Mo Khan's Outlet!: My Professional Software Engineering Background...Part 2

Job #12: Leave TV Technology and find a job in Cloud Computing 2021-Beyond - Amazon Web Services - Senior Software Engineering Manager - Jan 2021 - Present

[2020] In 2020 I decided that I can't spend my whole professional life just working in Video/TV products. I planned to jump on to a new domain to see the rest of my career through. I'd identified Cloud Computing as the place to be to stop me from becoming a dinosaur - remain relevant. Personally I think the Video Entertainment space has become overcrowded and a commodity technology. I want to go back to innovation and work in a pure engineering organisation. I joined AWS in January 2021, relocated to Cape Town, South Africa!

[2022] Role is a Senior Software Manager for Kumo, AWS Support based in Cape Town. Kumo builds various tooling & services for AWS Support business. AWS Support is a multibillion dollar business that continues to grow exponentially, one of the fastest growing business units in AWS. As such, Kumo builds tooling that can scale to meet the growing demands of AWS Support workforce of up 20 thousand people, most of which are highly technical support engineers.

I'm responsible for building Workflow & Analytics services for AWS Support business units. Essentially this is about owning slices of a complex contact center platform used behind the scenes of AWS Support Center. My teams build case routing management and decision support systems as well as platform intelligence dashboards to help AWS Support Operations optimize workforce management, agent productivity and business metrics.

As a Senior manager I am responsible for setting and delivering business & product strategy end-to-end. Amazon is about scaling leadership by pushing decision-making to the lowest level. As a Senior Manager there is a great deal of trust empowered to me, such that I share responsibility for making decisions that has global impact (AWS operates in 192+ countries around the world and AWS Support is in every region, 24x7 follow-the-sun model):

Leading product managers and engineering managers, in the 18 months to date (from Jan 2021-Aug 2022), here's some highlights:

Recovered a distressed software development team that, before my time, had a churn of 5 SDMs, lacked team charter, tenets, strategy and direction - by creating stability, providing guidance to engineers and sourcing a new SDM to replace my interim role. The team is now set up for success to lead and enhance product line for AWS Support Dashboard & Performance Metrics intelligence services. This team has the highest job satisfaction and management satisfaction scores in my org, is one of the happiest, engaged engineering team.
Delivered successful migration of legacy stack in China region in under six months to meet regulatory deadline
Expanded development teams by scaling & introducing new managers
Delivered on complex migration program replacing decade+ old Amazon retail contact center with a new in-house contact center tailored specifically for AWS Support. We migrated 10k+ Premium/Enterprise support engineers and Customer Support engineers to the new Support/Case Console stack with zero downtime, rollback or interruption of services to AWS customers
Assigned as Single Threaded Leader to manage and drive through complex migration program end-to-end
Secured funding for new investment in building next generation AI/ML-powered routing services by setting up a brand new team in 2022, and delivering a roadmap/strategy to get to end goal
Managing a team of 3+ Senior Product Managers and 3+ Software Development managers with an org-size of up to 50 engineers (2022 headcount 32) planned
GM-Delegate for critical customer events, empowered to make decisions that impact AWS's global customer base and global support engineers

[2023] In October 2023, I was given additional GM-like responsibilities for Kumo Cape Town, appointed as Single Threaded Leader for AWS's Contact Center and Case Management platform, responsible for product & engineering. Here's part of the announcement email:

All,

I want to share an announcement made in Cape Town this week: Muhammad Khan (“Mo”) will be the single-threaded leader for Case Management. For the products and services in his portfolio (CC, S-API, Contacts, Routing, Next Gen, Dashboards, TS Tooling, C-API, and Config) Mo will be accountable for stakeholder relations, product vision and roadmaps, goal prioritization and execution, and resource allocation and trade-offs.

With the presence of many interconnected and interdependent Case Management services, the previous flat structure resulted in escalations across time zones to resolve issues spanning multiple teams. This change will empower Mo and his local leaders to make high-velocity decisions that reflect the best information in their areas. All the Case Management teams will roll up under Mo, and J, K and J will now report to him.

Mo is an experienced senior technical leader. Prior to AWS, he was the CTO of Connected Video Platforms at MultiChoice, responsible for 150+ engineers bringing online video to 55 countries in Africa. In Kumo, Mo was the single-threaded leader across all Case Management teams for our most important VP-level goal in 2022 — the successful migration of Support to CC. In 2023, his teams have improved routing performance and business metrics through capabilities such as TBR, are enhancing contact high availability global resiliency, and are making significant progress towards our multi-year Next Gen vision.

Mo and the leadership team have the passion, knowhow, and expertise to guide Case Management through dynamic times... Thank you for your support as we continue to refine our organization design to advance our strategic objectives.

