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\section*{\centering Colin Watson}

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Residence & Wilburton, Ely, United Kingdom \\
E-mail & cjwatson@chiark.greenend.org.uk \\
Nationality & Irish, British \\
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I am a self-starting free software developer who has been a core member of
the Debian and Ubuntu development teams for many years. I like delivering
software to end users and maintaining it afterwards for the long haul.
Experience working at the scale of large software distributions has taught
me how to navigate and absorb unfamiliar codebases very quickly,
particularly build systems. I have worked remotely for the majority of my
professional life, have a strong sense of personal responsibility, and do
not need close supervision to stay productive.

\subsection*{Employment}

Jan 2024 -- present day: \nopagebreak\\
Freelance consultant for Columbiform (my own company).

Jan 2015 -- Dec 2023: \nopagebreak\\
Software Engineer on Canonical's Launchpad team (Staff Engineer with
architect responsibility from about 2019 on). Projects included: adding Git
hosting support; rewriting much of launchpad-buildd for improved
testability; building snap and charm recipes; adding GitHub bug linking;
several Twisted improvements to support newer SSH protocol features;
revamping build system; a number of upstream contributions to Zope;
implementing a code-signing service; mentoring several new engineers; many
database performance optimizations; porting the main \textgreater{}700KLoC
codebase to Python 3; rewrote deployment machinery; and generally working
through years of technical debt.

Oct 2008 -- Dec 2014: \nopagebreak\\
Technical Lead for the Ubuntu Foundations team. Projects included:
significant contributions to GRUB 2; flicker-free boot; a large part of
Ubuntu's implementation of UEFI Secure Boot; cross-building packages at
scale; improved the quality of daily builds, including starting a rotating
maintenance squad and shifting uploads to a staged model; service on the
Technical Board; porting various packages to Python 3; and a great deal of
maintenance work.

Dec 2006 -- Oct 2008: \nopagebreak\\
Ubuntu Development Manager for Canonical, responsible for the Ubuntu
Foundations team.

May 2004 -- Dec 2006: \nopagebreak\\
Joined Canonical Ltd. as one of its initial group of developers of the
Ubuntu distribution of GNU/Linux. Projects included: initiating and leading
the installer team; building CD images; a stint as release manager;
development and maintenance of various archive-related software; and the
creation of a new graphical installer.

May 2003 -- May 2004: \nopagebreak\\
Software Engineer for nCipher Corporation, Cambridge. Worked on improving
ASN.1 support, bug tracking system infrastructure, and the beginnings of a
TPM-related project.

August 2000 -- April 2003: \nopagebreak\\
Software Engineer for Zeus Technology, Cambridge, specialising initially in
performance and later in web server development. Experience in Unix
performance tuning, C++, and Perl (both scripting and XS). Primary author of
the Perl extensions to the Zeus Web Server.

June--September 1999: \nopagebreak\\
Summer job in C development (configuration management for embedded
communications software) at Data Connection, London.

\subsection*{Other Experience}

February 2001 -- present day: \nopagebreak\\
Debian Developer (\url{https://www.debian.org/}). I've maintained a number
of important packages over the years, including man-db, groff, base-passwd,
openssh, and grub2, and wrote some packages such as binfmt-support and
libpipeline from scratch. I maintained the bug tracking system from about
2002 to 2008, including adding the version tracking feature that forms an
important part of Debian's release management. I was a release manager for
the 3.1 ("sarge") release, a member of the installer team for many years,
and I served on the Technical Committee from August 2011 to March 2015.

Self-taught C, Perl, Python, and various other less useful languages. I took
part in several maths/programming competitions as a student, and was twice a
member of Ireland's International Olympiad in Informatics team.

Unix development (both out of personal interest and professionally), and
competency in Linux administration (Debian, Ubuntu).

I am married with four children.

I have held a full UK driving licence since 1996, free from endorsements.

I have a classical music background, with training in piano and cello,
although these days most of my musical activity is singing; I was an
occasional cantor at our local church for several years.

\subsection*{Education}

12 GCSEs (9 A*s, 3 As); 4 A-levels (4 As); 1 AS (A); 2 STEPs (S, 1).

BA (Hons) reading Computer Science at Trinity College, Cambridge; classed as
I/I/II.2.

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Other formats: \url{https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~cjwatson/cv/}

Last modified: \verb'$Date: 2023-07-03 09:27:19 +0100 $'

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