Bob Vickers     Curriculum Vitae

Profile

I am a versatile systems programmer quick to pick up new technical skills, with in depth experience of many different operating systems and programming languages. Strengths include:

• problem solving

• writing resilient, maintainable and bugfree software

• competent technical writer

• willing provider of advice to others

• interest in open source solutions

• great talent for uncovering bugs

My primary role since 1990 has been Unix systems administration. I have also worked with Windows NT, but much prefer Unix.

Employment

Jun 1996 - Now   :   Royal Holloway College, University of London

I work in the Department of Computer Science administering Unix systems (mainly) and providing support for staff and students. Work includes:

• General system administration

• Providing support for over 400 users

• Writing perl and shell scripts

• Managing 2 other members of support team

• Advising on procurement of new equipment

• Installing application software

• Maintaining departmental web site

Aug 1995 - May 1996   :   Self-employed

I taught myself C++, using a PC running Windows NT. My main work was a contract with Saqqara Technology, writing an interpreter in C++ for a Visual Basic like language. During this period I also worked part-time for the University of Westminster creating an award-winning web site for the M25 Consortium Of Higher Education Libraries.

Jan 1979 - Jul 1995   :   University of London Computer Centre

At the time ULCC was one of the UK's biggest national high performance computing centres. It provided networking services and large-scale computing facilities used by researchers from many different universities. I worked in the Systems group, but liaised closely with Operations and User Support staff to maintain a high quality service. Work included:

• Upgrading operating system software, analysing crash dumps and developing corrections and enhancements.

• Writing utility programs and documentation.

• Acting as consultant to other members of staff and users.

Aug 1976 - Jan 1979   :   Post Office Data Processing Service

Cobol Applications programmer, using structured programming methodologies.

Areas of expertise

• Unix System Administration (Linux, Tru64 Unix, Solaris and others), with particular responsibility for security.

• HTML, WWW administration.

• Various Assembler languages including Cray and IBM 370.

• Programming languages: C, C++, Fortran, Pascal and Cobol.

• Sys admin tools: Perl and Bourne Shell.

Education

King's College, Cambridge (1973 - 1976)
BA Maths (2nd class honours)

Miscellaneous qualifications

I have a clean driving licence and some knowledge of French and German. I am a UK citizen, and live in Twickenham (near London).

Interests

Classical music (I sing in a choir and created a web site for them), sport, hillwalking, cycling and family history. I have a home computer on which I run Linux and occasionally Windows XP.

References

References available on request.

4^th October 2005