Philip Taylor

Current

LRB Native Title Wrangler at Intel

Past

Lead PM, Core Platform in Aces Studio at Microsoft Game Studios
Senior PM, Graphics and Terrain in Aces Studio at Microsoft Game Studios
Senior PM, Visual Studio SDK at Microsoft

Director, Strategic Relationships at ATI
Senior PM, DirectX SDK at Microsoft
Lead Software Development Engineer at Microsoft
Senior Software Development Engineer at Sierra On-Line
Staff Engineer at Kaleida Labs
Author at Addison Wesley
Senior Software Engineer at Borland
Windows Development Lead at Softview
Systems Engineer at Independent Consulting (Self-employed)
Windows Developer at Claritas
Software Engineering Lead at TRW Federal Systems
Software Engineer at SAIC
Software Engineer at Intran
Programmer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Programmer at Gee & Jenson E-A-P

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15 more...

Education

University of Maryland College Park
Florida Atlantic University

Recommended

13 people have recommended Philip

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Computer Games

Philip Taylor’s Summary

I have deep project management skills honed over years of shipping productivity apps ( MacinTax/TurboTax ), developer tools ( Borland C/C++, Kaleida ScriptX, Visual Studio ), and 3D computer games and APIs ( Sierra Online/Dynamix, DirectX product team, Microsoft Game Studios,Intel SSG ).

My experience includes:
- extensive evangelism experience ( DirectX evangelism team ),
- strategy and strategic relationship experience ( ATI corporate development )
- extensive development experience ( Softview, Borland, Kaleida, Dynamix/Sierra Online, Microsoft Windows Division, Microsoft Developer Division, Microsoft Game Studios Division, Intel SSG ) spanning games programming, platforms/systems programming, SDK development, and development/authoring tools programming.

MobyGames lists my credits at:
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,15978/
But that doesnt include 2 of the 3 games I worked on at Sierra/Dynamix:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/win3x/silent-thunder
http://www.mobygames.com/game/missionforce-cyberstorm

I have been published in print ( magazine articles, full length technical book ), on the web ( online column, articles, blogs ), PR quotes ( Microsoft, ATI, Intel, AMD ), and in conferences ( full day tutorials, articles, panels ) for graphics, multimedia, and developer tools over the last 20 years. In addition I have delivered presentations to audiences as small as a handful to as large as 1000-2000 developers on 4 continents.

My experience in computer graphics, 3D hardware rendering, and games spans Apple II to DX10 class hardware. And now Larrabee.

Philip Taylor’s Specialties:

project management, computer graphics, 2D and 3D graphics feature specification and development, technical writing, technical speaking and presentation skills, PC game architecture, PC platform architecture, technical evangelism, PC platform strategy, Agile Development ( SCRUM )

Philip Taylor’s Experience

LRB Native Title Wrangler

Intel

(Public Company; INTC; Semiconductors industry)

October 2008 — Present (1 year 2 months)

1) Develop and drive master project plan for delivering Larrabee launch titles. Manage all Native Title AE teams to capture ISV status. Drive quarterly Ops Reviews to present ISV status. Develop Native Title Milestone Submission process and drive approved/rejects for all LRB-1 Native deal NRE payouts.
2) Track all Intel deliverables to ISVs, including hw, the sw stack (DX+OGL driver, custom rasterizer for native titles), the SDK and all samples (Core, Native, 3DG, Extended). Report dependencies and status.
3) Participate in cross-group internal tracking meetings weekly on the software. Participate in cross-group internal status and errata meetings on the hardware. On SSG-VCSD LRB-1 PowerUp team as part of effort, including tracking Si through the FAB process.
4) Attending various internal AE tech forums on LRB to keep current on sw architectures to enable maximum exploitation of LRB. Writing D3D10 and LRB prototype code in whatever spare time I can muster.
5) The rest, TBD.
Lead PM, Core Platform in Aces Studio

Microsoft Game Studios

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

September 2007 — September 2008 (1 year 1 month)

