Philippe Docourt
Senior Software Engineering Manager
Profile
Self-motivated engineering manager with more than twenty years of experience in software engineering, spanning CAM desktop software, web platforms, and DevOps infrastructure.
Experienced in working directly with customers and stakeholders to ensure project goals are achieved within scope and budget. Results-oriented and customer-centric.
Strong technical background in Python, C# and C++, with experience in the CAM industry and web development. Proven ability to anticipate and resolve complex problems. Advocate of employee empowerment.
Employment History
Engineering leadership for one of the world's leading CAM software solutions, working full remote from Switzerland with teams based in the United States.
Launched a new Robotic Process Automation business line in 2022, extended with Business Intelligence in 2023. Established internal policies and documentation to ensure deployed software stacks were reproducible, maintainable, and secure.
- Member of the Executive Committee: developed new business models, defined value propositions, and planned company strategy.
- Managed technical aspects of the organization and practiced continuous technology watch; advised the Executive Committee on strategic choices regarding technologies and IT tooling.
- Deployed company-wide document management, single sign-on, and password management solutions for all employees.
- Defined requirements, built budgets, and negotiated contracts with customers; led teams to deliver software projects on time and within budget.
- Screened public tenders, participated in proposal writing, and maintained relationships with customers, partners and providers.
Led the team that developed the current simulation of complex NC machines in TopSolid'CAM. Introduced continuous integration into the TopSolid development workflow to improve processes and team productivity.
- Director of the Swiss subsidiary of the TopSolid Group (headquartered in France); led the Swiss developer team to deliver new features for TopSolid'CAM.
- Participated in establishing annual roadmaps with other development team leaders and product owners based in France.
- Designed and implemented software architecture, ensuring systems were scalable, reliable, and secure.
- Deployed in-house CI infrastructure based on Docker containers to control hosting costs.
- Optimized software by reducing both memory usage and execution time when working on huge data sets.
- Mentored junior engineers and new hires; participated in the hiring process; demonstrated expertise in C# and in software engineering best practices.
- Contributed to developing a brand new CAM software in a startup environment.
- Gathered and defined customer requirements, wrote clear specifications, and provided detailed project reports and milestone updates.
- Maintained the software documentation process; wrote software tests and contributed to deploying automated testing.
Extra-curricular Activities
- Developed and launched MyGym, an online platform for managing sports clubs.
- Developed and sold Find & Replace It!, a software capable of running very complex search & replace operations on huge sets of files of any size.
- Analyzed the conformity of hundreds of websites through black-box web scraping and produced a statistical report.
- Developed quoting and invoicing tools, and a time-tracking tool for a fiduciary.
- Developed and deployed Gymna-Score, a digital platform for managing scoring at gymnastics competitions for a regional association.
- Invented Kids-Code, an online application that lets children playfully discover a rolling password to unlock a computer.
- Published and maintain django-qr-code, a tool for integrating QR codes into Django-based websites.
- Developed Kids-Calculus, a CLI tool for generating random-ish arithmetic expressions to help kids learn math.
- Developed R-Markdown analytic reports based on COVID-19 data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
- Built several tools and prototypes: media file classification and naming, captcha solvers, Sudoku solver from a picture, QR code decoder service, PDF tabular data extraction with Camelot, and many more.
- Administers self-hosted infrastructure: mail server, GitLab server, Docker registry, Nextcloud (documents, calendar, contacts), and Keycloak identity management.
- Built CI pipeline strategies and tools for GitLab.
Education
Rotary Club award for the best graduation grade.
Skills
Leadership & Management
Team leadership
Mentoring
Problem solving
Customer relationship
Strategic planning
Business model
Programming Languages
Python
C#
C++
JavaScript
HTML & CSS
Bash
Batch
DevOps & Infrastructure
Docker
Kubernetes
Git
GitHub
GitLab
CI/CD
Keycloak
OpenID Connect
Agile Practices
Daily meetings
Iteration reviews
Kanban
Continuous delivery
Languages
- French— native
- English— fluent
Courses & Continuous Learning
- Snowflake Data Lake — coaching by expert2023
- Business Model Canvas — Udemy2022
- Financial Planning & Analysis — Udemy2022
- Innovative Growth Strategy — Udemy2021
- Kubernetes — Udemy2021
- Leadership (several courses) — Udemy2020
- Distributed Computing, Data Analysis, AI and Machine Learning — University of Neuchâtel2009–2010