Tal Shalif

Email: tal
@do@not@spam@me
@shalif.com

Professional Objective

Program management, cultural liaison, support, software globalization, etc. In the ideal role I would be able to utilize my technical experience and my knowledge of open source and IT standards for others' benefit.

Employment History

Open Source Programming

Volunteer (Gambia/Israel)
March 2006 - Present

During this period I developed a speech synthesis framework and a Firefox extension enabling blind people to navigate the web.

Programming languages/APIs: Java, Javascript, The Mozilla development framework, XSLT, C++

IT System Manager

YMCA, Computer Training Centre - volunteer (Gambia)
February 2005 - January 2006

Manage the computer training centre and the entire organization's IT infrastructure.

Skills and challenges during this assignment:

  • Line management of 5 national staff
  • Wired/Wireless network implementation
  • Use policy enforcement
  • Setup of organizational IT services (Groupware, Email, Web server, issue tracking, Samba/LDAP accounts, etc.)
  • Computer hardware and software setup (OS installation, disk cloning, etc.)
  • Training of YMCA staff and students

Internationalization (I18N) Software Engineer

Business Objects (France)
December 2002 - September 2004

In the Business Object Product Group's I18N team, my duties were:

  • Maintain and enhance the core internationalization framework (C++/Java)
  • Provide I18N expertise to other developers/managers
  • Correct I18N/L10N related bugs/issues
  • Configuration management

Programming languages/tools/APIs: ICU, XML/XSLT, Java, C++, Perl, Clearcase

Cultural Liaison/Interpreter

Color Chip Israel (Japan)
February 2002 - July 2002

Act as a part-time translator and consultant for an Israeli company seeking partnership with a local Japanese manufacturer.

Invited Technical Researcher

Advanced Telecommunications Research (Japan)
February 2002 - July 2002

Working on the ESP (Expressive Speech Processing) project with the speech group, my role was to implement a unit-based speech synthesis engine in Java.

Programming languages/tools/APIs: C++/JNI, Swig, Castor JDO, XML serialization, JSAPI/SSML, JDBC, Postgresql, Forte (netbeans), Ant, Jython, AspectJ

Programmer/System Administrator

Advanced Telecommunications Research (Japan)
September 1998 - November 2001

During this period I was assigned to the NLP (Natural Language Processing) group. My duties where to maintain and extend an NLP parser, write tools, manage source and data revisions and provide administration support to group members.

Programming languages/tools/APIs: XML, C++, CORBA, Java, Python, Tcl, SWIG, Bonsai & Thinderbox

Software Internationalizing/localization Contractor

Sun Microsystems (Ireland/USA)
June 1997 - April 1998

  • Implement the CTL (Complex Text Layout) engine specifications of Bi-directional locales in C++ to go into the Solaris Operating System.
  • Maintain Locale data.
  • Coordinate font acquisition.

Software Engineer

Electronic Imaging Technologies (Israel)
November 1995 - June 1997

  • Software internationalizing
  • Write CAM Tool file parsing/configuring utility
  • Set up group developing environment (Makefiles, CVS)

Languages

  • English (Fluent)

  • Hebrew (Native)

  • Japanese (Fluent/JLPT-Level 1)

  • French (Newspaper, Daily Conversation)

Certificates

  • SUN Certified Java Programmer

  • SUN Certified Java Developer

Academics

  • Bachelor in Commerce, Japanese and Marketing, September 1994, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia.

Miscellany

Dual Australian/Israeli nationality

Born in Israel, 1966

Contact Information

Tal Shalif
7 York Steiner St.
Tel Aviv, Israel

Telephone: [+33] (0)1-70-61-39-11 (Global Forwarding/Voicemail)
Telephone: [+972](0)3-648-2749
Email: tal
@do@not@spam@me
@shalif.com
Web: http://www.shalif.com/tal