Thanks,

P

Job #11: CTO/Head of Technology at Multichoice Connected Video (April 2017 - October 2020)

Key Competencies: Technology Leadership & Transformation, People management, OTT Video Services

Details of Note

DStv launches 4K Decoder and OTT Streama Device

Africa's Biggest TV Operator Launches Streaming Soccer Service, Showmax Pro July '20

DStv Now breaks new streaming record in 2019 Rugby World Cup Finals
DStv Now wins best media app for second time in Ghana
Multichoice demonstrates Africa-first 4K streaming OTT for FIFA2018 world cup
DStv Now launch on Smart TVs & XBox (Samsung, LG, Hisense. XBox)
DStv Now released on Apple TV

Hired primarily to help turnaround a distressed engineering team that lacked: technical leadership, structure, process, discipline, dysfunctional teams, unstable platform, visionary leadership and a clear technology roadmap, objectives and clear KPIs/OKRs.

Ended up restructuring the unit, focused on simple incremental improvements to people and process and in a short space of time built enough credibility back into the engineering team: platform stability improved, delivery projects completed on time, people alignment, business stakeholder confidence renewed (scaled platform ~10X and still growing).

Decided to leave consulting and join as permanent employee because of the CTO challenges that lay ahead, the journey was only just starting (and I needed to see it through)
Focused on transforming and building future technology platform in the world of digital connected video for Africa.

Currently reporting to CEO, leading team of 100+ permanent and outsourced people building online video platform serving Web, iOS, Android, tvOS, Android TV, Smart TVs (LG, Samsung, HiSense), XBox, Connected STBs.

Managing Multiple lines of Technology, transforming to DevOps: Enterprise Architecture, Full Stack Software Delivery, BigData AI/ML Specialists Personalisation / Recommendations & Intelligence/Telemetry, Agile PMO, Infrastructure & Networking (Multi Datacentre hosting, Cloud AWS & Azure+ Multi-CDN) and Technical Operations/Monitoring & 3rd Party Integrations

Helping lead, transform, build and grow awesome world-class engineering teams (100+ people).
Responsible for a big budget, leading multi-faceted teams: Managing Multiple lines of Technology, transforming to DevOps: Enterprise Architecture, Full Stack Software Delivery, BigData AI/ML Specialists Personalisation / Recommendations & Intelligence/Telemetry, Agile PMO, Infrastructure & Networking (Multi Datacentre hosting, Cloud AWS & Azure+ Multi-CDN) and Technical Operations/Monitoring & 3rd Party Integrations.

Here's a list of achievements for the CV:

Catalysed change in thinking in managing total cost of ownership: buy versus build, partner more, improving focus
Celebrated people by winning group-worldwide recognition awards: Innovation in AI/ML, Test automation & App development
Closed security gaps in architecture/implementation that reduced risk of revenue leakage & subscription management
Created architectural platform vision for the new technology stack thus managing expectations of journey timelines
Created technical & financial model for forecasting platform costs, introducing cost per user economics never seen before
Deftly & tactfully negotiated contracts resulting in better relationships, support plans & drove additional cost savings
Delivered on key project & product roadmap items meeting business objectives for all fiscal years to date
Demonstrated cloud innovation in streaming by enabling Africa’s first 4K/UHD streams over Azure media services for FIFA’18
Drove cross-group consolidation of competencies, tools & technologies promoting reuse and improving synergies
Drove modern application development methods like feature flagging, A/B testing & application logging as well as common cross-platform application development framework on React.JS
Enabled development of in-house platform monitoring and intelligent dashboard tools improving NOC, 24/7 & command centre
Enhanced project and release management processes, ways-of-working improved resulting in on-time completion of projects
Enhanced testing coverage driving load, performance & scalability testing, automated on production during off-peak times
Expanded application device footprint 4X (introduced smart tvs, game consoles, new set top boxes, IP-only STB)
Grew & improved relationships with vendors to be partner focused, thus enjoying symbiotic relationships than before
Improved monitoring & execution of antipiracy initiatives by developing tools that enabled quick takedowns of pirate streams
Improved overall people engagement of division scoring highest management metric as measured by OfficeVibe tool
Improved platform availability from 97-98% (7-10 days yearly outage) to 99.8-99.9% (8.76-17 hours)
Improved relationships and working agreements with core customers by agreeing SLAs & metrics for performance
Increased engagement at least 2X year-on-year
Increased network throughput 10X breaking internet streaming records for Africa, up to 800Gbps on one event
Inherited technology stack with weak foundational architecture, massive technical debt causing instability
Instigated enterprise technology transformation by optimising and transferring people/skills to other departments
Instilled a sense-of-ownership and accountability for monitoring operations by upskilling & training programs
Introduced cloud transformation journey roadmap of at least 3 years: multi-DC app hosting, microservices, containers to AWS
Introduced Google’s Software Engineer in Testing capability, driving automation & completely removed manual testing
Introduced multi-CDN partnering capabilities for redundancy, cost & improving risk management for disaster recovery scenarios
Introduced new leadership roles, set the vision, mission & objectives for the division thus bringing order to chaos
Introduced new operational behaviours & mindset changes, dress rehearsals, large event preparation management processes
Introduced new SOPs albeit manual, that resulted in improving platform stability & uptime, reduction in incidents raised
Key contributor to enterprise-wide governance & steering councils: risk, governance, architecture, procurement & cloud
Made difficult technology decisions that negatively impacted team morale but nevertheless maintained best business interests
Managed a large budget excess of $30m YoY, operating largely within budget as well as delivering cost savings KPIs
Provide SME input into key business transformation program, replacing full IT CRM/BSS/Billing stack with brand new platform
Redesigned the organisational structure & technical platform strategy aligned to future business growth
Reduced costs by up to 70% on core infrastructure, saving group in the order of R100m over three years
Reduced total cost of ownership by moving away from in-house built purpose systems to partnerships & leveraging cloud
Resolved legacy technology components and services by offloading, de-supporting and transferring to other divisions
Scaled platform capability doubling YoY to 10X MAUs with 50%+ increased engagement meeting KPIs
Scaled the platform to 10X+ on monthly active users, total active users
Shaped the strategic direction of technical platform consolidation, at the risk of disrupting the status quo
Steered group's transformation to cloud services, improving stability & uptime e.g. AWS S3/CloudFront, Lambda
Successfully turned around a previously distressed, dysfunctional group, bringing clarity of focus & team cohesion
Transformed software engineering processes to full stack, paving the way for DevSecOps, removing silos across teams
Transitioned teams from textbook agile scrum methods to more fluid, generalised project execution tracks improving flexibility
Turned around governance for both internal and external audits, resulting in Green report within 12 months of a red report

