http://cybercom.net/~dcoffin/resume.html

http://cybercom.net/~dcoffin/resume.html

David J. Coffin 
339 Athol Road 
Richmond, NH 03470-4204 
603-392-2017 
603-439-1013 (cell) 
dcoffin a cybercom o net

SUMMARY

Twelve years experience as a Software Engineer using a wide variety of tools and techniques. Highly proficient user and author of open-source software.

KEY ASSETS

• Familiarity with several generations of PC hardware, with complete mastery of assembly language in the x86 instruction set. Can debug assembly code without ICE or debugger.
• Proven ability to reverse-engineer Windows applications.
• Command of many higher-level languages and tools: Bash, Python, Perl, C, RCS, CVS, PHP3, Sed, Awk, Expect, 4DOS, HTML, PostScript, Lout (similar to TeX), IDL, and Scheme. Can learn a new language in about a week.
• Twelve years experience with Open Source tools. Use Linux for everything. Run legacy Microsoft applications in DOSemu or Wine.
• Firmly believe that programming is an art, not a science, and that beautiful code is more reliable and easier to maintain.
• Good writing skills. Able to express ideas clearly and concisely in English and Esperanto.

OPEN SOURCE

See web page at http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/

1997 - Present 
Author of dcraw, an essential tool for digital photography.

• Although raw digital photos provide better quality than JPEG, many photographers do not use them for fear that computers will someday be unable to read these undocumented file formats.
• Dcraw is a free ANSI C program to decipher any raw photo from any digital camera on any computer running any operating system. It is my gift to programmers, photographers, and future generations of historians.
• Thanks to dcraw source code, Adobe Photoshop and dozens of other image tools now have built-in support for raw photos, and the popularity of raw photography has grown enormously.

2000 - 2001

• Created an Esperanto language and voice for the Festival Speech Synthesis System.

EMPLOYMENT

2000 - 2002 
Wildfire Communications, Waltham MA 
Maker of an voice-based personal assistant

Release Engineer

• Designed custom boot media to install Solaris, UnixWare, and Linux with no questions asked.
• Wrote scripts (mostly with shell and Expect) to automate the creation, installation, removal, and configuration of Wildfire software on these platforms.
• Saved hundreds of man-hours by automating tedious sequences of patch installs and config file changes across multiple machines.

1996 - 2000 
Unicore Software, North Andover MA 
Maker of BIOS upgrades for PCs and embedded systems

BIOS Engineer

• Built an Internet gateway from a 486/33 PC, a 28.8 modem, and a Slackware CD. This provided all of Unicore's internet access for more than two years, until the company upgraded to a T1 line in late 1999.
• Created firmware and software Y2K products that grossed millions of dollars for Unicore in 1998 and 1999.
• Designed and implemented a system for building BIOS upgrades for thousands of motherboards from poorly maintained Award source code.
• Wrote a diagnostic tool for identifying a user's chipset, BIOS, and super I/O, with the eventual goal of enabling the on-line purchase of BIOS upgrades.
• Contracted to Sun Microsystems to customize the BIOS for their third-generation PC emulator board.

1995 - 1996 
Lam Research Corporation, Wilmington MA 
Manufacturer of silicon wafer etch machines

Software System Administrator

• Supported a network of UNIX (SunOS and NextStep) workstations used by Lam's software developers.
• Hands-on setup and debugging of etch machines on the factory floor.
• Installed, tested, and used modems for dialup, Z-modem file transfer, SLIP, and PPP connections.
• Provided extensive (sometimes critical) support, via phone, E-mail, and remote login, for Lam users in Fremont, CA while they searched for their own sysadmin.

1993 - 1994 
Phillips Lab Data Analysis Center, Hanscom AFB, MA 
Government research lab

General-purpose UNIX/C/IDL Guru

• Provided hands-on support for a heterogeneous (Sun, HP, SGI, Alpha, DEC MIPS, and NeXT) network of UNIX workstations, installing and troubleshooting operating systems and applications.
• Downloaded, compiled, and customized dozens of free software packages to provide a uniform functionality across all UNIX platforms.
• Offered skills to users at every opportunity. Created a PC-based movie player for an astronomer to defend his PhD thesis. Used IDL, C, and PostScript to explore new ways of turning raw numbers into plots, images, and movies.

EDUCATION

B.S., Computer Science with Minor in Physics, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, 1992. Cumulative GPA 3.8/4.0

REFERENCES

Available on request.