Van Boughner

Current

• User Interface Development Lead, Java Swing and Google Web Toolkit at Composite Software

Past

• Engineering Manager, Embedded System Control at Modulus Video
• Owner/Consultant, Visual Interface Development at Floating Edge, Inc.
• Software Developer, Web-based User Interfaces at webMethods

• Software Developer, Java Swing User Interfaces at Active Software
• Software Developer, Internal Tools and Java at Sun Microsystems

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2 more...

Education

• University of California, Berkeley

Recommended

3 people have recommended Van

Connections

181 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Van Boughner’s Summary

I've worked at Sun Microsystems, two successful startup companies, and own my own one-man consulting company (Floating Edge, Inc.). Whereever I go, I typically create new visual interfaces in Java Swing, interactive web sites written in PHP using MySQL databases, or a host of other useful internal tools. Whatever it takes to make a team more productive is what I do.

I have over 13 years of software industry experience, including 5 years at a startup that I helped grow from 9 employees to over 600 (Active Software, which was acquired by webMethods), and 3 years at another, from 15 employees to over 50 (Modulus Video, which was acquired by Motorola). In both cases I contributed a great deal to the success of these companies and their software development process. If you are starting a company, I can help you make it a success!

Currently, I am unavailable for consulting work because I am working at my 3rd startup, Composite Software.

Van Boughner’s Specialties:

C and Java Programming, Visual Interface Design and Implementation, Web Design, PHP Scripts, Databases (MySQL and PostgreSQL), Linux, Release Engineering, Embedded System Control (SNMP), and Engineering Management

Van Boughner’s Experience

• User Interface Development Lead, Java Swing and Google Web Toolkit

  Composite Software

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

  May 2007 — Present (1 year 8 months)

  Development of user interfaces with Java Swing, working with XML, and developing web-based user interfaces using Google Web Toolkit.

• Engineering Manager, Embedded System Control

  Modulus Video

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

  June 2004 — May 2007 (3 years)

  Modulus Video makes professional video encoders and decoders using the latest MPEG 4 AVC standards.
  
  Created web-based user interfaces for each of the company's products and also contributed to the company's network management strategy for management of a large number of encoders and redundant backups. My work required the simultaneous use of many languages/disciplines: C, Java, PHP, HTML, CSS, SNMP, and SQL as well as website and database design.
  
  In November 2005 I took over responsibility for all System Management tools at Modulus Video. I had two direct reports and managed the assistance we receive from outside contractors.

• Owner/Consultant, Visual Interface Development

  Floating Edge, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)

  August 2003 — July 2004 (1 year)

  Formed my own company, Floating Edge, Inc. to provide visual interfaces in Java, and interactive web sites written in PHP using MySQL databases. Redesigned the web sites of the Bay Area Orienteering Club (http://baoc.org) and Design Power (http://dp.com).
  
  The company is still operating at present, but in "hibernation mode", simply providing web hosting for a few sites while I work at Composite Software.

• Software Developer, Web-based User Interfaces

  webMethods

  (Public Company; 501-1000 employees; WEBM; Computer Software industry)

  August 2000 — October 2001 (1 year 3 months)

  Active Software merged with a similar sized company, webMethods, in the summer of 2000 to form a company of double the size, keeping the name of webMethods because it had a higher valuation. My position at webMethods was similar to that at Active Software, except that in addition to the existing software management systems in place, I added a web-based user interface that could be used from anywhere without having to do an installation.

• Software Developer, Java Swing User Interfaces

  Active Software

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; ASWX/WEBM; Computer Software industry)

  December 1995 — August 2000 (4 years 9 months)

  Early on, when Active Software could really use the cash, Doug Stein and I developed one of the first GUI builders for java, which was licensed by Sun Microsystems for inclusion in their visual development environment. We wrote specs, code, and tests to meet all deadlines and earn early completion bonuses in this $250,000 project.
  
  Wrote an internationalized, multi-threaded java application for management of our integration servers, wrote utility classes and java AWT widgets for other engineers, demos for marketing, command line tools, set up an on-line help system for technical writers, and created a way to automate graphical testing of our java tools.
  
  Performed plenty of interviews, doc reviews, training of other engineers, and conference calls and visits with customers during my time at Active Software, while it grew from 9 employees to 600. When it merged with webMethods in August 2000 it doubled in size to over 1000 employees.

• Software Developer, Internal Tools and Java

  Sun Microsystems

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

  February 1992 — December 1995 (3 years 11 months)

  I worked on Sun's first visual development environment for java (called "Visual Java" and written in java). I extended the early HotJava browser as a basis for the environment. Improved the reliability and design of the browser and created a super-applet class to enable other team members to write applets that could manipulate the browser's user interfaces and internal resources. Designed the help system.
  
  Before that, Doug Stein and I designed and implemented a GUI test automation tool called "No Hands". I wrote documentation for this tool, provided periodic releases, and supported its use for automated GUI testing and benchmarking within Sun. With it, we automated the OpenWindows test suite, making it possible to execute all available GUI tests for the Desktop environment overnight. Enhanced the tool to capture events, and service scripts in multiple languages. Provided technical leadership for other engineers later recruited to work on the tool.