Jim Leonard
| 11 Saint Clements Rd #2 | vleonard@infinet.com |
| Medford, MA 02155 | 614-354-4707 |
Programmer with 8 years professional experience programming client/server software in C/C++ and Perl on Linux, VMS and Windows seeking a software development position, preferably in the Boston area.
| Starbak Communications |
Nov 2000 - Sep 2004 |
| Senior Software Engineer |   |
Senior programmer responsible for developing all aspects of Starbak's video streaming servers.
- Implemented video streaming servers used in Starbak's appliance servers and licensed to
third parties. The servers were developed in C under Linux through reverse engineering (Windows Media)
and in compliance with published protocols (RTSP/RTP/MPEG/Quicktime/HTTP).
- Led the redesign and implementation of Starbak's RTSP/RTP based video streaming server
permitting usage to scale to thousands of clients on commodity hardware. Implementation was
completed in C, Lex and Yacc and included conversion to asynchronous I/O and extensive
caching of streaming data.
- Enabled Starbak's web interface and third party applications to control the streaming
servers and update the SQL backend by coding XMLRPC interfaces.
- Improved presentation of recorded video conference streams in Quicktime and RealPlayer
by creating modules to rewrite the RTP and h.261/h.263 framing to correct timing and
audio/video synchronization issues and to compensate for lost packets.
| H&R Block / Compuserve |
Jul 1997 - Nov 2000 |
| Software Engineer |   |
Programmer for the group responsible for maintaining H&R Block's electronic filing servers.
- Updated efile server applications and hardware to comply with annual changes to tax law
and business needs. The applications were written for VMS clusters and heavily used VMS
system services and custom databases.
- Integrated TaxCut into Block's existing electronic filing system to remove dependency
on a third party filing system. In the first year this system handled 1 million income
tax returns saving $2 million. Preprocessing, reporting and tracking modules were coded
in C and Perl for VMS and Win32.
- Supported real time operation of the electronic filing system during tax season,
including on call duty, custom report generation and creation of one-off programs to fix
larger scale problems.
- Improved reliability of Block's interface with the IRS, state departments of revenue
and partner banks by coding a replacement communication system supporting IP and dialup
protocols that annually handles over 15 million tax returns as well as their associated
loan applications and check authorizations. The project was coded in C and DCL and
included customizing transfer protocols to handle antiquated IRS systems.
| Advanced Communications Services |
1999 |
| Consultant |   |
- Enabled the replacement of the current voicemail system by writing high-level voice
modem device drivers in Perl/Perl XS.
- Permitted expansion of core business functions by writing fax drivers and low-level
call center functionality.
| Ohio Federation for the Blind (non-profit) |
1998 |
| Donated coding skills |   |
- Automated the process of parsing and marking up job listings for a text to speech program.