Supporting project simulation labs from Seattle to São Paolo
- I interned at Omnicell in 2021 creating simulations of medical inventory management hardware. During my internship, I learned the basics of professional software development workflows with a great team and was able to deliver a web based app ahead of schedule.
- In December of 2022, I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in CS and minors in music and Spanish, giving me a strong foundation for future development projects
- In January of 2023, I started my first full time job as a software designer at Alstom working on a simulation of the Vehicle Automatic Train Control, or the VATC for short. In this job I've gotten exposure to my interests in urban and transit projects and grown as a developer while implementing new features and fixing bugs in our software. I enjoy being able to work on projects with global scope and international teams which helps me practice my foreign languages and learn about other cultures
I build and maintain software to support transit projects
I work on a few different software tools but the majority of my time is devoted to developing and maintaining TSim, a desktop application which simulates the onboard train system software to stress test and validate the real wayside equipment which will be used in the field. We support the testing of things like routing, signaling, station operations, and more by providing an accurate model of the real VATC behavior to allow projects to test and integrate their software before any real hardware reaches the test track. This saves money and helps us catch potential issues earlier in the design and development process.
Contributing to projects that make our transportation more sustainable
I'm happy to have found an area of work where many of my passions overlap. There are many ways to apply my skills in software development and technology towards solving problems that impact our cities and transportation. I enjoy contributing to projects around the world and learning about the cities they benefit. It is very important to me that the work I do helps make the world more sustainable and resilient in the face of climate change and coming challenges we will face. Through building public transit projects and through making those projects more efficient and cost effective with software, I can contribute towards this goal.
Explore things outside your domain
There are lots of knowledge silos at large engineering firms and it's useful to get to know people on other teams and understand what they do. I have often made progress much faster on issues with my subsystem by having relationships with engineers on other teams who often have relevant experience or understanding I would not have benefited from otherwise. Even areas I'm less involved with like project management, bids, or HR, have people willing to share a lot of information that helps me get a better understanding of the organization as a whole and all the things that go into making a project successful.
Fixing difficult bugs in legacy software
I've fixed a number of difficult bugs in our train simulation software that allow validation and verification teams to test more aspects or our system earlier. These issues have often involved complicated combinations of timing, intermittent behavior, and interactions between multiple subsystems in our lab network. By resolving these issues, we've improved not just our train simulator but also our real systems running in the field. After all, at the end of the day our goal isn't just to make a great simulator, it's to use that simulator to make great train systems. I'm proud I can contribute to that.