Summary for CV:

CTO/HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY, Multichoice Connected Video, DStv Now, May ’17 - Oct'20

Build a high-performing engineering team, remove dysfunction, heal a distressed team. Build applications for high availability & scale. Manage video platform infrastructure and operations. Develop technology roadmap. Introduce new technologies & skills. Build world-class engineering team. Manage 120+ people, lead senior managers in Enterprise Architecture, Infrastructure, Networking CDN & Hosting, Software Delivery (Frontend, Backed, Testing), Agile PMO, AI/ML Platform Intelligence & Technical Operations 24/7 NOC/Customer Support.

Successfully turned around a previously distressed, dysfunctional group, bringing clarity of focus & team cohesion
Scaled platform capability doubling YoY to 6X++ MAUs with 15%+ increased engagement meeting KPIs
Redesigned the organisational structure, created technical platform strategy vision & roadmap aligned to business drivers
Managed a large budget excess of $30m (R500m), operating largely within budget as well as delivering cost savings KPIs
Made difficult technology decisions that negatively impacted team morale but nevertheless maintained best business outcomes
Rolled up sleeves and led from the frontlines during times of crisis management when dealing with major platform outages
Improved relationships and working agreements with core customers by agreeing SLAs & metrics for performance
Enhanced project and release management processes, ways-of-working improved resulting in on-time completion of projects
Introduced Google’s Software Engineer in Testing capability, driving automation & completely removed manual testing
Insisted on modern application development methods: feature flagging, A/B testing & application logging
Optimised application code management promoting cross-platform development framework on React.JS
Celebrated people by winning recognition awards: Innovation in AI/ML, Test automation & Best Employee of the Year
Improved people engagement results scoring highest manager metric in the business
Transformed software engineering processes to full stack, paving the way for DevSecOps, removing silos across teams
Developed platform monitoring and intelligent dashboard tools improving NOC, 24/7 operations & alerting
Led group's transformation to cloud services by example: improving stability & uptime e.g. AWS S3/CloudFront, Lambda
Delivered innovation in streaming by enabling Africa’s first 4K/UHD streams over Azure media services for FIFA’18
Deftly negotiated vendor contracts resulting in better relationships, support plans & drove additional cost savings

Job #10: Software & Systems Management Consultant (July 2013 - April 2018)

Key Competencies: Enterprise Programme management, Software Product Development & Lifecycle Management, Systems Integration Management, Software & Project Quality Assurance, FOSS Policy Management, Risk Management, Continuous Delivery, Agile/Scrum Consulting, Rescuing failing Projects, Organisational Re-structuring, Career Path Planning, Kicking-off new Projects

Details of Note

Naspers launch of ShowMax SVOD in South Africa to compete with Netflix

Expert end-to-end project leadership, full responsibility for project execution, managing cross

functional teams of large-scale programs (multiple teams, vendors, agents, 250+ people), across the

business:

Complete transformation & overhaul Video-on-Demand Strategy, Product Engineering & Operation Jan ’16 – Sep’17)

Digital Self Service 2.0 – Deliver a step change in customer digital & operations, reduce call centre costs (Mar ’16 – Dec’16)

Launch DStv Explora from product inception, launch & release updates & Africa expansion (June’11 – Sep’15)

Build a Start-up Business & Launch Showmax Netflix Competitor (Aug ’15) (Start-Up to Product Launch – BizTech streams)

Deliver Agile coaching sessions, Mentor managers, coach PMO members, provide general advisory to PMO & Strategy

Job #9: Manager: Decoder Strategic Planning - Multichoice (Dec 2011 - July 2013)

Key Competencies: People/Programme management, Software Product Development & Lifecycle Management, Systems Integration Management, Software & Project Quality Assurance, FOSS Policy Management, Risk Management, Continuous Delivery

Please visit this page to view this previous job specification

Details of Note
Multichoice launches DStv Explora into South Africa
DStv Explora into Rest of Africa

DStv Explora Team Video

I was essentially End-to-End/Enterprise Programme Manager, focused on Organisational and Project roles:

Organisational - Manager: Decoder Strategic Planning:

Manage through to completion Primary Project Delivery
Plan follow-on Project phases
Influence strategic direction of the business (from POCs to new technology provider relationships)
Consult on business/department process improvement initiatives (Development, SI, Test, Delivery, Product)

Implement software development best practices
Implement project & product management best practices
Influence and steer the group's FOSS (Free & Open Source Software) Policy

Member of Executive committee for FOSS decision making
Member of Process Improvement Steering Group

Change Agent – Department is far from being recognized as Software / Technology / Engineering house - I can help get the company to industry best practices
Coach/Mentor Team Leads & Other Managers
Personal Aims (Leverage Industry Best Practice):

NOT repeat same mistakes of previous projects in future projects!
Maintain a sense of realism in all initiatives
Help MultiChoice become an industry leader in DTV
Reduce the number of platforms to manage

Project - Overall SI Programme Manager (150+ people):

Own the High Level Planning (Collaborative)

Working through Technical Owners and Project Managers
Aligning all work-streams to ensure plans optimized for delivery timetable

Deliver (Basically Deliver or Die!)
Enterprise Programme Manager’s 2IC
Actively manage, monitor and track progress of all work-streams
Engaged in making decisions that affect the delivery
Ensuring all teams are focused, understand the priorities
Will get involved in the detail if work-streams are under performing
Interfacing with vendors on resolving Programme Issues
Promote close collaboration with all vendors internal & external
Provide truthful, honest feedback/updates to Senior Management
General Senior Programme Management tasks

Risk Management
Communications Management
Delivery Planning
Issues Escalation
Decision Making

Work-streams being managed:

Product Specifications (Parallel Stream)
Product / System / Component Architecture

Architecture & SI cannot separated, they go hand-in-hand

STB EPG Development
Interactive Applications Development
Middleware Development
STB System Integration
Headend System Integration
VOD Development/Operations/Integration
End-to-End SI Integration
Audience Measurement Development/Integration
Backend Services Integration

Job #8: Project Manager - Multichoice (South Africa) (June 2011 - Dec 2011)

Key Competencies: People/Project management, Agile/Scrum Master, Software Product Lifecycle Development, Accessibility

I wrote this back in July 2011 when I first started:

STB EPG Product development: Scrum Master - acting as a Scrum master, together with a peer Scrum Master in managing a development team of 30 engineers in bringing a next-generation UI to market. Under aggressive timescales aiming to be a leader in Africa, the role involves improving the current development / planning / management / control processes to the next level; introducing metrics and goal-driven development, better estimation and improving the overall development methodology including full stack system integration. The project has its own unique challenges which I'll blog as appropriate, but my past experience with not only developing EPGs but also managing the development of Middleware & EPGs in NDS will put me in good stead in this role...

Proof-of-concept (POCs) Projects: MCA has an interesting and exciting roadmap ahead. Much of the innovation is driven from within MCA itself, and then request for tendors are sent to suppliers for formally rolling into the product line. With quite a generous budget, I will aid the development of POCs. A multifaceted role not limited to project management, but also customer and relationship management, as well as reporting senior management of MCA (CTO level). I was really excited about this role initially, but I find myself challenging much of the existing processes, which isn't necessarily the best thing to do when new to the role, I can't help if it's my nature to comment...

Steering Process Improvements: With my strong development experience from NDS and S3, I am expected to leverage some of this experience and improve the existing development processes, including improving process quality across the departments. One such activity in progress is the role of Systems Integration, Open Source Code management, improving Software security...

Managing the automation programme - Like other major broadcasters in the world, MCA has licenced the StormTest product from S3.

Accessibility projects: This should come as no surprise, I am still pursuing my interest in Accessibility projects, which I think is particularly relevant for Africa...

