Cover Letter

December 20, 2012

Job Application Linux engineer

Dear Future Employer: I am very excited to apply for your linux engineer position. After checking your job description carefully, I very am confident that we can make a great achievement by working together. My name is DennyZhang, a technical geek of linux/emacs in Shanghai, China. Possess ~ 5 years devoops experience in cloud computing. During 2002 to 2008, I received my bachelor and master degree of Computer Science in Sun Yat-Sen University, which is Top 10 University in China. After that, I worked in EMC Cooperation for nearly 3 years, on the distributed filesystem project, naming Atmos. Then I joined Shopex Cooperation, where we have successfully built up a PaaS system for E-commercial industry, mainly by erlang. Play with fantastic linux tools to fix peculiar problems or performance issues. I am constantly interested for question like " why the services behavior is against my judgment " . Root causing it may be frustrating or even like chasing ghost. But its really exciting to resolve it, by playing with all powerful linux weapons, like systemtap, tcpdump, proc filesystem etc. Sometimes I may even check linux source code for confirmation, which currently is a mystery for me to discover. Emacs geek with 10,000 configuration lines. Emacs teach me a lot, especially for two things: automation and knowledgebase management. Writing elisp scripts to automate work/ life is a big hobby for me. Also thanks to emacs, I can track everything and share everything with nearly no extra effort. Hope my emacs configuration is also useful for you: https://github.com/DennyZhang/Denny-s-emacs-configuration . And I constantly exported my "local google" to the Internet: http://blog.ec-ae.com/ In depth knowledge of HTTP and TCP protocol. Most of services in our PaaS system is either a TCP/UDP server or a http server. Its not so hard to make them work, especially for high language like erlang. But making them reliable and high performance is another story. I sincerely treat tcpdump and systemtap as my dear friends, when trouble shooting. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and sincerely hope my application fits your expectation. Sincerely yours, Denny Zhang markfilebat@126.com

Reference Letter
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To Whom it May Concern:

I highly recommend Denny Zhang for the any senior engineering position in your company. Denny was employed by EMC as a software engineer from 2008 to 2011, particularly working on the Atmos product. It is with pleasure that I offer you this letter of recommendation on his behalf. Although being a relatively young engineer, Denny has many excellent skills that you would not even see from many seasoned engineers. He is a very-well organized person. He managed his own personal life well. He had his projects and tasks well organized. He even has his own learning and knowledge well maintained. He is a very hard working, and reliable co-worker. He is self-motivated, which allow me to focus on technical stuff and pay little attention to people management part for him. He also demonstrated the exceptional trouble shooting skills required for cloud computing area. I am happy to see his fast growth, for the years inside and outside EMC. Overall, Denny is a bright developer with lots of potentials. He is that kind of the engineer that can grow with the company together. With all being said, I highly recommend him for this job. Please do not hesitate to contact me if need any further information. Sincerely, Ming Zhang Consultant Software Engineer at EMC 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142 1-617-281-5393, ming.zhang@emc.com

Reference Letter
It is with great pleasure that I write this letter of recommendation for Denny Zhang. I first met Denny four years ago, at which time he was a campus hire in EMC cooperation, working as a software engineer in the Atmos project. I hold him in the highest regard both personally and technically. While working with Denny for two years, I was impressed by his fast learning. He was curious with anything strange, and willing to trace down every issue. Denny also keeps promoting his working efficiency in an extraordinary way, which leads him to a deep emacs evangelist. Denny would be a tremendous asset for your company and has my highest recommendation. If you have any further questions with regard to his background or qualifications, please do not hesitate to call me. Sincerely, Hongbin Yin Principal Engineer at brightcove 290 Congress Street 4th Floor Boston MA 02210 831-229-6028, hyin@brightcove.com
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Blog: http://blog.ec-ae.com Email: markfilebat@126.com Github: https://github.com/DennyZhang Shanghai, China

