Michael Wen's Professional Experiences

On to my experience, pals. Well this page is mainly a reference to my technical experiences so that my potential employer can take a look at their convenience. Enjoy :) 12/2010 - CURRENT

Somehow I got involved heavily in the PM world at Jet Optoelectronics because I started to communicate with our customers in the U.S. and they began to rely on me to solve their problems. The problem is that we may have the best engineers but we have few who can speak fluent English. I stepped up and began solving issues for our customers and here I am.. Lesson? Always get involved and do whatever you can to help the company grow. Be proactive and show initiative in taking actions and making proposals to improve the company and you'll show your value.

9/2010 - 12/2010

I got hired to manage the R&D department of a car LCD monitor company called Jet Optoelectronics. This company is the leading company in the in-car entertainment industry and it is an OEM and ODM for headrest monitors. My job is to organize the Research & Development team to the best of their abilities and innovations.

3/2008 - 4/2010

My job was to develop and maintain the Java backend of a visual search engine called Like.com.

8/2005 - 2/2008

I am a software engineer for a big software-as-a-service company here at Santa Barbara. We use Java to build the back-end system of our award-winning products. We also use many Java-related technologies. I have been involved with many challenges, and have been able to handle them with great success. Here is a list of what I do:

• Use Java to build back-end system of our award-winning remote collaboration products
• Use all types of Java technologies, including JDO, J2EE, and Spring
• Use Velocity to render font-end pages
• Use Oracle database and have experience with examining (with "explain path") and optimizing SQLs
• Use many popular IDEs and tools, including IntelliJ, Eclipse, DbVisualizer, Perforce, etc.

If you are interested to learn more about my experiences with it, feel free to request my resume from me.

I have a passion for programming with PHP because it is such an elegant language. I have solid experiences with web application programming with PHP, Apache, and MySQL. Here is a list of work I have done:

• Developed a men's fashion website from start to finish
• Developed a quick information website from start to finish
• Developed a sales management system for Yes411.com for their sales representatives: They can search, reserve, unreserve, manage their potential customers.
• Developed an application to allow users to post things on the Internet (similar to Craigslist)
• Developed an application to translate a Chinese term into English (in progress)
• Developed a my homepage from start to finish

4/2004 - 8/2004

I was involved with large-scale projects, working primarily with HSM, or Hardware Security Module. An HSM is a hardware cryptographic device, which is used heavily in financial institutions. We were one of the sales teams for many large corporations that specialize in designing and manufacturing HSMs, including nCipher, Thales, and Eircom. Many banks are our customers including China Trust, Jihsun securities Co. LTD, Gao Nong, Tao Shin.

Not until I tech-supported China Trust did I ever realize dealing with a client can be extremely frustrating. China Trust certainly wins the award of making my life a living hell. O well, I should quit whining before I lose your interest. I was assigned several duties, including providing training to people who needed to operate HSMs, giving our customers technical support, updating firmware, writing software applications to control the HSMs, and developing software that could interface HSMs. In particular, I am most familiar with nCipher's netHSM 300/1600, nShield, nForce, and Thales' WebSentry, RG7000, and RG8000.

To give you an idea what an HSM looks like, here are some pictures of HSMs:

netHSM:

nShield:

WebSentry:

RG7000:

It was a wonderful experience. If it was not for graduate school I'd continue to work with the team or find new opportunities. Come to think of it, isn't getting higher education also a new opportunity for me? Or rather something that will create a gazillion of opportunities in the near future. One thing I am certain is that I am not drifted here by the tides of fate; I chose to be here. Hope you all feel this way~

Ever since middle school I took on the role of a tutor and have tutored many people, some as friendly help and some as professional service. I believe helping people is one of my lifelong tasks, and I am happy to help people as long as they help themselves in the first place.

1994 - 1995: My physics and chemistry teachers opened a cram school and I was assigned their teaching assistant to help students learn physics and chemistry. This was my first teaching gig.
1996 - 1998: I tutored people in math and English regularly.
1998 - 2000: A friend of mine introduced me to a couple of tutoring jobs in English writing and English grammar. Later many such opportunities came along and I took them.
2000 - 2002: I tutored people in math, English writing, and computer programming regularly.

Helping people is a lesson to all of us. Some don't like helping others because it's either too much trouble, too much hassle, or just plain selfish. A classic example is helping your fellow students. One may think doing so raises competition in the class and refuses to help other students academically or even worse, helps them in a misleading manner. How inhumane and selfish!

My take is that we help people whenever we get a chance. Think of it this way: The fact that you are able to help people already gives you the advantage, and doing so may not require much effort on your part but means a lot to people who need your help. I don't expect you to be a Good Samaritan every single moment because we all are emotional, but what about some of the time?