This is what I actually accomplished by November 2011:

Improved the UI project management / Scrum processes. Identified holes in processes and have converted the team to working differently (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Whiteboard)
Refocused UI team and created strategic partitioning to focus on SI, Application SI, E2E testing
Influenced the SW development processes: Unit Testing, Release notes, Version numbering, Branch/Release process, Parallel streams of Development
Refocused software estimation techniques.
Challenged project processes & SI processes - to the point the business accepted most, if not all my recommendations.
Catalyst for instigating change in Vendor support/management.
Steered the Programme structure and help re-shaped the project structures - and influenced how the vendors improve their own internal development/integration processes.
Communicated clearly at all levels and can handled technical & organisational conversational topics with the likes of CTOs & CEOs with ease.
Demonstrated professionalism at breadth and depth of experience
Influenced and got approved an architectural structure for the department, including technical owners, a first for the company
Delivered successfully on the automation programme. There was a lack of focus and leadership that I couldn't bear to see left unmanaged and voluntarily led the effort - cutting our losses previous loss leading investments.
Managed third party consultants with ease and professionalism
Mentored SI-QA Validation Manager introducing new concepts for test reports, metrics and communicating information
Advised the same process improvements on SI Project Manager
Mentored and coached Indian contractors, re-shaping roles and promoting opportunity for growth
Gained the trust and approval of Global Senior Programme Manager, well respected in the company as a brilliant Programme Manager
Innovated on few topics - introduced department Blog, small enablers: Umbrellas, Fruit Bowl for meeting rooms, Video Conferencing to work, Whiteboards for desks, Taught people to use Excel Pivot tables
People sought my for advice/consultancy:

Scrum Master - hadn't ran projects of this depth before - typical agile projects are 3-4 month duration, STB projects are 3-4 years on average. He also hasn't worked with Indian teams before, so we spent a good few conversations about how to improve things, what to look out for when managing an off-shore / Indian teams
Product Owner - on Scrum principles and Product Owners / Backlog, UX and UX documentation.
Field Trial Manager - on field trial strategy and department structures
QA Manager - on how to improve QA reporting and managing priorities
QA Test Lead - on how to react to changes in software projects and how best to test, plan and analysis
Aspiring Engineers - on architecture, business priorities and the role of automation
Senior Management Dept Head - on how things are done in BSkyB & elsewhere, including acting as a soundboard for ideas and organisational changes
Consultants - coaching on automation strategy, framework expectations, etc.
Architects - on 3D TV and other high level architecture stuff, like Recommendations

Job #7: Principal Engineer/Technical Project Manager - NDS New Initiatives (April 2011 - May 2011)

Key Competencies: C coding, Flash/ActionScript, CMake build scripts, Skype/GStreamer/PulseAudio integration, Text-to-Speech, UI Usability, Application Development, System Integration, Presenting Demos

The New Initiatives department of NDS focuses on new technologies, possibly disruptive, and not always limited to the broadcasting industry. Managed in a start-up style environment, offering autonomy and trust to its senior engineers, NI was a long sought desire of mine. Although there were parallel developments in my personal life in SA, I could not miss out on the opportunity to work in NI, where I could explore technologies and manage projects at the same time getting my hands dirty coding, as well as engaging in new relationships with technology companies - it was almost a dream come true. Alas it was a dream short-lived, but I did get my part in NI, a small team of 50 people across a company of 5000 employees. If ever I find myself in UK or even Silicon Valley one day, then I'll take the job again without the blink of an eye!

In the short time at NI, I'd taken my Speaking EPG project and integrated it with another major accessibility project, bringing the latest version of Flite's Text-to-Speech (TTS) system. This culminated in a demo at the department road-show, where I compared our system against the deployed Amazon Kindle, showing that STBs not only have the capability of doing TTS, but using an open source engine like Flite, could provide an even better experience than what's currently released on the Kindle!

Job #6: Senior Project Manager - NDS - Fusion STB Product Development (January 2008 - April 2011)

Key Competencies: Multi-site, Distributed Large-scale Project Management, Agile/Incremental Development, Software Development Processes, Process Automation, People/Project Management

Fusion™ Product Operations Manager, May 2010 – May 2011
NDS MediaHighway Fusion™ Middleware Product is a consumer device set-top-box operating system supporting a variety of feature profiles from low-end Zappers to high-end personalised, networked DVRs. With a worldwide deployment to 80+ million user’s homes, the Fusion Product Operations group is responsible for managing the strategy and roadmap for Advanced Feature development, whilst maintaining customer project deliveries ensuring a consistent product is maintained on a single code tree, supporting multiple customers, 700 people work on this product world-wide.

Role & Responsibilities included:

Working with Senior Account Managers in defining the shape, framework & strategy for new development programs, managing multiple projects focussed on advanced features.
Owning the program for complete user experience offering a fully integrated STB application suite comprised of NDS products, working with project managers from other functional groups distributed globally (India, Israel, France & UK).
Managing Product Quality Assurance: Ensure project management, development processes and testing teams adopt Fusion best practices. This requires clear communication, building effective relationships & maintaining diplomacy between the regions.

