20025 296th Ave NE, Duvall, WA 98019 • (206) 355-2336 • roberthess@msn.com

Robert Hess Technical Evangelist / Program Manager

Objective: “To utilize my strong technical background, and strategic evangelism experience, to help

develop and deploy applications which effectively solve real-world problems and best utilize

advanced platform technologies. I love to be an active participant in the process of evolving new

technologies and solutions and creating world-class applications.”

Key Talents and Abilities: Technical Program Management experience on a wide range of tools and applications

Broad technical background and ability to quickly assimilate new technologies

Strategic planning and marketing background

Presentation/Demo preparation, Public speaking, and training

Writing and documentation skills

Application and Web developer

GUI/UX Designer

World renowned mixologist

Career Highlights: (Specifics and details available on request)

Microsoft’s first “Technical Evangelist”, and a founding employee of its “Developer Relations

Group” (DRG, Microsoft’s original evangelism team).

Created the “Microsoft Developer Network” (MSDN), to provide much needed developer tools,

documentation, and outreach to a broad spectrum of developers.

Developed the first SDK for Microsoft Office, to illustrate how Office could build a developer

ecosystem.

Ported “Doom2” to Windows from MS-DOS, to prove to developers that Windows could host

“twitch” games. This work was a precursor to Microsoft’s “DirectX” game development

technology.

Conceptualized, Implemented, and Ran the “Porting Lab” at Microsoft. This is an on-campus

facility for aiding strategic third party developers in adopting upcoming Microsoft technologies

in their applications and has become an important tool in helping developers adopt a variety of

new technologies coming out of the company.

Host, and Executive Producer of Microsoft’s “World Wide Live” (3 annual shows), a live, day-

long developer broadcast to help developers understand the direction of Microsoft’s platform

strategy.

Conceived, Hosted, & Produced “The MSDN Show” which was later rebranded as “The .NET

Show” (7 years, 63 episodes). This was an hour long web-based show which focused on various

cutting edge Microsoft technologies for developers.

Resume: Robert B. Hess Page: 2

Host and Executive Producer of Microsoft’s “Behind the Code” (5 years, 13 episodes), an hour

long interview with different technology leaders within Microsoft.

Conceived & Authored the Q&A column “Geek To Geek” for “Microsoft Internet Developer”

(MIND) Magazine and MSDN Magazine (5 years, 56 issues). This article fielded a diverse set of

technical questions sent in by readers.

Conceived and authored the “More Or Hess” online column for SiteBuilder Network and MSDN

Online (5 years, 51 columns). This column presented technical essays on a variety of topics

which would be of specific interest to a web development and design community.

Career History

Microsoft: Partner & Customer Engagement R&D May 2016 to Present Title: Technical Program Manager

Program Manager for tools and services that turned a manual and time-consuming

process of getting new builds of “Windows” from the internal build servers, through

binary validation, and onto the various distribution endpoints that partners and

customers can access for downloading and installation. The old process for doing this

could take an entire week to move the builds to distribution, and was time consuming

for the people doing the work. The new system can move builds to distribution in about

38 hours, and requires just two button clicks.

This project involved working with several different groups across the company, which

didn’t always see eye-to-eye, and helping them come together in order to create a

unified solution for OS distribution.

Microsoft: Retail Stores Division December 2013 to December 2015 Title: Program Manager

Assisted in the design, documentation, development, deployment, and training of

internal LOB tools which are used to manage various systems related to the global

Microsoft Retail Stores (both brick & mortar as well as online).

This involved working with an offshore development team and communicating with

them the development tasks and directions so they could deliver timely code updates.

These projects were developed as web based tools using Microsoft Azure and managed

as an “Agile” development project using Visual Studio TFS with a monthly cadence.

Resume: Robert B. Hess Page: 3

Microsoft: Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE) December 2000 – October 2012

Title: Principle Technical Evangelist

Roles: Manager, SDE, IC

Founding team member of DPE, and was in charge of running a tightly focused

development & design team. Responsible for creating demos, prototypes, and unique

content for upcoming technologies. The goal was to breathe life into the vision of our

technologies, both externally & internally, as well as aid developers in understanding

the potential that our platform technologies could provide.

Continued to host “The MSDN Show” and renamed it “The .NET Show” to focus its

content on providing details of various aspects of .NET development. This show was

quite popular with a broad developer audience.

Worked with the events team as their technical coordinator. As a seasoned developer,

designer, presenter, and advocate of demo quality, the core responsibilities were to

both strategize in development, as well as manage the planning, coordination, and

overall execution of keynote demos and presentations.

Worked closely with Microsoft Executive Staff in preparing technical presentations and

demonstrations for Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference (PDC), Microsoft

Tech*Ed, Microsoft’s MIX conferences, Microsoft //build, and various one-off technical

events where new platform technologies were being announced to a technical

audience.

Languages utilized: C++, C#, VB, VB.NET, JavaScript, VBScript

Microsoft: Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) July 1999 – December 2000

Role: SDE, IC, Author, Host, Executive Producer

Responsible for creating, hosting, and producing “The MSDN Show” which provided

developer insights, as well as material for MSDN’s on-line properties & print

publications. The show was later renamed “The .NET Show”.

During this time I continued to write the “Geek to Geek” column for MSDN Magazine.

Languages utilized: C++, VB, JavaScript, VBScript

Microsoft: Developer Relations Group (DRG) August 1989 – July 1999

Role: Software Design Engineer and Technical Evangelist

Resume: Robert B. Hess Page: 4

Was the developer responsible for dealing directly with Microsoft’s strategic partners.

Focused on resolving specific programming issues and developed sample code to

illustrate proper usage of various system features and technologies. Lectured at

developer events as a technical expert. Created the “Porting Lab”, was the host of

“World Wide Live”, wrote the native Windows port of DOOM II, and created MSDN.

I wrote the “More or Hess” column for our online web development magazine

“Sitebuilder Network” in which I helped to explain design and development principles

which were important to the budding web community.

I also wrote the monthly Q&A column for MSDN Magazine “Geek to Geek” in which I

provided answers to development questions sent in by our readers. This required me to

be fluent in virtually all of the development topics which were covered by the magazine.

Languages utilized: C++, VB, JavaScript, VBScript

Microsoft: OS/2 Development & Testing March 1989 – August 1989

Role: Software Design Engineer

Languages utilized: C++, Assembler

Microsoft: PSS Developer Support for OS/2 and Presentation Manager October 1988 – March 1989

Role: Manager of OS/2 Developer Support

Primary languages utilized: C, C++

Microsoft: PSS Developer Support for Windows March 1988 – October 1988

Role: Software Support Engineer

Primary languages utilized: C, C++, Assembler

Boeing February 1980 – March 1988

Role: System Manager and Software Design Engineer

Worked as a system manager to provide computing support to several key internal

groups, and was a software design engineer developing an internal graphical operating

system.

Languages utilized: Fortran IV, Fortran 77, C, C++, Forth, Pascal, Assembler, Modula-2,

Postscript

Resume: Robert B. Hess Page: 5

Programming Languages ADA, Assembly Language (IBM 360, PDP 11/70, VAX, 6502/65C02, 8088), Basic (multiple flavors),

C, C#, C++, Cobol, Forth, Fortran (IV, 77), FoxPro, JavaScript, JSON, Logo, Metafont, Module-2,

Oberon, Pascal, PostScript, Prolog, Ratfor, TECO, TeX, VB, VB.NET, VBA, VBScript

Education

Western Washington University Courses of Study: Computer Science / Psychology

Seattle Central Community College Courses of Study: Computer Science / Psychology