Lead PM, Core Platform
Aces Studio
MGS, Microsoft

1) Led and organized Core Team, a group of 60 engineers, testers, technical artists, and artists using Office-like Feature Crews to determine features, cost, and schedule for delivery of next-generation world simulation titles.
2) Designed features for Train Simulator 2, Flight Simulator 11, and ESP v2.0, in the graphics, terrain, and simulation areas.
3) Managed Core PM team; including setting direction, allocating budget, performing reviews, and determining rewards
4) Authored a blog that was rated as high as in the top 150,000 blogs worldwide by Technorati as well as FS Community interactions on over a dozen forums.
5) Completed Management Excellence full-week off-site training for fast-tracked managers.
Senior PM, Graphics and Terrain in Aces Studio

Microsoft Game Studios

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

July 2006 — September 2007 (1 year 3 months)

Senior PM, Graphics and Terrain
Aces Studio
MGS, Microsoft

1) Designed features for Aces Simulation Engine, a full-planet simulation engine rendering WGS-84 DEM terrain with synthetic landclass, water effects, atmospherics, postprocessing effects, custom and generic vegetation, custom and generic cityscapes, and fully drivable/flyable vehicles via a flight model and rendered with exterior view as well as fully functional cockpits with elaborate gauge simulation
2) Designed and delivered FSX-SP1 which almost doubled frame rates. Optimization plan was driven by my understanding of graphics engine optimization and CPUs, GPUs and DirectX.
3) Designed and delivered FSX-SP2 with D3D10 support; including all D3D10 feature design.
4) On Ship Team for Acceleration and ESP v1.0 which included FSX-SP2.
5) Attended and presented at nVidia G80 ( 8800 ) launch event
6) Participated in key Dual and Quad core PR events with Intel and AMD
7) Microsoft Star Award for directing SP1
Senior PM, Visual Studio SDK

Microsoft

(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

March 2005 — July 2006 (1 year 5 months)

Senior PM, VS SDK
Developer Division
Microsoft

1) Used Agile ( SCRUM ) to ship the VS SDK, the extensibility kit for Visual Studio, acting as Product Owner and shipped 14 months out of 15. Ship activities included full SWI, CPX, and ROQ adherence every month. To fulfill SWI, drove Product Threat Modeling, SWI Tools automation against product build, and full SWI product review.
2) Developed 3-level 18 month plan for Divisional PUM that incorporated long-term backlog, 4 month theme-oriented backlog, and monthly sprint backlogs in a unified long-term team development plan
3) Managed 3 contract firms in 3 geographies with a spend of 300k to deliver features for VS SDK, highlights include delivering a LEX and YACC clone that emits .NET code ( C# ) on the back-end.
4) Designed and delivered full-day VS Extensibility tutorial at PDC 2005.
5) VS SDK team won a DevDiv engineering excellence award during this timeframe.
Director, Strategic Relationships

ATI

(Public Company; ATYT; Computer Hardware industry)

October 2002 — October 2004 (2 years 1 month)

Managed overall technical and business relationship between MS and ATI for all ATI business units, high points include:
1)Exec
a)held QBRs between ATI execs ( Desktop, Multimedia, DTV, Handheld ) and MS execs ( Windows, eHome, WindowsCE, OEM ) on a regular basis for 2 years
b) Developed winning proposal for IHV Exec speech at WinHEC 2004, which put CEO Dave Orton between JimAll and BillG
2)Desktop
a) Involved in D3D10 API and R200-R300 driver source negotiations 2002-2003
b) Attended Longhorn PDC 2003 as "deep partner" to gauge excitement for 3D on the desktop
3)Multimedia and DTV
a)Involved in "Bobsled" Windows Media Extender hw settop-box project using Xilleon back-end DTV chip, including negotiation on details of technical specs, platform volume, and chip pricing.
b) Presented at and participated in panel about Media Center Futures at WinHEC 2004
c) Negotiated MOU on Theater 550 tuner chip between MS-eHome and ATI Multimedia for MCE 2004, including technical hw specs that influenced elements of MCE requirements, driver development timetables from ATI to match MCE milestones, and launch announcement PR/marketing activities.
4)Handheld
a) early Windows CE graphics spec discussions to enable shaders in D3DMobile for Imageon chips to avoid OGL ES becoming the de-facto standard it did, never reached fruition
b) Involved in various "future speculative" efforts; including HTC-MS Windows CE handheld prototype developments for "Blackberry clone" that never came to market
Senior PM, DirectX SDK