Details of Note:

NDS Snowflake 2012 EPG

Sky Deutchland deploys latest version of NDS Mediahighway

Kicked-off strategic projects with a view of dominating the Middleware market share, offering enhanced features, bleeding edge application development using Flash
Supported creation and development of off-site application team in India, managing and coaching individuals where required
Owned the Product Backlog for Strategic projects, working with core product development on feature deliveries & merging
Influenced architecture design and decision making processes due to complex nature of some strategic projects
Managed the development, test & integration streams of strategic projects with the aim of merging back to mainline product development
Instigated work breakdown of significant work packages for planning feature upgrades, some enterprise wide planning, e.g. roll-out of IPv6

Fusion™ BSkyB Development Owner Middleware, Jan 2008 – May 2010
This team was centred around completing the development of NDS MediaHighway Fusion™ in the context of a customer, BSkyB, to roll-out their advanced HD PVR Anytime+ service in 2010. A high profile, very visible and complex project, with 300+ people across NDS worldwide, a further 200+ people from the customer as well as third party vendors. Reporting directly to the VP and Account Owner, I was responsible for the management, planning and tracking of the middleware program, 80+ software components distributed globally to a development team of 200 people (2 sites in UK, France, Israel, India) as well as interfacing with the client (UK) and third party vendors (UK, Poland, Denmark, India) for integration management.

Summary of Achievements:

NDS Powers BSkyB VOD Anytime+

Transitioned into the role in a very short period of time, taking over from the two previous project managers; gaining the trust from Senior Management to effectively run (plan, track, manage issues) the Middleware programme with little intervention.
Built good relationships with development engineers and managers across the globe which became useful during crucial periods of the project that demanded UK support from various regions, often in stressful atmosphere i.e. customer site.
Developed a reputation of someone who gets the job done – reliable & dependable, having delivered on many activities that wouldn’t usually fit in with the remit of a PM, for e.g. staying up till 1AM to set-up STBs for field trials, manually setting up workstations for one-roof-integration-teams as well as getting technical & hands-on with engineers in resolving critical issues.
Proposed new ideas for process improvements with a view of increasing the success of project delivery; these ideas were accepted by Senior Management, e.g. Persuaded VP to establish collaborative on-site test team with customer; dedicated customer hit squad team focused on resolving urgent issues resulting in customer satisfaction
Mastered the technical details to the level of representing the principal architect in customer meetings: defect reviews, negotiating issue severities & ownership.
Successfully delivered my objectives (exceeding expectations) of realising feature development complete, ready for delivery; handed over the project in the final stages of delivery to take on the next challenge.

Details of Note:

Project planning and tracking (NDS in-house methodology of Agile/Waterfall mix). Iterative development and delivery with 6 week iterations, delivery to customer every 3 weeks.
Owned backlog for feature development and new work package requests from customer. Ensured iteration plans created, and communicated to customer. Managed the iteration on a daily basis as task tracking was crucial to the success of the project, ensuring minimal slippages in tasks, catering very little for slack.
Responsible for ensuring the release met stringent quality standards before delivery to customer
Chaired a variety of project meetings:

9AM Daily Top Issues call including the customer and suppliers (manufacturers and chip-set vendors). Ensured top issues were progressed in a timely manner and escalated to business as required, often making on-the-spot decisions as required.
Chaired Iteration Planning & Work status meetings in managing iteration plan
Twice weekly regressions meeting. All tests that failed due to recent component deliveries either need to be backed out or fixed. Assigned regressions to owners and ensured issues were fixed in a timely manner.

Took ownership of key hot issues often requiring collaboration on-site “One Roof Integration Team”
Reported progress of planning, tasks, key issues to NDS as well as primary customer
Defect Management – daily and weekly defect examination of internal as well as customer-raised defects. Hard defect targets of zero Showstopper & Major defects.
Generated weekly defect metrics and prediction tool to assess the trends of defects and quality of the product & predictions based against original target deadlines
Managed the delivery of all component documentation (Requirements, design, API docs, test mapping, etc.)
Managed a group of architects ensuring tasks were well understood in advance of the iteration, ensuring development teams were in position to start work on day one of iteration
Managed customer feature change requests reporting impact on original plan. Change requests (CRs) were sub-projects themselves which I owned and included in overall Middleware delivery project (Over 20, ranging from free to £300k were managed by me)
Set-up an end-to-end system for field trials
Customer-facing duties were:

Communicating project plan and reporting progress of our plans
Reporting progress on key issues, often providing actions back to customer
Reviewing incoming defects with customer ensuring correct severities and priorities are assigned
Collaborating with setting up business processes that ensured streamline operation between two parties
Chaired meetings with third parties when key issues demanded NDS act as facilitator
Represented NDS on planning meetings when required
Acted as customer PM when customer PM on holiday

