Nickey C. Shin

Resume

Contact Information
< available upon request >

(Due to the high profile project I have worked on, I have taken my home address and phone number off these pages.)

http://estss.com/NCS/
nshin@estss.com

-- Please contact me via e-mail.
You will have a better chance of reaching me and then setting up a day and time for a phone call.

Employment Objective

Challenge my knowledge in electrical engineering hardware skills and computer science software programming with exciting technologies. Explore my creativity and imagination in a medium that best suites my ability. Yet, am business conscience by keeping an eye on the company's needs, by being analytical, methodical and highly organized.

Work Experience

If you want to know more about the places I have worked at, then click here.

Technology Consultant

<Start Up Project>

Winter 2007 to Present - System Architect
- Name, market area and details of this project are currently under wraps.

White Rabbit Games Studios (now acquired by TouchTunes Music Corporation)

Summer/Fall 2007 - Systems Engineer
- Developed the diagnostic UI and reporting system used on the PlayPorTT.

Midway Games

Video Game Programmer

Jan 2007 to Oct 2007 - Video Game Software Engineer for the Mortal Kombat: (8) project (full time position)
- This project will be using the Unreal Engine from Epic Games.
  Current Experience includes:
  - intimate knowledge of the Unreal Engine project structure and how the architecture can be used/extended
  - configuring/using/adding features to the "editor"
  - creating/using "commandlets"
  - ported old sound API the team is familar with to work on top of the Unreal Engine
Jan 2005 to Dec 2006 - Video Game Software Engineer for the Mortal Kombat: Armageddon project (full time position)
- Project Leader on MOTOR Kombat, another "mini-game" mode. This was done full time for the duration of the whole project. Tasks included:
  - complete mode from the ground up - from an engine that was derived from a "fighting-mode" game system
  - custom collision mechanism for efficient and optimization needs
  - split screen mode (allowing up to 4 players on a single "offline" game)
  - multi-player mode for up to 8 players online
  - networking code (traffic shaping, message optimization and priority levels) to fit within restricted resources available/allowed
  - and was pretty much the only one programming this mode... =)
Jan 2003 to Dec 2004 - Video Game Software Engineer for the Mortal Kombat: Deception project (full time position)
- Project Leader on Puzzle Kombat, a mini-game mode. This mode was finished in about 8 months into the first year. Tasks included:
  - game play mechanics
  - puzzle engine
  - networking code
  - optimizations
- Other tasks included coding support for the main fighting game mode:
  - all "fatalities" and "hara kiri" routines
  - Dark Prison background -- this arena was unique where non-player characters (NPC) interact with the 2 fighting players on an engine not designed for this kind of interaction.
  - particle effects
  - core system and particle system optimizations
July 2001 to Dec 2002 - Video Game Software Engineer for the Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance project (full time position)
- On this particular project, this was the only team in the company that developed a game on all the three target platforms simultaneously (i.e. not outsourced). So I have become very familiar with the inner workings of:
  - Playstation2
  - Xbox
  - GameCube
- Wrote the shadow and reflection system for the "player characters". Special effects: including particle effects and "fatality" mechanism and functions.
- Wrote a new display processing and lighting control system for the game engine.
- Configured PC machines for running linux in order to process SDK files and vendor provided tools for quicker development solutions.
Jan 2001 to June 2001 - Systems Software Engineer for the Touchmaster (full time position)
- Worked on the Touchmaster product line. A touchscreen table top video game machine. This continued until the end of the product's life when the company moved off of coin-op games and into the home console markets.
  - Wrote a new display system that is truely platform independant. So the project is not doomed to obsolete products.
  - Device driver work on legacy systems.
  - Rewrote the build environment for higher reliability and easy maintainance.
  - Operating systems used in this project were Linux and FreeBSD.

Motorola

High Availability Platform (HAP) Development

May 1998 to Dec 2000 - Software Engineer (full time position)
- Assignments included developing the new generation of network and communication systems for the telephony industry.
  - Writing device drivers on new proprietary hardware with real time operating systems (RTOS) on Motorola's PowerPC boards running WindRiver's VxWorks, Lynx's LynxOS, and Sun's ChorusOS
- Other assignments involved creating a new development environment for our developers to use (over 200 people locally and another 100 at remote sites). The development environment will then be deployed to our (internal) customers for developing/providing new commercial products.
  - Designed the network infrastructure for the developer's environment (which includes providing a secure method of holding third party licensed source codes).
  - Provided solutions to help create a training session for teaching the developers about the RTOS in use.
  - Provided solutions in the developer's environment for integrating with 6 different internal Motorola groups.
  - Designed and held training session for the developers by presenting and teaching new procedures and technologies.
  - Working on developing new applications for the Sun Solaris workstation and servers that will access and control the new HAP product.

Digital Equipment Corporation

Text-To-Speech Research and Development

January 1997 to December 1997 - Software Engineer (45+ hours per week - internship)
- Assigned to the development of the DECtalk product lines.
- Assisted in final release production quality control, build processes, and implementation of new features, tool development for automation in tuning and regression testing for both of the hardware and software products.
- Was responsible as the primary product trouble shooter (debugging) engineer.
- Wrote new programs that featured the abilities of the product (Windows applications in Visual C++).

