Brad Becker
Redmon, WA USA
resume@scarynoises.com

Director of Product Management

Leadership in strategy, product planning, and marketing

SUMMARY

  • Lead cross-group product planning, strategy, and marketing in highly competitive global markets.
  • Lead product design and program management for commercial shrink-wrapped products.
  • Proven leadership of a multidisciplinary team of programmers, graphic designers, technical writers, and usability engineers responsible for envisioning and building sophisticated applications within constraints of time, budget, and technological limitations.
  • Over 16 years of professional experience in full-lifecycle software engineering
  • Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
  • Expertise in Techniques, Tools, and Technologies for:
    • Application Development for Web & Windows
    • Rapid Prototyping
    • User Interface Design
    • Usage-Centered Design
    • Team Development, Mentorship, and Leadership
  • Coordination of Technical, Creative, and Business groups
  • Public Speaking and Performance

EXPERIENCE

Microsoft

2008 - present Director of Product Management

Responsible for strategy, product planning, and marketing for various next generation Microsoft platforms and technologies including Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation.

2007 - 2008 Group Product Manager

Responsible for strategy and product planning for various next generation Microsoft platforms and technologies.

2005 - 2007 Senior Product Manager

Responsible for launching the Expression family of tools as well as designer interests in various next generation Microsoft platforms and technologies such as WPF and Silverlight.

Macromedia (Adobe)

2005 Senior User Experience Consultant

Responsible for designing solutions to client problems using Macromedia technologies such as Flash and Flex. Performed onsite end-user observation and interviews, business analysis, application design, prototyping, and preparation of reports and presentations of analysis and design results. Evaluated solutions through user testing and demonstrated solutions to clients. Projects included work for Avaya, Sherwin Williams, Dorado, Yahoo, Standard & Poor's, and the Dept. of Defense of Japan.

2002 - 2005 Senior Product Designer

Responsible for user experience in products including workflows, functionality, collateral, and the entire user interface. Member of team leadership--involved in planning, scheduling, quality review, and other tactical decision-making for the products. Coordinated design and implementation of features from initial conception to shipping. Coordinated all usability tests with the Usability team. All feature specs required my review and sign-off. Speaker for user groups, conference focus groups, developer Q&A panels
* FlexBuilder: Sole product designer for the Flex IDE. Created solutions for all major issues discovered in usability testing and UI audit. One of three core team members involved in all customer visits as part of synchronous development initiative.
http://macromedia.com/software/flex/flexbuilder/
* Flash: Sole product designer for Flash MX 2004. Successfully performed the first full UI audit of Flash. Introduced formal use case methodology to the engineering team. Created a database application for modeling and storing detailed use cases and other user requirements. Coordinated large reskinning of the Flash application with the Flash engineering and QA teams, other Studio product teams, internal design standards group, and external design agencies. Wrote specs for Start Page and worked with engineers, QA, and multiple product teams to get it implemented in all of the MM Studio products.
* Cross-Product UI Team: One of four key members of the cross-product user interface board at Macromedia making user interface and application design decisions for the entire Studio product line.

NDCHealth

2000 - 2002 Team Lead for UI Design, Development, & Usability
* User Experience Team: Recognized need for a User Experience team at NDCHealth. Conceptualized team and solicited management approval. Created job descriptions, interviewed and hired candidates consisting of programmers, designers, usability designers, and technical writers. Established, documented, and mentored graphic design procedures, best practices for coding, and user-oriented prototyping/design methodologies.
* Usage Tool: Created a database application for modeling and storing use cases, user profiles, and interaction contexts.
* ePREMIS: Responsible for the design and implementation of the presentation layer of a large suite of web-based B2B applications for the healthcare industry. Responsibilities included: leadership and project management of the UI team in prototyping, architecture, graphic design, usability analysis, design and coding of all UI elements. Created complex yet lightweight web-enabled business applications using Flash, ActionScript, XML, COM, and ASP. Our team's milestones were all delivered on time and under budget, and was receiving very positive feedback from upper management as well as from beta testers.
* Participated in the entire development cycle from contextual inquiry, use cases, and requirements to usability testing, software development, and testing.
* Coordinated external graphic design agency, internal DBA's and software engineers, customers, and product management.
http://ndchealth.com/products_services/hospital/has_products/epremis.htm

