation, optimization
• Static program analysis and verification tools
• Dynamic binary translation and VM-based language runtimes
• Industry-standard PC (x86) platform architecture
• Hardware-level (device driver/kernel) programming and debugging
• Hardware lab procedures and use of test equipment, e.g., PCI and USB bus analyzers
• Implementation of interactive programming environments (“on-the-fly” analysis)
• Programming language extensibility and generative programming

Professional Experience

Adobe Systems, San Jose, CA (12/2009-present)

Sr. Computer Scientist - SW Dev.

Virtual machine development for Actionscript (extended Javascript with bytecode representation and optional static typing).

• Maintenance, feature development, and optimization of the Actionscript 3 virtual machine.
• Principal maintainer of the Actionscript VM in the Adobe Flash Runtime from 2015 to product end-of-life. Projects included security hardening of the JIT and memory allocator and ports to additional platforms.

Maintenance and feature development for Adobe Media Encoder.

• Projects included an overhaul and continued maintenance of a media encoding server, integration of new codecs into the desktop product, and diagnosing performance issues.

Maintenance and feature development for (Photoshop) Neural Filters.

• Projects included a ground-up re-engineering of the graph construction API and serialization machinery for the graph-based image processing library that serves as the C++ core of the product.

Development of server infrastructure for generative AI products/services including Adobe Firefly.

• Contributed to development of a server based on infrastructure repurposed from Neural Filters (C++).
• Developed Python bindings for the re-engineered graph-construction API.
• Contributed to development of a new server infrastructure for generative AI services (Python).

Cadence Design Systems, San Jose, CA (9/2008-1/2009)

Architect

Member of a four-person team building Newspeak, a Smalltalk-derived language and platform for collaborative networked applications. (Project terminated and position eliminated in restructuring.)

• Trimmed down the Squeak virtual machine for use with Newspeak and prepared our version for external open-source release.
• Performed preliminary design of a VM-level object serialization mechanism to allow bootstrapping from an empty Squeak VM without a base image.

Google, Mountain View, CA (4/2007-9/2008)

Software Engineer

As member of the C/C++ compiler team, contributed to ongoing GCC community compiler development efforts, including gimple-tuples and LTO (link-time optimizer).

• Implemented serialization of types and global declarations for LTO.
• Converted optimization passes to new tuples-based IR.
• Corrected issues in Google codebase revealed by new compiler releases.

Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (11/2000-3/2007)

Member of the Technical Staff

Implemented enhancements and fixes to Code Morphing Software (CMS) for Crusoe and Efficeon processors. Implemented validation and optimization tools.

• Developed a CMS workaround for USB transfer glitches in audio streams that had become a major customer issue.
• Implemented a virtualized (CMS-emulated) northbridge configuration and legacy VGA interface (HW control registers) for a Crusoe-derived system-on-a-chip.
• Adapted CMS power management code for the new SOC platform.
• Implemented thermal diode calibration mechanism for Efficeon CMS.
• Diagnosed CMS failures during Efficeon bringup and validation.
• Identified a race condition in the Linux kernel pagefault handler as the actual cause of system failures originally attributed to CMS.
• Extended a static pipeline hazard checking tool to check dynamic translations generated by CMS, closing a significant gap in testing coverage.
• Implemented core infrastructure for a link-time “whole program” optimizer and retained responsibility for core architecture for the duration of the project.

Sun Microsystems, Cupertino, CA (6/1997-10/2000)

Staff Engineer

Technical lead for the JDK reference compiler (‘javac’) in the Java Software division.

• Transitioned the compiler to new purchased codebase, including acceptance testing, preparing early-access release, and adapting for full command-line compatibility with previous compiler.
• Coordinated with compiler vendor; relayed bug reports and integrated code drops.
• Directed work of an additional half-time engineer working on the compiler.
• Presented compiler roadmap and fielded community feedback at the annual JDK Tools and Libraries birds-of-a-feather session at JavaOne.

Member of the Technical Staff

Member of the ‘javac’ engineering team.

• Evaluated, prioritized, and resolved compiler bug reports. Provided feedback to users and licensees.
• Corrected numerous failures of the reference compiler to conform to published language specification, allowing company to strengthen conformance testing of licensee products.
• Coordinated closely with the Java specification lead during preparation of JLS 2e to assure resolution of errors and omissions in the first edition exposed by bug reports against the compiler.
• Co-authored a white paper on the eve of annual JavaOne trade event to counter a competitive attack.
• Advised JDK project management team in the rotating role of engineering liaison (“Lead Engineer”) during development of JDK 1.2.2.

Additional Relevant Experience

Graduate Student Researcher, UC Berkeley

• Designed and implemented an incremental “on-the-fly” static semantic analyzer for language-based programming environments. System translated declarative specifications in a DSL of my own design into an executable analyzer.
  Dissertation available online.
• Developed an extensible language and compiler permitting user-definition of additional language constructs while retaining robust error reporting and static typechecking.
  Report available online.

Research Programmer, Carnegie-Mellon University

• Designed and implemented a code generator for an Ada compiler.
• Developed an attribute grammar evaluator generator for static semantic analysis in a transformation-based programming environment.

Education

• Doctor of Philosphy, Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley
• Master of Science, Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley
• Bachelor of Science, Applied Mathematics, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh

Other

• Member Association for Computing Machinery
• Member IEEE Computer Society
• Awarded AT&T Bell Laboratories Scholarship
• Completed Adobe internal machine learning course (via Coursera)
• Avid collector of vintage minicomputers from the 1960s and 1970s