Josh Heitzman

Current

• Software Engineering Manager at Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc.

Past

• Senior Software Engineer / Team Lead at PC-Doctor, Inc.
• Independent Software and Game Developer at Independent Software and Game Development
• Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft

• Technical Programmer at Raven Software
• IS Intern at SC Johnson

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Education

• University of Wisconsin-Madison

Recommendations

3 recommendations

Connections

111 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Josh Heitzman’s Summary

Senior Lead Software Engineer with a broad range of experience.

Josh Heitzman’s Specialties:

Languages: C/C++, Python, C#, UML, XML, HTML, XHTML, CSS, SQL;
Libraries: ATL, VSL, OpenGL, Pylons, CRT, STL;
Platforms: Win32, COM, Visual Studio (package integration), Google App Engine;
Protocols: TCP, UDP, HTTP;
Methodologies: TDD, Unit Testing, SCRUM, Waterfall.

Josh Heitzman’s Experience

• Software Engineering Manager

  Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc.

  (Public Company; IACI; Internet industry)

  June 2010 — Present (4 months)

• Senior Software Engineer / Team Lead

  PC-Doctor, Inc.

  (Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

  March 2009 — April 2010 (1 year 2 months)

• Independent Software and Game Developer

  Independent Software and Game Development

  (Computer Software industry)

  October 2007 — July 2009 (1 year 10 months)

  Web based strategy game development - researched current state of the market, developed game design that takes into account strengths and weaknesses of current offerings, designed and developed prototypical implementation on Google AppEngine that is deployed to http://webgamesbyjosh.appspot.com/FGC.
  
  Stock trading software - after hitting a hard performance wall with C# in NinjaTrader, created a COM plug-in for Personal Stock Streamer to export historical data that is consumed by a stock analysis tool I developed in C++ that was over two orders of magnitude faster then C# in NinjaTrader. Created a tool to automate the process of summarizing analysis results. Has proven useful for debunking technical indicators.
  
  PC game development - developed game design for an autonomous arena combat game designed to implemented in a completely procedural manor without the use of any static content. Broke down the implementation into 13 milestones and began implementing them using OpenGL.

• Senior Software Engineer

  Microsoft

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

  January 1999 — September 2007 (8 years 9 months)

  Worked on VS7.0, VS7.1, VS8.0, VS9.0, and the VS8.0 SDK v1-3.
  
  While working on the VS8.0 SDK, I envisioned, designed and developed the majority of the Visual Studio Library (VSL). VSL makes it possible to develop VS Packages using fewer lines of code then a feature equivalent C# package. See http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_heitzman/archive/2006/03/31/SampleCodeSizeComparisonPpart2CppVsCSharp.aspx for details.
  
  For VS8.0 I designed and implemented the bootstrapper for the arm emulator, ported ATL and portions of MFC, STL, WTL, and the CRT to Windows CE / Windows Mobile, drove the establishment of the coding standard for the product unit, and mentored five junior developers.
  
  While working on VS7.1, I grew an individual contributor processing engineering position into a process engineering team lead by myself and I envisioned and lead the development, testing, and operations of a continuous integration system capable of processing jobs in parallel on a pool of 100 machines.

• Technical Programmer

  Raven Software

  (Public Company; ATVI; Computer Games industry)

  February 1997 — August 1998 (1 year 7 months)

  Hexen II - enhancement rendering system with a limited skeletal system, fog, and other additions. Created client-side system to manage special effects, and a server side system to create and transmit the effects. Refactored physics system to use a more accurate friction and gravity model, improve performance, and prevent objects from getting ‘stuck in the world’. Refactored AI system to allow for versatile in-game cinematics and improved responses to the physical environment. Processor and nework utilization optimizations. See http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3341/postmortem_raven_softwares_.php?print=1 for a postmortem of this project from of the perspective of one of its developers.
  
  MageSlayer - extended and enhanced the initial AI subsystem and scripted all enemies in the game. Ensured all functionality for the player weapons were implemented at the end of the project.

• IS Intern

  SC Johnson

  (Privately Held; 10,001 or more employees; Consumer Goods industry)

  May 1996 — February 1997 (10 months)

  Software development and support using Visual Basic 4.0, VBA for MS Excel 5.0, OLE 2, and ODBC. Database design, implementation, and maintenance using MS Access 2.0, ODBC, SAS, Express MDB, and perl.

Josh Heitzman’s Education

• University of Wisconsin-Madison

  BS , Computer Science w/ Certificate in Business , 1994 — 1998

Additional Information

Josh Heitzman’s Interests:

Developing and playing strategy and role-playing games; sci-fi and fantasy media and literature; finance, investing and economics; electronics and PC hardware.

Josh Heitzman’s Honors:

Lighthouse Award for Innovation - 2006 - Microsoft Developer Division

Josh Heitzman’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch