Derek Smith
Derek Smith
Phone: 604-512-2856
Email: derek@missionguru.com
Skype: Jetstar9
Linked In:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=2321629&trk=tab_pro
About Me
Internationally experienced engineering manager with more than 14 years professional experience
driving software engineering projects through software development life cycles.
Senior Engineering QA Manager with 6 years building and defining verification teams from the
ground up in China for telecom optical products.
Agile Certified Scrum Master.
Professional Experience
Mission Guru (Online Event Planning SaaS)
October 2011 – present
Product Manager
Beijing, China
Job Function
 Responsible for the Software Design, Requirements, Test, Project Management and ongoing release of an
Events Planning software run as an SaaS.
 Responsible for initializing the Operations of the software through Beta Release with key customers.
 Presentations, and ongoing collaboration with customers to incorporate customer driven software
changes, or defects from initial design through to soft launch.
 I was responsible for Redesigning the Software by creating the Full System Requirements Documents.
 Set up the entire test suite, and managed testing through multiple pre-release testing, and product design
changes.
 Business and product analysis for proof of concept, and product viability.
 Business and pricing analysis with our direct, and indirect competition.
 Set up all of the training manuals, videos, customer documentation.
Skills
 Enhanced my ability to create User Interface design, as well as working environment and work flow for our
product line.
 Understanding of LAMP configurations, and scripting with PHP, and MySQL databases.
Achievements
 I was able to soft launch our product and start the company marketing SEO, SEM marketing campaigns.
 Currently support ongoing growth of customers, and customer product demonstrations.
Cortina Systems (ASIC FW and SW for PON Systems)
December 2008 – March 2011
Systems Verification Manager
Shanghai, China
Job Function
 Responsible to staff, and manage multiple test teams to deliver EPON ASIC chips that support integrated
hardware, and turnkey system software solutions in an exceptionally competitive IOP market.
 Cross functional group work with Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, and Marketing, to outline
the upcoming releases, organize the scope for each release, and assign the resources.
 Continuous collaboration with the Project Managers to create and maintain a project schedule, and assign
test engineers to complete the release tasks, with a statistically known definition of done.
 Defined the Automation Architecture and delegated the automation testing tasks.
 Responsible for creating test reports to customers, as well as metrics about testing including defect rates,
man hours spent for the release, velocity curves, and defect management meetings with marketing (bug
scrub).
 Facilitated the Release Testing Process through test case creation, reviews, system build, and testing.
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Test work included new features testing, and maintenance releases for 7 incumbent and international
customers which incorporated our ASICs into their Systems Solutions.
 Created the Customer Reporting structure inside of Cortina, and managed the ongoing field issues
reproductions and reports.
Skills
 Chip level, and system level knowledge of EPON technologies, and applications.
 Ethernet knowledge of MAC, PHY, QOS, Security, Authentication, Layer2 Protocols, VLAN, STP, LAG,
Protection Switching, both from international standards, as well as CTC standards.
 Strong organization, and time management skills to delegate the testing tasks, and itemize the critical path
to completion.
 Strong time estimation and work effort estimation skills to outline up to 3 simultaneous customer releases,
and sharing of resources.
 Powerful imagination to create a vision about the teams, environment, philosophy, and innovative ways to
solve problems.
Achievements
 Built the Cortina Quality Assurance teams with direct headcount 12+, and processes from the ground up.
 Architected the new Engineering lab with AutoCAD, and oversaw the construction of design, move, and
integration of the engineering practices.
 Wrote a stand-alone customer GUI software (VB, and C) startup configuration editor tool.
 Implemented Automation framework, and guided automation team using iTest.
 Created the new generation Optical Line Terminal SDK User’s manual from inception, and managed a 3
people team to write a 500 page technical document in 2 months or less.
 Passed ISO 9000 Qualification for Lab Facility, and SVT Engineering Process.
 As a contribution to Cortina and its staff, I organized and held weekly ‘English Fun’ training nights for the
first half of a year.
Salira Systems (EPON Systems and Software)
May 2005 – Dec 2008
Systems Verification Manager
Shanghai, China
Job Function
 Organized the functional scope in each release.
