Rennan Broussard

Palo Alto, CA │ (650) 804-6647 │ rennan@gmail.com

Senior white & black box software QA engineer with 15 years of testing,
developing software, and leading test automation for one of Microsoft’s most
widely used products.

SUMMARY OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND SPECIALTIES

 Software QA & Test Strategies : Developed and executed QA and test strategies for 7 major
releases of PowerPoint, and regularly exceeded bug-finding goals. Worked as the first software
developer in PowerPoint’s test group. Performed functional, stress, security, international,
accessibility, configuration, compatibility, regression, and user acceptance testing for >15 years.
 QA & Test Infrastructures: Won MS Office-wide award for developing an image-based test
automation tool for PowerPoint. Created several other tools that optimized product testing, led
test automation across PowerPoint for several years.
 User Relations: Worked as a key point of contact with some of the largest companies in their
industries, including finance, computer, telecom, semiconductor, aerospace, automotive,
healthcare, media, business consulting, market research, food & beverage, and governmental.
Optimized QA and test strategies for them and resolved escalated issues.
 Project Management: Scheduled and managed workflows for several locations at the same time,
and met all key deadlines and budgeting goals.
 Communication: Coordinated with teams around the world, and liaised between engineering
groups and non-technical people. Gave seminars on product features and functionalities. Leveraged
travel in Europe, APAC, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean to understand and bridge
cultures.

White & Black Box Testing • Software QA & Test Strategies • Test Automation • Software Development
Project Management • Requirements Analysis • Cross-functional Teamwork • Documentation
Microsoft Test Tools • Data Analysis • C • C++ • C# • Visual Basic • SQL • Agile

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA
Senior Software Engineer, PowerPoint (August 2014–Present)
Promoted and took over the customer-facing role for sustained engineering of in-market products; worked
with some of the largest PowerPoint users in the world to optimize QA & test strategies and fix bugs during
the highest priority escalations. Also helped develop several features which customers had requested for
years.

 Conducted QA for major 2015 release which transformed to a subscription model with much faster
release schedules. Developed features and bug fixes that made monthly patches attractive to end
users.
  Increased throughput of logged bugs by leveraging feedback mechanisms from customers—
eliminated in-house man-hour needs by enabling more data-driven analysis of customer
deployments.
 Developed feature (in C++) that enabled programmatic access to laser pointers in users’ slide
shows. Assisted in the delivery and release of a feature that allowed users to insert live web
content on their slides, enabling YouTube playback and JavaScript access to document content.
 Developed new automation scripts (in C#) for features that formerly had no automation coverage.
 Played key part in eliminating >100 customer-reported bugs by analyzing clients’ issue reports;
drove sustaining engineering. Examined bugs that end users faced and reproduced them in all
sustaining code bases. Reverse engineered and analyzed the fixes for each code base to ensure that
ports worked in every one.
 Helped win U.S. patent by working with program managers to improve overall feature design and
ship the Content Addin feature (one of the first PowerPoint shipments of an out-of-band feature in
a monthly release). Tested feature to ensure stability in all scenarios.
 Tested several new PowerPoint features, including Taskpane Apps and Content Apps. Designed
many prototype applications that tested the feature, using JavaScript. Created automation around
the feature, and validated robustness with downstream versions of the PowerPoint application.

Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA

Software Development in Test II, PowerPoint (July 2007–August 2014)
Developed and executed QA and test strategies for PowerPoint as company moved from installed
applications to web-based versions as a service. Led automation across the entire PowerPoint organization
for both web and desktop versions. Developed test plans, automated tests, and performed manual
verification of pre-released versions of PowerPoint. Employed new technologies (including PowerShell) to
enable company to quickly adapt QA and testing to web-based products.

 Led the test automation across the PowerPoint organization as company switched from UI-based
automation tool to C#-based automation; educated department on new automation technologies.
Worked with script owners to raise automation rates department-wide, and created library of
automation tasks. Oversaw implementation of MITA 2.0 into the automation infrastructure.
 Integrated local PowerPoint automation tools into the MS Office-wide automation architecture,
enabling other teams on all other MS Office applications to use tools. Traveled to Redmond, WA
and demonstrated the tools to other teams throughout MS.
 Wrote unit tests for several classes, using new unit test architecture. Incorporated code review
feedback to ensure code quality before check-in.
 Wrote scripts in PowerShell to analyze logs across globally distributed data centers. Developed
scripts to compile logged material into human-readable monthly mails that outlined usage of many
aspects of the web application.
 Ensured quality of media playback in PowerPoint Web Application as the owner of the web media
feature. Created test plans, automated tests, and manually tested web media features. Optimized
testing by dividing it into matrix that was based on different browser/codec combinations.
 Improved quality of the PowerPoint object model by working with 3rd party application developers
to understand their solutions, develop test plans, and incorporate them into build-to-build release
testing.
 Managed sustained engineering for all released versions of PowerPoint. Liaised with customers to
learn about their issues, and worked with triage team to fix them. Ensured quality by organizing
test passes against pre-release builds.
Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA
Software Development Engineer in Test (March 2001–July 2007)
Worked as the first software development engineer in test for PowerPoint, functioned as the first and sole
white box tester for PowerPoint, and added the most up-to-date white box methodology. Uncovered
several untestable areas by designing, implementing, and executing debug hooks in the application.

 Led 2-person team to develop tool that expanded automated test coverage for MS Office, and
enabled it to detect a new class of bugs and provide visualization within the automation framework
(the tool is still used). Created several “proof of concept” scripts.
 Discovered and fixed coding errors and possible security holes by executing code analysis tools
against the code base. Profiled application code to identify performance bottlenecks and poor
algorithm design.
 Worked as the sole stress and performance tester for the Meetings Services feature. Developed
benchmark scripts for performance baselines. Also created tool that enabled other testers to test
the service before implementation of PowerPoint’s UI.
 Enabled program managers to make better design decisions by developing the PPT file repository
tool, which crawled the internet, examined public PowerPoint files, and saved meta-data. Wrote
SQL queries against SQL Server database, which helped program managers make decisions about
future releases and provided tailored file collateral to testers for bug regression tests.
 Managed the Check-In-Test (CIT) suite of automated tests, which developers could run before
committing changes to products. Added additional tests to suite. Regularly updated the suite as
new areas were added to product.

Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA

Software Test Engineer (June 2000–March 2001)

 Led QA & testing for PowerPoint’s Object Model feature, developed the test plans, and ad hoc
tested the entire area before application release. Logged bugs for many previously undetected
issues that were critical enough to be fixed late in the shipping cycle.
 Developed scripts that improved automation code coverage, and investigated errors in existing
scripts (across several platforms and languages). Increased pass rate of the automation suite to
100% (a product first).
 Developed libraries in VB to abstract common automation needs, and conducted training seminars
on using the libraries.

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science, concentration in information science and decision systems,
4.0 GPA, summa cum laude, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA (2000)