Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Panorama (AS15-87-11845/47) — NASA. Panorama by Erik van Meijgaarden

Robert D. Schoening

Bob Schoening, BSEE — Electrical Engineer | Software Developer

Electrical and software engineer with deep experience in hardware test development engineering — half my career at IBM, the other half at several companies in Silicon Valley. Now building software with AI tools (Claude Code). Open to consulting in software development, test development engineering, and AI-assisted automation.

Engineering Background

Decades of test development engineering across hardware domains including disk drives (IBM), optical/fiber optics (Vitesse-OSD, Harmonic), telecom and networking (Harmonic), embedded systems, PCB design and test, and data storage (Data Domain). Designed production test systems using PXI, GPIB/IEEE-488, I2C, and SCPI instrumentation. Managed a test development engineering department of engineers, programmers, and technicians. Extensive experience with contract manufacturers including Sanmina, Solectron, and Flex.

Software & Programming

Currently developing software using Claude Code. Built and published a document search application (peekdocs) on GitHub and PyPI. Engineering programming experience in C, LabVIEW, TestStand, Assembly, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, PHP, SQL. Comfortable across Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Technical Writing

Authored numerous manufacturing test procedures and software requirements specifications (SRS) for third-party development.

Award: IBM "Outstanding Technical Achievement Award" (OTAA)

A corporate award from IBM for conceiving of and developing a software design tool (TRES, an expert system) that determines the best test plan for unpopulated printed circuit boards (PCBs). TRES (Test/Reliability Expert System) saves 1-2 man years per year and shortened the average test development plan cycle time from 6 weeks to a day. This site had over 5000 employees and its primary business was manufacturing PCBs for a wide variety of IBM products. I conceived of the tool and collaborated with two domain experts in test and reliability (Desai, Hartley) who also shared in award. I led the project and wrote all the software.

Patents: (US 5546321 A, US 5519633 A)

For a second software design tool (MIDAS) that interrelates PCB cross-sectional geometries with electrical performance (via algorithms incorporated from a previously developed electrical analysis tool by Chang, Gernhart, Ho), manufacturability, cost, test (via rules and algorithms incorporated from TRES above), quality (IFR, ELF, SPQL), and second-level packaging. MIDAS (Manufacturability-Influenced Design Analysis System) cut design times (depending on complexity) from days/weeks to hours. I conceived of the tool, obtained management buy-in, assembled and led a team of 10 knowledge domain experts (named in patent), and wrote all the software.

Military Service (Honorable Discharge)
University (B.S. Electrical Engineering)

All positions were in hardware test dev engineering or engineering management:

NEW YORK, VERMONT

IBM Corporation, Endicott, NY — Computers and circuit boards (PCBs)
IBM / Loral, Owego, NY (formerly IBM, now Lockheed) — Avionics
IBM Corporation, Burlington, VT — Semiconductors

SILICON VALLEY

IBM Corporation, San Jose, CA — Hard disk drives
Harmonic, Sunnyvale, CA — Video delivery technology
Nohau, Campbell, CA — In-Circuit Emulators (ICE)
Vitesse-OSD, San Jose, CA — Optical transponders
Force Computers, Fremont, CA — Embedded computer blades
Ampro Computers, San Jose, CA — Embedded computer boards
Data Domain, Santa Clara, CA — Data deduplication equipment

NEW YORK

BAE Systems, Johnson City, NY — Defense (Contractor, fly-by-wire system)
Consultant, Endicott, NY

Please contact me via LinkedIn for a full resume.