Microsoft

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

July 2000 — October 2002 (2 years 4 months)

Senior PM, DirectX SDK
Windows Division
Microsoft

1) Shipped the DX 8.0 SDK, DX8 won Game Developer Magazine Front Line award and a PC Magazine "World Class Award"
2) Shipped the DX8.1 SDK
3) Shipped the DX 9.0 SDK, DX9 won a Game Developer Magazine Front Line "Hall of Fame" award, http://www.gdmag.com/frontlineawards/hof.html
4) PM for Managed DirectX
5) Wrote Driving DirectX MSDN column 2000-2002. Reprinted in the DX 9 SDK
6) Organizer/main presenter for SIGGRAPH 2001 Course 52:DirectX 8 Graphics, htttp://www.siggraph.org/s2001/conference/courses/crs52.html
7) Per-Pixel Lighting article reprinted in SIGGRAPH 2002 Conference Proceedings in Course 17:State of the Art in Hardware Shading, http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~olano/s2002c17/
8) Sponsored demo scene ( www.scene.org ) at SIGGRAPH 2001 ( BoF ) and SIGGRAPH 2002( http://www.siggraph.org/s2002/conference/panels/panels6.html ) leading to acceptance of demos as electronic art at SIGGRAPH
9 ) GDC,DirectX Day,Meltdown presenter
Lead Software Development Engineer

Microsoft

(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

August 1996 — July 2000 (4 years )

started as Senior SDE,
DirectX Evangelism, DRG, Microsoft

1) Hired by Alex St. John as 1st engineer on evangelism team in setting a mold of pairing evangelists ( technical marketing ) with engineers to help game developers.
2) Helped plan and produce Judgement Day 2, with the spaceship, before its cancellation
3) Managed a team of 3 engineers on DirectX Evangelism team, and was a key resource driving the growth of D3D games from 5 ( 1997 ) to 50 ( 1998 ) to 500 ( 1999 ), highlights include:
a) Porting Unreal 1.0 to D3D 5 in July 1997 in 3 days
b) Porting 3DSMax R3 to D3D 5 in Aug 1997 in 3 days
3) Developer community interactions worldwide:
a) Travelled to UK dozens of times to enable UK game industry
b) Organized, presented, and MC'ed Meltdown 1998 D3D Optimization track, highest rated at conference
c) Presented Optimizing Direct3D at GDC 1999
d) Presented at too many conferences to list, travelling 100s of thousands of air miles over 4 years to do so
Senior Software Development Engineer

Sierra On-Line

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Computer Games industry)

July 1995 — August 1996 (1 year 2 months)

1) Worked at Dynamix Studios on DirectX2 games, shipped games included:
a) A-10 II Tank Killer
b) Earth Siege II ( precursor to Tribes )
c) Mission:Cyberstorm
2) Cool bits include:
a) Class-based networking system using envelope-letter paradigm to give transparent access to TCP/IP Sockets, DPlay, and ImaginationNetwork layers.
b) Windows system level support including 'fooling" screensavers during gameplay to disable screensaver startup, debugging bank-switched VGA graphics card bugs, etc
3) Attended Judgement Day 1 and D3D Technical Preview
4) Attended GDC 1996 and DirectX Day including infamous Pax Romana party that started the Bunnygate incident at Microsoft
5) Participated in original Direct3D alpha and beta program
Staff Engineer

Kaleida Labs

(Computer Software industry)

October 1993 — July 1995 (1 year 10 months)