University of Illinois, Computing Services Office

Engineering Workstation System Labs

Spring 1996 to Fall 1996 - Site Manager (30+ hours per week - part time position)
- In addition to the Lab Assistant's responsibility, site managers are also responsible for the maintenance of the labs themselves and responsible for checking on attendance and the performance of the lab assistants working in the lab.
- Held performance reviews and provided suggestions and reports on improving the lab's ability and usability for the engineer's needs.
Fall 1994 to Spring 1996 - Lab Assistant (20+ hours per week - part time position)
- Assisting users with the software and hardware supported by the College of Engineering Workstation computer systems.
- Responsible for maintaining and trouble-shooting these systems which covered six labs and about 200 networked UNIX workstations, including Sun SPARCstation 2/10/20, IBM RS6000, and HP/Apollo HP-UX models 700 and 715.i

Jaleco USA

Product Development, Research and Design

August 1990 to May 1994 - Consultant (10 - 35+ hours per week)
- Assisted in product development and end product quality assurance by providing feedback and testing the programs before releasing it for marketing.
  - Testing covered consumer and commercial sector products that were produced in the industry of electronic gaming entertainment. Specifically, gaming cartridges for the Nintendo machines for the consumer market and full size uprights and sit-in arcade machine for the coin-op market.
- Also assisted in electronic shows and exhibits (Consumer Electronic Show) as a public relations liaison by showing product demonstrations and providing technical information to interested parties.
Summer 1994 - Warehouse Manager (10 - 35+ hours per week)
August 1990 to May 1992 - Warehouse Assistant (10 - 35+ hours per week)
- Ran full warehouse shipping and receiving operations for Jaleco consumer and commercial products. Also assisted the coin-op technician in trouble shooting and rebuilding coin-op products.

Computer Experience

Operating Systems: AIX(IBM), HPUX(HP), SOLARIS(SUN), DIGITAL UNIX, LINUX and BSD; OS/2; PC-DOS; Windows NT4.0/2000/XP; VxWorks(WindRiverSystem), LynxOS(Lynx), ChorusOS(SUN).
Window Managers: X-Windows; Microsoft Windows; Apple OSX.
Languages:
- High Level Language: C, C++, FORTRAN, VHDL
- Low Level Language: Scheme, 80x86 (asm), i960 (asm), M68HC11 (asm).
- Interpreters: Perl, Sed, Awk as well as shell scripting with BASH
- Web Specific Languages: HTML, PHP, ASP, Javascript.
- APIs: Many. Most notables are: Open-GL, MFC and the many open source libraries available from F/OSS.
Software:
- Engineering applications: Mentor Graphics Design Architech and IC Layout, ICE, SPICE, Mathematica and others.
- Integrated Development Environments: Microsoft Developer's Studio, Premia CodeWright, Cygnus CodeFusion and KDeveloper.
  Experienced in Windows and Linux application Programming.
- Documentation applications: PageMaker, FrameMaker, PostScript, PDF, Word and other documentation editors - favorite editor of choice: VIM
- Digital graphics applications: Photoshop, Gimp, Illustrator, Povray, TrueSpace, LightWave and other graphic editors.
  - Understand many popular graphic file formats: BMP, PCX, TGA, GIF, MPEG, JPEG and others.
- Digital audio applications: GoldWave, CoolEdit, Winamp and other audio players and editors.
  - Understand many popular sound file formats: WAVE, AU, MODS, MP3, OGG and others.
- Network protocols: TCP, UDP, ATM, IP and others.
  - Familiar with network applications such as web browsers, news readers, e-mail clients, ftp clients, ICQ and others.
- Utilities: memory and device managers (from the old DOS days).
Hardware:
- Very knowledgeable of the PC in/output ports; including printer and mouse devices; interrupts and address setups; and slot/peripheral configurations, including video, sound, hard drive controllers, SCSI systems controllers and telephony/network communications cards.
- Also knowledgeable of different types of UNIX workstations such as the Sun SPARC, HP Apollo, IBM Risc, and DIGITAL Alpha Machines. As well as LINUX and xBSD.

Education

University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana

Electrical Engineering

Computer Science

Relevant Coursework

Electrical and Computer Engineering (Major)
Computer Science (Minor)
Business Administration (Extracurricular)
Pre-Med (Former Major)

Personal Projects

(currently active)

ESTSS
Gambling on the stock market :)

(Completed)

(1999) A PalmPilot utility I wrote for the PC - PilotPC Alarm.
(1998) Robotics and MicroControllers from my Senior Design Course.
(1997) Was gone for a CO-OP assignment.
(1996) Audio/Video Transmitter from my Advanced Digital Projects Laboratory Class.
(1996) Fabrication of Integrated Circuits from my Theory and Fabrication of Integrated Circuits.
(1996) The Laser Snooper from my Advanced Digital Projects Laboratory Class.
(1995) LEGOBOT Project from my Computer Engineering/Architecture II Class.
(1995) Elevator Controller from my Digital System Laboratory Class.
(1992) Built my very own working arcade test box.

If any of this is of interest to you, please mail me at nshin@estss.com.

Last updated Dec 2007.

Nick Shin - nshin@estss.com