Worked closely with customer PMs to understand overall end-to-end delivery plan, and escalated/reported issues as required
Created and Maintained project processes and documentation (e.g. Defect process)
Worked closely with System Integration ensuring that development teams were across the key system issues
Managed cross-development efforts with EPG teams

Job #5: Headend Development Project Manager - NDS (June 2006 - January 2008)

Key Competencies: C++, Unix, Server Side Programming, Broadcast Components, Project Management, Software Product Maintenance, Support, Commission, De-commissioning, Systems Integration & Delivery, Accessibility & Speech Synthesis

HeadEnd Applications is a suite of systems products that implement the broadcast scheduling, content multiplexing and delivery and integration with third party billing, interactive and content management systems. These systems are highly available, and distributed across the network, sometimes geographically dispersed, fault tolerant and reliable systems expected to work continuously. Key customers include BSkyB, DirecTV, Sky Italia, Sky NZ, Foxtel, TataSky, Premiere, KBW & CableVision. Managed projects supported by a team of 9+ senior engineers.

NDS Replaces KBW Nagra CA
NDS Researching Accessible TV Guides

Summary of Achievements:

Managed the planning, scheduling, including resource allocation & development of product releases for multiple simultaneous customer delivery projects. Consistently delivered on schedule with minimal issues.
Built good relationships with delivery organisation in India, UK and Israel who served as the customer.
Managed the product features roadmap (with support from Group Manager who owned the products) including product de-support from notification, upgrade and de-commission.
Achieved ESCROW compliance for components owned
Developed proof-of-concept Talking EPG in spare time using advanced Middleware

Details of Note:

Managed the timely delivery of headend components, viz. XSG, SIG, IDG, iStreamer, PFG, PSG, PVG, SDP and SNMP subagent; often producing releases that satisfied more than one customer.
Managed a team of six development engineers including two principal engineers; and 3 QC engineers; including following up deliverables from architects.
Chaired project meetings: Weekly progress meetings on all projects; bi-weekly product status meetings to cover issues and future work across all products.
Reported progress at weekly meetings with customers to cover issues and commitments.
Chaired review meetings for requirements and release definitions.
Created and maintained Project Plan (e.g. gather estimates and plan out the work); including specifying work packages/tasks.
Adopted development methodologies to suit deliveries at hand, e.g. Agile and Waterfall.
Assigned development and QC resources to projects, particularly the juggling of limited QC resource).
Maintained Tarantula release schedule (timetable for releases).
Owned all commitments out of the groups.
Authorised releases through Tarantula, reviewed release definitions, release notes, test plans and test summary reports.
Liaised with other DPMs (e.g. monthly PM Forum)
Drove the requirements process (e.g. bi-weekly development / architect meetings)
Took lead on customer issues, particularly with regards to communicating status and commitments to programme managers, I&T and delivery.
Managed product de-support.
Primary influencer in getting customers to use new products, in line with local roadmap.
Supported group manager in process improvements, in producing group strategy, resource allocation plans and in production and maintenance of roadmap.

Example Project Delivery Milestones

Release	Customer	Importance	Description
PFG 2.5	SkyLA	Medium	Customer was upgrading the headend and needed a consistent version of the product, fast delivery, required merge and consolidation of two codebases.
SDP 2.4	Viasat, Metro, SkyLife, SES-Americom, MOR, NDS-Korea	High	Primarily to support MH Core boxes to enable large software download image sizes. Impacted STB delivery as bootloader team in Korea and security team in Israel depend on the software download tools maintained by the headend.
SDP 2.5	KBW, NDS-Korea	High	KBW important customer for CA swapout. Further support for NDS-Korea loader team request for compression support in software download.
XSG 1.23	BSkyB	High	Very important in getting headend ready to enable STB development team. High profile project in BSkyB known as Orchid project.
iStreamer 6.0	DirecTV	High	To support DTV's A3 project.
IDG 4.13	Premiere	High	Important customer for headend and stb projects. For headend, first big customer to use the new ITVMS system.

Job #4: Senior Engineer - NDS (August 2004 - June 2006)

Key Competencies: Expert C/C++, MFC, DirectShow Programming, TCP / IP / UDP, Video Streaming, Encryption, VOD, Windows System Programming, Memory Management, Resiliency & Redundancy, System Installation, Configuration & Integration, Streaming Frameworks Design

Stream Content group was the pioneer of NDS's broadband (IPTV) headend, Synamedia. Key products are VOD pre-encryption (XTV Encryptor) and IP-Streaming (Streamshaper) and Network PVR. Primary focus is on content protection and distribution. The systems are real-time, highly available and fault tolerant systems – making up the major for IP headend component for content distribution. Compared to Headend applications, the customer base for Synamedia is much smaller, due to IPTV being a new technology.