Staff Engineer
Apple-IBM joint startup

1) Worked on low-level Windows implementation details; including GC memory browser, low-level timer/system implementation, GDI interface and performance optimizations, x86 Link/Loader use and validation
2) Designed and developed ScriptX3D cross-platform ( MacOS, Windows PC ), including 3D class system design and integration with existing 2D class system plus full scriptability; using RenderMorphics RealityLab as underlying 3D rendering API
3) Attended Microsoft Chicago conference Dec 1993 under special waiver as Apple/IBM/Kaleida employee
4) Worked COMDEX 1994 and E3 1994
5) Attended CGDC 1995 and the MS GamesSDK Day ( which became DirectX )
6) Participated in GamesSDK beta program
Author

Addison Wesley

(Public Company; Publishing industry)

October 1992 — October 1993 (1 year 1 month)

1) Took time off to write "3D Graphics Programming in Windows" for Windows 3.1. book included my own ground-up renderer. See http://search.barnesandnoble.com/3d-Graphics-Programming/Philip-Taylor/e/9780201608823/?itm=1
2) Cool bits included:
a) "C with structs" APIs
b) Windows DLL libraries, including RGB-HSV-CMYK color management
c) A hybrid polygon-raytrace renderer sharing a unified camera system
d) All samples ran on NT and 9x, 16 and 32 bit
2) Participated in original MSDN beta program
3) Participated in Windows for Workgroups beta ( 1st version of Windows to have built-in networking ) program
Senior Software Engineer

Borland

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; BORL; Computer Software industry)

September 1991 — October 1992 (1 year 2 months)

1) Worked on Borland C++ 3.0 and 3.1 for Windows 3.0 and 3.1.
2) Designed and developed OWL Multimedia classes using Windows 3.0 Multimedia extensions.
3) Developed "Sniffer" app for 16-bit systems that grovelled for DOS System data using Int51 and DPMI 0.9 to probe "List of Lists" and Windows system APIs for Windows system data; used internally by Borland QA.
4) Fixed Borland Setup internal utility from near death in real to protected mode translation; task entailed developing complete memory logging layer and complete memory system rewrite.
5) Part of IP review for Brief editor acquisition
6) Attended MS PDC 1992 and worked show floor
7) Participated in Windows NT beta program
Windows Development Lead

Softview

(Computer Software industry)

June 1990 — August 1991 (1 year 3 months)

1) Managed Windows development team and was key resource in rescuing MacInTax 1990 for Windows 3.0 from near death during the initial port from real mode to protected mode. MacinTax 1991 became TurboTax for Windows 1991 and sold 1m copies.
2) Attendee at first Windows Multimedia Extensions Conference Dec 1990 at San Jose Fairmont Hotel
3) Attendee at OLE 1.0 Conference
4) Attendee at PenWindows Conference
5) Performed Special Projects for VP of Engineering including using DDE extensions, advanced OLE 1.0 extensions, and PenWindows extensions.
6) Partnered with Price Waterhouse using results of Special Projects for product that was dropped after acquisition by TurboSoft
7) Attendee at Microsoft Windows 3.1 Technical Design Review and got into an argument with Brad Silverberg over Michael Geary
8) Participated in Windows 3.1 beta program
Systems Engineer
Independent Consulting (Self-employed)

(Self-Employed; Information Technology and Services industry)

June 1988 — July 1990 (2 years 2 months)

1)Contract systems engineer at:
a) Boeing Computer Systems ( Windows systems programming ),
b) Microsoft Federal Systems( Windows graphics algorithm development ),
c) AT&T Bell labs ( Windows graphics algorithm development ),
d) Chase Manhattan ( security systems ),
e) AC Nielson ( Windows systems programming ),
f) GE Information Services ( Windows systems programming ),
g) IBM SID Gaithersburg ( OS/2 multi-threaded programming )
i) Softview ( Windows systems programming )
2) Participated in Windows 3.0 beta program
3) Created Windows training startup, Messaging Systems Group, and authored and delivered Windows training courses.
Windows Developer

Claritas

(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Market Research industry)

April 1987 — June 1988 (1 year 3 months)

