Simon Mac Donald

Simon Mac Donald has a diverse work experience spanning over 25 years. Simon currently serves as the Head of Developer Experience at Begin since September 2021.

Prior to their current role, Simon worked at Adobe for 7 years from 2014 to 2021. During their tenure, they held two positions. Simon started as a Developer Advocate, where they developed the Newton API learning tool to familiarize developers with Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS) based APIs. Simon also wrote tutorials and documentation for the Repository API and created an internal developer documentation portal. Later, Simon became a Senior Software Scientist, working on the open source project PhoneGap/Apache Cordova. Simon maintained various PhoneGap plugins and authored the PhoneGap Push Service.

Simon also has teaching experience as a Part-Time Instructor at Algonquin College, where they taught HTML5 Mobile Development.

Another notable company in Simon's work history is Graphite Software, where they served as a Software Developer. Simon modified the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) to provide a custom ROM and designed a multi-user API. Simon'sresponsibilities also included developing Android applications for managing multiple users and their data.

Simon spent a significant part of their career at IBM. Simon worked as an Advisory Software Developer for 5 years, primarily focusing on the Android implementation of PhoneGap. Simon contributed to various functionalities and bug fixes. Additionally, Simon was part of the User Interface Development team, enhancing the accessibility of IBM Cognos Connections product.

Before joining IBM, Simon worked at Mitel Corporation as a Manager, leading a team in developing messaging and speech recognition applications. Simon also served as a Software Developer, responsible for leading the team working on Speech Server release 3.0.

In the early stages of their career, Simon worked as a Software Developer at Xwave Solutions, where they developed solutions for the RCMP using Java Servlets and JavaScript. Simon also worked as a Software Developer at Nortel Networks, focusing on web-based application development using Java, Perl, and Oracle.

Simon's work experience also includes a short stint as a Software Developer at METOC.

Throughout their career, Simon Mac Donald has gained extensive experience in developer advocacy, open source projects, teaching, software development, and management roles.

Simon Mac Donald attended the Technical University of Nova Scotia from 1992 to 1996, where they obtained a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. Additionally, in 1992, they also enrolled at Cape Breton University; however, no specific degree or field of study is provided for this institution.