Telecom Italia IPTV uses NDS VideoGuard
NDS Synamedia Rollout to Softbank, Auna, etc.

Switched departments (STB to Headend), to further enhance work experience and professional profile – in Server-Side System Programming with C++.
Supported XTVE and Streamshaper by providing in-house test tools. These tools not only helped with on-site-troubleshooting, but also helped to improve integration turnaround.
Developed plug-ins that enhanced products demonstrated at R&D shows and exhibitions, in an effort to win new business.
Supported QC & system engineers and customers with testing and on-site integration issues.
Catalyst in persuading team leader to allow code re-factoring and reshaping core base classes, including new designs; thus promoting software re-use and also to ease maintenance.
Presented new technologies (xSpace) at company exhibitions attended by Investment Analysts, thus promoting the image of the company.
Promoted to Senior Engineer after having taken ownership of XTV Encryptor, by extending the architecture and being the support-contact point.
Stimulated discussions on process improvements and code quality issues.
Assisted in streaming framework re-architecture of core base classes – providing a common core to support various applications.
Drafted requirements, influenced new streaming core design and instigated process improvement discussions.

Job #3: XTV Embedded Engineer - NDS (United Kingdom) (January 2003 - August 2004)

Key Competencies: Expert C embedded programming, NDS MediaHighway Core Middleware, API design, Recommendation Engines, Internet Search & Advertising, STP EPG Design & Implementation

MMT was responsible for several STB projects for various customers, focussing on NDS Core (MediaHighway Core) EPG and Middleware development. Key customers included Sky LA (first NDS Core PVR) and DirecTV (Major win for first NDS Core).

DirecTV replaces software with NDS Middleware

Hired to consolidate NDS Core XTV and Non-XTV - (Core 3 & Core 4) codebases. Presented plans and roadmap for development.
Supported development of the first NDS Core XTV EPG (LAJV XTV) launched in Latin America in 2004 (CQ fixes and enhancements).
DirecTV SUE1, SUE2 project – Involved from inception through to completion on the native SUE1 EPG, presently running in over 15 million STBs.
Defined APIs for the new DirecTV DSS Core, specified requirements and design - Member of API Design Authority.
Peer-reviewed code, steered development of common EPG components – active role on the DirecTV Middleware Core-EPG API Committee.
Implemented key DirecTV EPG components (e.g. Complex Guide Schedule Grid, GUI Manager, Favourites Manager, Service List Manager); EPG was successfully rolled out in May 2005, replacing over 4 million STBs of legacy software. This software was running in 20+ million STBs as of 2009.
Attended developer conferences; submitted papers: ideas for new products.

Job #2: Software Engineer - Silicon & Software Systems (S3 - Ireland) (May 2001 - October 2002)

Key Competencies: Intermediate C embedded programming, OpenTV Middleware, S3 Test Harness, DVB/MPEG/DTT Specification, STB Software Architecture and Design

S3, at the time was a PHILIPS COMPANY, is Europe’s leading design-services company specialising in Silicon, Software and Hardware design.

Software Engineer, Digital Consumer Business Unit, Set-Top-Boxes
.
S3 STBLite makes the news
S3 STBLite Product Release
S3 CoTestTV OpenTV Test Harness

Designed and Implemented a core component (MPEG PSI/DVB-SI Parser and Database Engine) adhering to stringent ISO/MPEG/DTV and UK D-Book specifications, for a light-weight Middleware “STBLite” aimed at Free-to-Air (Freeview) digital terrestrial set-top-boxes.
STBLite was successfully demonstrated at the IBC show held in September 2002. Product has now evolved to support MHEG, and Mobile-TV solutions.
Developed an OpenTV Test Harness for STB driver validation. Test suite proved useful in reducing integration time, consequently improving project estimation.
Managed purchase and maintenance of document database for international standards(ISO, DVB, ETSI).

Job #1: Engineer-in-Training - UEC Technologies (South Africa) (March 2000 - May 2001)

Key Competencies: C embedded programming, OpenTV Application Development, UI Graphics Design

UEC, an ALTECH COMPANY, is an internationally recognised manufacturer, specialising in cutting-edge set-top-boxes. Visit http://www.uec.co.za

Engineer-in-Training, R&D, Customer Development

Developed an advanced OpenTV-EN2 EPG with an international team based in USA, Netherlands and South Africa. Project was successful and is currently being used in Middle East, South Africa, Greece and China.
Consulted QC teams locally and internationally on integration issues.
Worked on-site at customer premises for support and integration.
Presented/designed advanced GUIs for next-generation EPGs to Marketing.

oOo

Mo Khan's Outlet!

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Tuesday, 14 February 2012

My Professional Software Engineering Background...Part 2

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