1) Made the big switch from VAX, Fortran, text mode to PC, C, GUI programming for Windows 1.03
2) Worked on next-generation geo-demographic marketing software system using US Census geographic mapping, PRIZM demographic data, and COTS database technology for advanced demographic market analysis, software was launched in 1987 as Compass 1.0
3) Participated in Windows 2.0 beta program
4) Attended Microsoft University Windows Programming classes, taught by Paul Yao
5) Reviewed 1st Edition of seminal Petzold "Programming Windows" book for Byte Magazine, quotes from review used on inside cover of all editions since.
Software Engineering Lead

TRW Federal Systems

(Defense & Space industry)

February 1986 — April 1987 (1 year 3 months)

1) Development Lead for team that produced Generic Graphics 2D plotting and charting package for AFSC HQ EIS project using VAX Sys$ and Frm$ system routines to wrap ISSCO's Tell-A-Graf package in a modern text-mode UI with buttons, drop down lists, scrolling lists, and a full navigation system
2) Had TS-SCI security clearance and access to AFSC worldwide budget and weapons procurement/qualification data
3) Won TRW Star award for GG work
4) Developed PC programs using Turbo Pascal for mainframe data conversion
5) Ported Mandelbroit Set program from VAX to PC, attended SIGGRAPH 1986, and performed other experiments with advanced graphics
Software Engineer

SAIC

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; SAI; Information Technology and Services industry)

February 1985 — February 1986 (1 year 1 month)

1) Worked on C3 system for friendly foreign navy, owning maintenance for the 400k lines-of-code graphics subsystem
2) Had TS security clearance
3) Wrote tools using Ramtek displays and bitpad on VAX hardware to enable editing of runtime data files using modern rubber-banding techniques
4) Debugged automatic sail plan system to discover root cause of sail plan failures, turned out to be a data file error in the coastal geo-data files
5) Declined assignment in-kingdom after cleared by foreign intelligence agency.
Software Engineer

Intran

(Computer Software industry)

June 1984 — February 1985 (9 months)

1) Worked on PERQ workstations with megapixel displays creating Intran Metaform electronic publishing software at a startup for the high-volume Xerox printshop market
2) Worked on bitmap graphics algorithms including large scale bitmap rotation using BitBlt and learned the joys of raster graphics.
3) Experienced first entrepreneurial failure when company declared Chapter 11 in early 1985
4) PERQ is an interesting footnote in computer history as the 1st 3M machine ( megapixel, megabyte, megaflop ) see http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/pasttalks/A_Timeline_of_Computing.html
Programmer

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

(Government Agency; 10,001 or more employees; Defense & Space industry)

March 1983 — June 1984 (1 year 4 months)

1) Worked as programmer for science investigators writing analysis programs for satellite data analysis, including Earth, Mars, and Jupiter satellites; super-rotation of atmospheres and the Antarctic ozone hole were two of the research areas that came out of that work
2) 2D and 3D plotting program development
3) First exposure to the joy of VAXen
Programmer

Gee & Jenson E-A-P

(Civil Engineering industry)

February 1982 — July 1982 (6 months)

1) Engineering programmer at one of the largest consulting civil engineering firms in South Florida
2) Worked on a variety of engineering programs including survey geometry, seawall bulkhead design, storm hydrology, and traffic queuing and traffic flow
3) Worked in a Data General AOS environment
4) Laid off in the Reagan recession

Philip Taylor’s Education

University of Maryland College Park

BSc , Physical Sciences , 1983 — 1984

1) Physical Sciences is a general purpose major where you select 3 "areas of concentration" to prepare for Grad School
2) Mine were Computer Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering
3) Senior project was simulation of PUMA robot arm with 3D graphics and modern GUI on original IBM PC with overlays
Florida Atlantic University

Ocean Engineering 1977 — 1982

1) Transferred to UMCP with junior standing
2) Took graduate class in computer graphics using Apple II hardware and learned the joys of 3D and matrix math
3) Course work in math, physics, and engineering for OE degree program