Inovonics
Building a Translator
Inovonics uses 900 MHz RF devices to create products for large industrial and commerical environments. Most of these products are targeted for medium range applications where higher data rate technologies (i.e. Wi-fi, Bluetooth) aren't practical. In order to interface their products with Honeywell security systems (another major player), I was placed on a team of engineers who worked with the Honeywell to interface our devices to their head end system through a translator board we designed.
I was the most junior engineer on the team by almost 30 years. The experience was both challenging and humbling as I learned to do make and test embedded systems on extremely constrained hardware. I learned to interface with custom protocols and existing hardware in order to squeeze the most functionality from every bit.
Testing 1, 2, 3
In a department without a dedicated test team, everyone took on the role of a test engineer. Being primarily self taught as a developer, this was my first experience with TDD (Test Driven Development). This completely flipped the way I was being asked to work every day. Using Trac & Testlink, I created the test eenvironments and scenarios for our translator board that ensured the product was ready for launch day.
Beyond the embedded work that I did at Inovonics, I worked extensively with Python & Selenium to create automated tests for an internal web tool that monitored existing appliances in the field. Building on the web development experience I had prior, I learned to throughly test interfaces and quickly write scrapers to harvest data when necessary.
Customer Trips
Early on, I was asked to be a representative for the engineering team on customer vists for the company's next generation Senior Living products. Traveling with the Product Management team, I had my some of my first experiences dealing with large enterprise customers and learning to learn about their needs.