 Task assigned work to the test engineers, and ensured they were well informed of their deliverables.
 Consistently well prepared in team meetings, presentations, and weekly reporting.
 Effective communication as a liaison between China and Santa Clara to ensure the engineering teams were
directed to the same release goals.
 Assisted in testing, automation, writing, and all software release processes.
 Outlined the best testing practices through new feature development, and regression testing.
 Maintained Releases for China, and International customers.
 Created all of the Release Reports including the Release Notes, and ensured the bug scrub with marketing.
Skills:
 Effective management capability, organizational ability, documentation and presentation skills necessary
to inspire and assign multiple ongoing projects, and multiple manned test teams.
 Excellent training skills to guide and mentor the technical knowledge of the test engineers.
 Technical deep knowledge of the EPON systems OLT, ONU, and user interfaces.
Achievements:
 Promoted to Systems Verification Manager from Lead Engineer.
 Hired and Built a 12 person Test Engineering team which won the “best team” prize each year I have run
the group, and every year after.
 Implementation of Verification Structure including test case management, structure of testing, reporting,
project timelines.
 Designed 2 new lab facilities in Shanghai for SVT, and for the Engineering SW/SVT teams.
 Created an Automation Framework, and supporting Training/Development website to facilitate a multi
man automation effort.
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Solely created training documents, and facilitated a 2 week- 40 person training seminar in Mexico City
about the technical bring up of Salira EPON solutions.
Leader axt Philadelphia’s 2008 International Cable Tech Trade show, where I installed and ran Salira’s tech
booth.
Supported International training of customers on the Salira Product line in Mexico, Malaysia, Hong Kong,
USA, and China.
Worked in Japan Hitachi for 3 weeks bringing up and testing 2 new optical line cards, including qualifying
the lasers, and optical stability.
Ciena Corporation – ONI Systems (DWDM Metro Systems Solutions)
Nov 2000 – May 2004
Lead Systems Test Engineer
San Jose, California
Job Function
 Prime Lead in creating Test Strategies, Test Plans and Documentation for key release features with
customer impact.
 Designed, built and troubleshot Ciena’s Metro DWDM Optical Systems in greenfield scenarios.
 Worked with hardware, software, marketing and systems engineering to resolve defects, meet standards,
and ensure system integrity through feature testing, legacy, and upgrades.
 Trained product line marketing group on system functionality for directed selling features of product.
 Characterized Transient Response throughout system, and at the circuit pack level.
 Software testing of transport, and administrative layer including PPP, DCC and OSPF.
 Tested protection architectures with Optical and Sonet - UPSR, BLSR.
 Tested Power Management Algorithms through Passive and Active components. VOA controllers, variable
gain EDFAs, Optical Switches.
 Hosted presentations to team on Routing Protocols OSPF – RIP - BGP, and Reed Solomon Encoding.
 Capacity testing of OC 3 – 192, Forward Error Correction, GBE and 10 GBE Ethernet.
Skills:
 Knowledge of EDFA’s non linear optical characteristics, and tested the transient responses to turn on, turn
off, and protected switch behaviors.
 Lab equipment hands on knowledge with Omniber, Anritsu, Ixia, Agilent, JDSU oscilloscopes, optical
spectrum analyzers, traffic generators, VOA modules, multiplexers, power and wave meters.
 I am fully confident and capable to work in the optical spectrum, with most optical equipment.
Achievements:
 Promoted from Senior Engineer to Lead Test Engineer, and was leader to small project teams.
 Directed division documentation and contributed to outlining verification gates in product cycle.
Education
Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) Electronic Systems Engineering
University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Agile Scrum Master Certification
Additional Work Experience
Ceta Research
May 2000 – Sept 2000
Canada France Hawaii Telescope
May 1999 – Aug 1999
Nortel OC192 Long Haul
Jan 1998 – April 1998
Nortel Global Initiatives
Sept 1997 – Dec 1997
Nortel Wireless
Jan 1997 – April 1997
Languages:
English (Fluent)
French (Basic-Intermediate)
Mandarin (Basic-Intermediate)