CV
Curriculum Vitae
Vaughn Dickson, BSc Computer Science specialising in computational intelligence
Software Architect
Location: Durbanville, Cape Town, South Africa
As long as I’m learning something new each day I’m at my most productive. Give me a challenge and I’ll tackle it at full speed, give me a task writing a report that isn’t really needed and I’ll delegate it.
I know my strengths and I’m good at teaching others to deal with tasks I’ve done too many times and grown bored of. Wouldn’t you rather have someone who can farm off dull work to the newbies instead of bailing on your company?
I got my real start when I repeatedly broke my father’s pentium 100 laptop, after mucking around on friends’ 386s, and was told to learn how to fix it or no more access. I quickly learned how to fix windows 3.1 and dos, then I got bored of that and taught myself Qbasic, moved on to PHP, then to Java, and now I’m adding more to my toolbox each year with new languages, frameworks, and algorithms as they interest me. Python, Scala, Clojure, neural nets, genetic algorithms, concurrency, CUDA, etc. Oh, and I did a BSc Computer Science in the computational intelligence stream part time so I’d have a bit of paper I paid for in blood, sweat, and tears.
Education
- BSc Computational Intelligence majoring in Computer Science.
- Matriculated with exemption.
Skills
- Business and systems analysis (8 yrs)
- Requirements engineering (8yrs)
- Software design and architecture (6yrs)
- Deployment engineering (6yrs)
- Programming in Java (10yrs), Python (6yrs), PHP (10yrs), Javascript (1oyrs), C++ (4yrs), C (4yrs), shell scripting (10 yrs), etc. I’m not limited to any one language as I understand the concepts and techniques of computer theory from finite automata to turing machines.
- Database design and administration, with a preference for PostgreSQL and MySQL. (10yrs)
- Linux system administration (14yrs)
- Mac, Linux, and Windows operating systems. (14yrs)
- Web application development. HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX, Enhydra, Jetty, Servlets, JSP, Ruby on Rails, JBoss, various Jakarta packages, etc. (10 yrs)
- Swing GUI experience from working on existing systems and building a point of sale application. (2yrs)
- Eclipse, vim, some Emacs, etc. IDE and editor expertise. (10yrs)
- I study design patterns, object-oriented design heuristics, UML, refactoring, functional programming, new programming languages, etc. continuously as self-study is the only way to stay up to date in my field.
- WordPress, Joomla, etc. plugins, themes, and integration skills from personal projects.
Experience
Obsidian Systems (November 1999 – March 2002):
- Developed a server-side freight auction application with a web-frontend. The application is designed to facilitate real-time negotiation of freight requirements whether by sea, land or air and to speed up the slow, manual negotiation process currently in use that employs telephones, faxes, and snail mail. System consisted of complex workflow and business logic in a server-side architecture which is accessed via a web front end.
- Developed a server-side application framework as part of a team for use in an online flight booking system which integrated with legacy systems.
- Developed an ecommerce site for selling computer software.
- Technical review of a multimedia course teaching the PHP programming language
- Developed a store management system for Pick ’n Pay franchise.
- Other small-scale projects (less than a month) included intranet development, consulting, etc.
Pick ’n Pay Information Systems (April 2002 – March 2003)
- Worked on stocktake software for Accounts department
- Wrote generic integration pipeline to siphon data off legacy systems into Sybase database, currently being used in Clothing project and Fresh Produce projects
- Worked as project lead for Merchandise department doing administration and development
Super Integrity Technology (April 2003 – Current)
Software architect for Stem. Cashout, cashflow, atm management, stock control, recipe management, task management, franchise management, etc. Please see the site for details. I gathered the requirements, designed the architecture, wrote the framework, trained other programmers to add modules, built extra components and modules, and managed the support and development teams, all using an efficient iterative development methodology based on agile development ideas.
Things I’ve built outside of the Stem application and framework:
- Swing-based Point of sales system that communicates with Stem using a fail-over SOA (service-oriented architecture).
- Wrote a monitoring system to keep track of 90+ servers, with a simple expert system to suggest manual fixes as needed.
- Automatic PostgreSQL database schema upgrader
- Automatic software deployment system to update 90+ servers
Certificates
- Scored 99% in the Better Programmer test.
Interests
- Psychology
- Machine learning
- Computer graphics
- Business
- Technology
- Mountain biking
- Hiking
- Paintball
- Gaming
- Writing
- Reading