Greetings from Holden, MA
December 29, 2010by Adam Schwartz (aschwartz)
Hi all,
I’m pleased to be able to write a short introductory post about myself and what I’ve been up to. Where to begin? My Div III was on Path Planning for Mobile Robotics. After graduating, I became a software consultant for a number of years. I made the move to management at TJX Companies and stayed on that path to my current employer, Fidelity Investments.
Being a Hampshire student, it’s not surprising that I feel a little out of place in the world of large, conservative corporations, but I’ve managed to find myself a very happy home. I gave up managing large teams about 3 years ago and am now something of a corporate academic. My role for the organization is to research and drive improvements in our software development processes. That includes following industry trends, doing primary research within our organization, heavy involvement with statistics and regularly teaching classes on software measurement concepts, data presentation, etc. Some of our research has proven interesting enough that I’m looking to publish it, so perhaps someday soon I’ll be back here writing about that.
In conjunction with software engineering, I’ve studied process improvement methodologies like Six Sigma and LEAN. I blog regularly on the topic (shameless plug warning) of improving software processes by combining the two areas at my own little side business.
On a personal note, I married my best friend who I met at Hampshire all the way back in 1995. We’ve been married about 6 years now and have two kids, a four year old and a 6 month old. We still live close enough to the Pioneer Valley to make fairly regular trips out that way just to walk around Northampton and from time to time stop by and ring the Div III bell just because we can. I love seeing how much campus has (and has not) changed since we were students there.