Brian Bulkowski

2625 Alcatraz Ave #338 ● Berkeley, CA 94705

415-609-6926 ● brian@bulkowski.org
physically located in Palo Alto, CA

Skills

Project leadership Technical and managerial. Can move a project from concept to customer. Excellent communication skills. Leadership through technical excellence.

Network Protocols Design and implementation. Two way (IP) and broadcast (MPEG, IP). Streaming and transactional. Modern and historic. Interface design.

Programming C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Perl, others. Can focus on different engineering goals: performance, maintainability, speed of implementation, robustness, validation. Experience with high performance servers and embedded environments.

Work Experience

1997 - Present Liberate Technologies

2003, Liberate. Principle Architect.

After massive layoffs, remained as part of a small group to continue work on DTV Standard (client and servers) in a severely resource constrained environment.

Shipped a dot-release of Standard Mediacast server (C, Windows). Authored several technical notes and small tools (Java) to assist customers.

Contributing new features to Compact Mediacast (C, Linux)
Product definition of new European product

2002, Liberate. Member of the architecture group.

Among other projects, architected and drove Liberate's enhanced television (ETV) solution for the UK market.

Designed and specified server and client features (messaging server (Java), TV listings server (Java), Mediacast server (C, Windows)).

Worked with developers and TV producers (BBC) to create a solution that will fit into their content workflow.

Contributed directly to products (C, JavaScript, Java)

Authored patents (still in review).

2001, Liberate. Manager of the networking group.

Managed 10 direct reports. Networking group was the only group in both the client and server management chains. Success depended on exceptional relationship skills.

Contributed resources to end-to-end technical problems within larger projects, such as DTV Client, and Datapoint, Mediacast, LMS, Tvinfo servers.

Hired, fired, reviewed.

1998-2001, Network Computer. Member of Technical Staff

Principle contributor for second-generation product, now known as DTV Standard. DTV Standard is now running in 2 million homes in the UK - Liberate's most widely deployed product.

Designed and wrote core networking code (C, embedded OSes - Tornado, GIOS, PowerTV, VIRTEX, others). Traveled and integrated product on site.

Designed and wrote Liberate Mediacast, a data broadcasting server (C, Windows). Mediacast protocol is network independent, using multicast IP, MPEG, and Digicypher II.

Contributed to ATVEF standard (UHTTP protocol) for enhanced television.

1997-1998, Navio. Member of technical staff specializing in networking.

Contributed to initial success of the company, including fundamental networking code for the first generation product that became AOL-TV.

Prototyped a data broadcasting server (Java).

1993 – 1997 Starlight Networks

1994-1997, Project lead.

Architected and implemented from scratch a video server component based on Starlight protocols (MTP). Server was capable of 150Mb/sec on generic Pentium 133 hardware. Product was not accepted by the sales force as it undercut margins for the Solaris-based product.

1993-1994, Programmer.

Implemented TokenRing support for Starlight products.

Improved DOS client A/V synchronization and buffering algorithms.

1989 - 1993 Novell, Inc

1991-1993, Technical lead, AppleTalk protocols.

Improved AppleTalk support in the Netware 4.0 using novel mechanisms. Lead a group of two other engineers. Visited customer sites to investigate bugs.

1990–1991, Technical lead, AppleTalk protocols.

Based on A/UX AppleTalk code, implemented AppleTalk protocols and APIs for NetWare for Macintosh 3.11/3.12.

1989, Programmer.

Revised HostAccess, a FTP and Telnet package for Macintosh. Product shipped on time and with minimal bugs.

1985 - 1989 Brown University

1989-1987 Programmer, part time and summer, Geology department. Numerical analysis and data collection software.

1985-1987 Help desk. Learned how users think.

1983 - 1985 University of Delaware

Programmer, part time and summer, Office of Computer-Based Instruction.

Implemented video disk based classroom teaching tool, used in Art History classrooms. Wrote sound synthesis drivers and a sound editing tool for custom hardware, used for teaching music.

Education

1985 - 1989 Brown University

ScB (BS) in Math / Computer Science

Topology, number theory, operating systems, computer graphics (van Dam, Hughes)

References

Mike Russell, programmer. Co-worker at Novell. mgr@zocolo.net, 510 526 5079 (home)

Raymond Drewry, ex-CTO Liberate Technologies. exzookeeper@yahoo.com, 434 244 0844 (home)

Others available on request