DennyZhang
Objective
Seeking a position of developer in Cloud Computing

Skills
~5 years DevOops experience of distributed systems Feeling good to be the final escalation point: play with all fantastic tools to resolve Linux problems In-depth knowledge of TCP/HTTP protocol Build up a PaaS system from the scratch Eager to automate everything to the extreme: over 10,000 lines of EMACS customization https://github.com/DennyZhang/Denny-s-emacs-configuration Knowledge sharing is effortless at every stage, when attacking a tough problem http://blog.ec-ae.com/?tag=recommendate Languages: C/C++, Python, Shell, Erlang, Elisp, RoR Tools: Puppet, Zabbix, Hudson, Tsung; Zookeeper, Mongo; Systat, Tcpdump, etc

Experience
Performance tuning and DevOop the PaaS system, naming ECAE Architect/Team lead @Shopex Cooperation , Shanghai ECAE is somewhat like Google Application Engine for E-commercial industry Major responsibility: make ECAE more efficient, and more reliable. [Design] Identify system's weak points like SPOF, from the perspective of white-box [Linux] Analysis performance issues, like slow http request, services using exaggerated resource, etc [Linux] Handle any escalated issues Technology used: systat toolkit, /proc filesystem, tcpdump, strace, systemtap, etc Build up Paas Application Engine for E-commercial industry, ECAE Architect/Team lead @Shopex Cooperation , Shanghai Major responsibility: make ECAE work [Storage] Implemented a distributed filesystem for pictures, like hybridizing S3 with haystack [Computing] Implemented a reliable, distributed, async task engine, for multi-tenants [HTTP/TCP] Involved in the design phase for router service, which maintains http connection pools [TCP/UDP] Co-designed for log server, similar like splunk Technology used: Erlang, Rabbitmq, Mnesia, cowboy, etc Quality engineering for PaaS system, ECAE Architect/Team lead @Shopex Cooperation , Shanghai May, 2011 Now
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Jan, 2012 Now

May, 2011 Now

Major responsibility: Do whatever we can to make ECAE bugfree [Continous integration] Automate all CI stages by Hudson/Rpmbuild/Puppet/Tsung/etc [Tsung] Provided a tsung plug-in for thrift protocol, to perform load test for thrift servers. [Hudson] Provided Hudson task to simulate potential failures, like service crash, random server reboot, etc [Monitoring] Enabled puppet to automatically generate zabbix monitor items for all necessary checks [Reporting] Enabled services to easily report issues by logging to syslog-ng. [Dogfood] Dogfooded ECAE for blog, wiki, svn, etc. Technology used: Tsung, Puppet, Hudson, Zabbix etc Distributed filesystem, naming ATMOS Software engineer @EMC Cooperation , Shanghai Aug, 2009 April, 2011 Atmos is one of EMC's killer products, a commercial distributed filesystem with versatile features. Major responsibility: Make sure rolling upgrade feature work, and identify blocking issues of product release [Python/C++] Rolling upgrade with minimum impact, parallel installation, and service migration [Linux] Involved in all open issues' trouble shooting before product release [Linux] Performance test for filesystem CRUD by POSIX VFS API and REST HTTP API Project discussion and International communication in Boston ~2 weeks Technology used: Linux toolkit(tcpdump, strace, systemtap), Jmeter, Ganglia, etc Distributed filesystem, naming ATMOS Software engineer @EMC Cooperation , Shanghai [C++] Prototype for the feature of DragAndDropTo /PrintingTo/EmailTo Atmos Technology used: C, XAM, Tcpdump, etc Aug, 2008 Aug, 2009 Major responsibility: Prototype for enable individual users to easily access Atmos in versatile ways

Open Source
[Emacs] My emacs configuration of 10,000 lines; emacs addon of daily journal, online search https://github.com/DennyZhang/Denny-s-emacs-configuration https://github.com/DennyZhang/daily-information-aggregation https://github.com/DennyZhang/elisp-online-search [Erlang] Tsung plug-in for thrift protocol; Monkey patch erlang module https://github.com/DennyZhang/tsungthrift https://github.com/DennyZhang/erlrecompile [Misc] Leverage puppet to maintain my operating system; SOA based personal finance system https://github.com/DennyZhang/puppet-install-personal-computer https://github.com/DennyZhang/rd-account [Misc] Regularly check source code of erlang, linux and emacs to resolve puzzles.

Education
Master of Science in Computer Science, Sun Yat-Sen University, China 2006-2008 Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Sun Yat-Sen University, China 2002-2006

References
Available upon request
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