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Justin Mathews
Software Engineering Leader

About

I've been working in the software industry since 1998. I have taken on a wide variety of responsibilities over the years, and am often called upon to extend myself beyond the traditional software developer or manager role.

Work Experience

ISARA Corporation
Waterloo, ON
September 2022 – Present
Director, Research and Development
ISARA Corporation
Waterloo, ON
November 2016 – September 2022
QA, Customer Support, and Shipping Manager
Responsible for all aspects of product quality, customer support, and software delivery. Built a team to design and implement tests of low-level cryptographic primitives and networking protocols.
Highlights
  • Hired and grew the QA department from scratch.
  • Designed, implemented, and collaborated on test suite for ISARA's implementation of quantum-safe cryptographic algorithms.
  • Validated interoperability and standards compliance of ISARA's quantum-safe enhancements to OpenSSL's TLS and PKI functionality.
  • Played a significant role in the usability and design of ISARA Advance™.
  • Mentored developers at various stages of their careers.
  • Defined processes for Customer Support & Software Delivery.
  • Initiated an extra-curricular code auditing group where ISARA's researchers and developers would collaborate to compare C code with academic papers, verifying the accuracy of ISARA's implementation of the algorithm defined in the paper.
McAfee/Intel Security
Waterloo, ON
2006 – November 2016
Software Development Manager
Managed multiple engineering teams across multiple departments within McAfee Consumer, with direct reports in Canada and India
Highlights
  • As manager of the McAfee Privacy Service and Core Tools teams, I negotiated timelines and resource availability with various levels of upper management, while still providing technical direction to my staff.
  • Managing the Partner Standard team meant I was the engineering representative working directly with McAfee's business stakeholders to ensure needs of our commercial partners would be met. This included occasionally working hands-on with external partners in their environment to resolve technical issues or dig deeper into their requirements.
  • Becoming manager of Release Engineering brought with it the responsibility of ensuring every external deliverable was fully auditable and repeatable.
  • Managing Intel Security's Consumer Performance Lab involved expanding and enhancing a semi-automated test lab. I ensured my staff were producing meaningful data about product performance, and report the lab's findings to all key stakeholders.
McAfee
Waterloo, ON
2004 – 2006
Lead Software Developer
I was promoted to Lead a few months after joining McAfee, expanding my role while still being hands-on with our codebase.
Highlights
  • As Lead Developer for McAfee Privacy Service, I was responsible for delegating and prioritizing tasks for the rest of the team.
  • Collaboration with Product Management was frequent, as we worked together to define what the product behaviour should be.
  • As Team Lead for the Partner Standard engineering team, my team and I were responsible for the configuration and delivery of 400 to 500 partner-specific releases per year.
McAfee
Waterloo, ON
2004 – 2004
Software Developer
I joined McAfee as part of the Privacy Service development team, protecting users from divulging personally identifiable information and protecting children from inappropriate content
Highlights
  • As a developer on McAfee Privacy Service, I was responsible for writing C++ code and investigating potential bugs.
ADM Systems Group
Kitchener, ON
December 1998 – December 2004
Software Developer
ADM Systems was a small start-up, and epitomized the "everyone wears many hats" attitude. Despite being fresh out of university, quickly became responsible for multiple internal and customer-facing projects.
Highlights
  • Worked directly with our customers to define and refine their product requirements.
  • Designed client/server applications for management of telecom system configuration and risk management data tracking.
  • Developed, tested, and debugged in multiple programming languages: Pascal, C++, Javascript, C#, Java.
  • Answered customer questions about product functionality, bug reports, and feature requests.
  • Performed on-site deployment and training services.
  • Authored product documentation for end users as integrated Windows help and as offline user guides.
  • Maintained IT infrastructure, including physical hardware as well as database, email, and PBX services.

Awards

  • September 2014

    USPTO

    United States Patent 8,850,029

    System, method, and computer program product for managing at least one aspect of a connection based on application behavior

  • November 2010

    USPTO

    United States Patent 7,840,660

    System, method, and computer program product for determining whether a process identified utilizing a first proxy is associated with an additional proxy

Contact

23 Bridgeport Rd E
Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2J4 CA
+15195725699
resume@justinmathews.ca
https://justinmathews.ca/
LinkedIn
justin-mathews-29646a3
GitHub
jamathews

Education

Skills

Software Development 30+ Years
Python C/C++ Javascript
People Management 15+ Years
Building Teams Mentoring Collaboration

Interests

Music
home studio multi-instrumentalist songwriting music production DIY guitar effects

References

I worked with Justin for a little more than 5 years, while he was my manager at McAfee. His leadership skills allowed him to successfully lead multiple teams at the same time. He is an excellent facilitator; he has solid domain knowledge and always strives to understand the details of the problems before acting. He keeps his calm and acts with cool logic even under the most stressful situations. Having him as a manager was a very good experience and I would recommend him without hesitation for any organization that requires his skills.

Justin is a pleasure to work with on the team. He is open, honest and approachable, making an excellent manager who works hard to solve problems. He goes above and beyond what is asked of him and puts in the extra effort into a product to make it great.

Justin is a great manager with a development background who has a laid-back attitude and is easy to talk to. He gives his developers the right amount of freedom and is able to rein them in for deadlines. He asks intelligent questions and takes the time to make sure he understands complex development issues. I was happy to be a part of his team.