Software engineer

David Courtney

Windows application development, systems integration, automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

About

Engineering practical software for complex workflows

I develop Windows-based automation tools and software applications, with experience spanning desktop interfaces, systems integration, data migration, workflow orchestration, and technical troubleshooting.

My work combines C#, .NET Framework, C, and PowerShell with cross-functional requirements gathering and technical documentation. I am also pursuing doctoral study in artificial intelligence and natural language processing.

Experience

Professional experience

Software development, automation, integration, and engineering support.

April 2020 – Present

Software Engineer

Leidos

  • Develop and maintain Windows-based automation tools and software applications using C#, .NET Framework, C, and PowerShell.
  • Design Windows GUI utilities for configuration, data migration, workflow orchestration, and integration among files, tools, and software components.
  • Automate repetitive system-administration tasks with PowerShell to improve efficiency and reduce manual effort.
  • Diagnose hardware and software issues across varied engineering environments and collaborate with cross-functional teams on requirements, technical issues, and solution design.
  • Create technical documentation and contribute to best-practice standards for software tools and automation frameworks.

Education

Education and continuing study

Graduate study in computer science and artificial intelligence, grounded in engineering technology.

In progress · anticipated August 2028

Pennsylvania State University

Doctor of Engineering (D.Eng.)

Focus: Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing

Completed August 2025

Case Western Reserve University

Master of Science in Computer Science

GPA: 3.9

Completed December 2019

Seminole State College

Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology

Mechatronics and Robotics specialization · GPA: 4.0

Graduated Summa Cum Laude.

Degrees completed 2015 – 2016

Daytona State College

  • Associate of Science in Computer Engineering Technology · December 2015
  • Associate of Arts · August 2016
Completed December 2015

Daytona State College Technical Certificates

  • Cable Installation
  • Information Technology Support Specialist
  • Microcomputer Repairer/Installer
Awards and honors

Academic Distinctions

  • Outstanding Academic Performance in Computer Engineering Technology, Daytona State College · April 2016
  • Dan Stout Award for Mathematics, Daytona State College · April 2018
  • Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, Mu Rho Chapter · inducted November 2015
  • Phi Theta Kappa Graduate High Honors, Daytona State College associate degrees and technical certificates
Industry credentials

Technical Certifications

  • Arduino Fundamentals: Electronics and Physical Computing · May 2019
  • CompTIA A+ (Good-for-Life credential) · July 1997

Technical focus

Skills and capabilities

Technologies and practices represented in current professional, academic, and project work.

Application development

  • C#
  • .NET Framework
  • WPF
  • MVVM
  • C
  • PowerShell
  • Visual Studio
  • Windows

Systems and integration

  • Software integration
  • Systems troubleshooting
  • Azure

Virtualization and containerization

  • VMware
  • Hyper-V
  • VirtualBox
  • vSphere
  • Containerization
  • Docker

Data and networking

  • SQL
  • SQLite
  • Socket programming
  • Wireshark

Artificial intelligence

  • Python
  • TensorFlow / Keras
  • Deep learning
  • Convolutional neural networks
  • Codex
  • Claude

Tools and practices

  • Git
  • GitHub
  • Bitbucket
  • JIRA
  • Confluence
  • Technical documentation
  • Cybersecurity best practices

Selected work

Projects

Selected personal and academic work across desktop software, networking, security, artificial intelligence, parallel computing, embedded systems, and robotics.

Personal project · Summer 2026

PathSelect

Portable Windows desktop utility built with C#, .NET Framework, WPF, and MVVM to manage two Ethernet adapters. It supports adapter workflows, IPv4 interface-metric routing priority, default-route inspection, and portable JSON configuration.

Fall 2024

Peer-to-Peer UDP Chat Application

C application using raw UDP sockets and a custom protocol, with automatic interface detection, peer discovery, dynamic port selection, state-aware sessions, and heartbeat/reconnect logic. A Wireshark Lua dissector supported protocol validation and troubleshooting.

Spring 2025

Secure Notes Android Application

Kotlin Android application protecting local notes with salted PBKDF2 key derivation, a randomly generated AES data-encryption key, and key wrapping. The cryptographic layer is separated from the user interface.

Summer 2024

Parallel Sorting Performance Analysis

Merge Sort and Quick Sort implementations in C using OpenMP for CPU parallelism and NVIDIA CUDA for GPU parallelism, with execution-time comparisons across sorted, nearly sorted, and randomly ordered datasets.

Spring 2025

LiDAR Smart Parking Sensor

ESP32 and TF-Luna LiDAR integration over UART for real-time parking guidance, using parsing, hysteresis, steady-state detection, and rolling-history confirmation to filter sensor glitches.

Fall 2024

Handwritten Digit Classification

Comparative machine-learning study of KNN, SVM, Random Forest, bagging, multilayer perceptron, and convolutional neural network models using R and Python. Cross-validation, early stopping, and error analysis supported a common-dataset comparison whose top CNN accuracy was 98.86%.

2019 · Team project

Senior Mechatronics Design

Three-person electromechanical system integrating SolidWorks-modeled components, computer programming, microcontrollers, electronics, and a robotic arm to demonstrate core engineering-technology concepts.

Fall 2019

SCORBOT Tic-Tac-Toe

Human-versus-robot tic-tac-toe system combining an Intelitek SCORBOT ER-4U robotic arm with an Arduino microcontroller, programmed with SCORBASE and the Arduino IDE.

2019

Autonomous Robotics Prototypes

Two autonomous mobile-robot builds: a RobotC-programmed VEX platform for line following and object delivery, and an Arduino-based vehicle supporting line following, light seeking, obstacle avoidance, and edge detection.

Spring 2019 · Team project

Three-Floor Elevator Prototype

Two-person project to design and build a small-scale, three-floor elevator system using VEX Robotics components and the RobotC programming language.

Contact

Professional links

Public channels for professional correspondence and current work.

Email
Email David Courtney
GitHub
View David Courtney on GitHub
LinkedIn
View David Courtney on LinkedIn
Location
Florida, USA