1997-2000 MIS Project Manager/Software Engineer
Saw a need in the company for a simplification in some of the core business processes. Performed extensive business analysis and solicited user requirements. Pitched concepts to upper management and received approval for the project. Created multiple applications.
* PayerServicesIS: Created a mission-critical internal application, tying together approximately 50 users from several different corporate departments. Significantly reduced the number and effort of related processes. Significantly reduced use of paper document processing and storage. Has been successfully used on a daily basis since completion.
* Assign and Release: Created an application in VB, Access, ODBC, and Oracle RDB to enable fast, automated creation of Electronic Product Distribution releases to over a thousand clients. Application doubled the reliability and speed of the Assign and Release processes by automating much of the operator manual processes and eliminating many possibilities for operator error. Still in use each week.
* ASPPBuilder: Created a groupware utility used by multiple departments to track projects and tasks online and generate required monthly reports automatically. Consisted of a VB application located on each employees desktop and an ASP-based web site for real-time project/task status for managers.

1995-1997 SQA Analyst - Special Projects
Responsible for all special projects for SQA including planning and implementation of a testing lab. Performed formal software quality assurance and usability testing.

1992-1995 Software Engineer
Worked on a large team of developers creating a Windows application for the healthcare industry. Sole responsibility for one of the four major feature areas of the product. Development was in C. The most recent version of this product is in use at over 1000 hospitals.

ScaryNoises.com

2000-present Multimedia Designer, Programmer, Information Architect
Successfully delivered several web and multimedia projects for various e-commerce and traditional business clients including various record companies (Mojo, Universal, Arista) and their bands. Created logos, branding, original audio soundtrack compositions, multimedia presentations, cross-browser/cross-platform web sites, multimedia e-cards.
http://www.scarynoises.com

The Softworks Group

1993-1995 Principle/Software Developer
Created a UI-intensive software application that allowed users to track and record information into a database, model probabilities, "play-test", and analyze data through quantitative graphs. The product was developed in C/C++, MFC, Access, VBA, ODBC, and Photoshop. Set up an all-electronic sales and distribution model, selling and uploading direct to clients all around the world via Compuserve and a credit card order processing company.

1991-1992 Software Developer
Worked for a startup on an early competitor to Photoshop.

Admiral Twin

1990-2002 Professional Performing/Recording Artist
Secured a record deal with Mojo/Universal Records. Recorded and released a nationally distributed album. Toured across North America as the opening act for a platinum-selling group, playing to approximately half a million people. Wrote a song used in a Warner Bro's major motion picture. Owned and operated a project recording studio for audio/video production.
http://www.admiraltwin.com | http://www.allmusic.com

SKILLS

Analytical/Process
Business Analysis, Contextual Inquiry, Requirements Gathering, Usage Centered Design, Synchronous Development, Microsoft Solution Framework

Design/Production
Interaction Design, Graphic Design, Multimedia Design, Software Quality Assurance, Navigation Design, Audio Production
Programming
SQL, VB/VBA, C/C++/C#, MFC, Flash Actionscript, ASP, Javascript, XML, HTML, CSS
Software
Flash, Visual Studio, Office, Visio, Visual SourceSafe, Perforce, Access, Project, Photoshop, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, SQL Server, SoundForge, Acid, Vegas Video, Premiere, ProTools, Swift3D
Communication
Public Speaking, Public Performance,
Documentation of User Requirements, Specifications, and Design

MEMBERSHIPS

ACM SIG-CHI (Computer-Human Interaction)
National Honor Society

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, ORU, 1991. Graduated cum laude.