Drdc on Hashbang.ca

My 4 months at DRDC

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:00:00 -0400

Earlier this year, I posted a short entry about having accepted a job offer from Defence Research & Development Canada (DRDC). Over the past four months, I’ve had a great supervisor, a relaxed workplace, and challenging work. As you might imagine, working at a defence research lab is quite different from anything I’d done previously. I knew that was going to be the case, but I was still surprised at how little of my prior knowledge applied to The Real World Of Real Work. But first, what awesome, classified, doomsday devices did I get to work on? Well…

Heading to YAPC::NA 2011

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 20:56:00 -0400

Last year, I stumbled across http://presentingperl.org and discovered Yet Another Perl Conference, and the other hackathons, meetups, and workshops that the Perl community organizes all over the world. I immediately wanted to attend, but I wasn’t able to arrange to go. This year, I’m lucky to be working at DRDC for the summer, and they’ve given me time off to attend YAPC::NA 2011 in Asheville, NC.

Co-op at DRDC

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:23:00 -0400

I was late to join the job search process for my first co-op work term, but I was invited for several interviews. One of the most interesting jobs I applied for was a specific project with Defence Research and Development Canada. One of DRDC’s task groups is building a fake submarine for training purposes. The sub has mocked systems ranging from a sheet of paper saying “here are some buttons” up to a sophisticated computer simulation of real submarine systems. They were looking for someone to do the simulated sonar system. The project involves everything from soliciting requirements, finding and analyzing off-the-shelf software products (including FLOSS!) to meet those requirements, installing & integrating the system, doing quality assurance, and documenting the entire process.