Vasant Kumar

vasantk at gmail dot com

Summary

2 years of software development work experience in fields ranging from mobile devices to large scale retail websites. Strong interest product management, usability and the user experience from beginning to end. Lateral thinker. Good natured, hard working, and dedicated.

Adept in Java.

Experience in C++, Perl.

Recent Work Experience

2009 – Present

Software Development Engineer- Search Experience

Amazon.com, Seattle, Washington

  • As a developer on a diverse team of designers, usability experts, and business analysts I help integrate customer-facing features on the front-end of Amazon's search platform.

2009 (4 months)

HCI Research Assistant

University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario

  • With two other students, extended what was a former class project into an academically funded human computer interaction research project at the University of Waterloo.
  • The project entailed studying the integration of pen based computing in environmental field work and how best to integrate such technologies. Publishment pending.

2008 (4 months)

Software Development Engineer Intern- Search Experience

Amazon.com, Seattle, Washington

  • Developed an analysis of the pros and cons of Amazon.com's no result search pages, concentrating on those with no-results, to help improve both revenue and usability.
  • Used datamining and heatmapping to study Amazon's metrics and attended usability studies and design meetings to analyze and discuss customer behavior.
  • Implemented enhancements onto retail website.

2007 (8 months)

Software Developer Intern

Sybase iAnywhere, Waterloo, Ontario

  • Developed a mobile web browser for the RIM Blackberry.
  • Helped launch "AvantGo for Blackberry", a mobile content synchronization application.

2006 (4 months)

Software Developer Intern

ReTiSoft Inc., Toronto, Ontario

  • Implemented features for a laboratory robotics software system.

Education

2004 – 2009

Bachelor of Honours Computer Science

University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario

  • Specializations: Software Engineering, History
  • Top ratings of excellent or outstanding on all internships.
  • Undergraduate Research Experience: Human Computer Interaction, Advisor: Professor Michael Terry (Winter 2009)