Dandy Cheng

Professional experience

Experience

1. Staff Software Engineer (IC2)

   Jun 2024 – Present

   National Instruments (now part of Emerson)

   • Own the NI-Serial and NI-488.2 (GPIB) drivers, and maintain NI-VISA, including Linux kernel modules written in C. Manage third-party dependencies, triage defects, and run regression tests across supported kernel versions.
   • Diagnosed and resolved a critical serial driver compatibility issue that was blocking customers' kernel upgrade paths, restoring uninterrupted upgrades and protecting the installed customer base.
   • Debug Linux kernel and driver issues remotely on Linux and LinuxRT targets using GDB and Visual Studio Code, isolating kernel-level and hardware-interface defects.
   • Use AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot) in daily driver development and debugging, selecting different LLMs based on task needs and token cost to keep usage efficient.
   • Applied AI skills to build internal development tools that cut the effort for a development task from about 1 day to about 1 hour.
   • Serve as AI Champion and Innovation Committee member, advocating responsible adoption of AI tools across the engineering organization.
   • Delivered several internal technical sharing sessions to the R&D organization on Linux debugging techniques.
   • Support customer issues and escalations involving CompactRIO and PXI chassis hardware with LabVIEW-based test and measurement systems, including but not limited to Aerospace, Defense, and Government customers.

2. Software Engineer (IC1)

   May 2022 – Jun 2024

   Motorola Solutions

   • Developed and maintained screen-based application features in C++ for mission-critical Motorola APX two-way radios, including the channel cloning feature, within an Agile team.
   • Designed and built bash utility scripts adopted department-wide to automate routine development tasks, reducing repetitive manual work.
   • Performed code reviews to catch defects early and enforce coding standards, improving code quality and consistency.
   • Authored unit tests for critical components to raise test coverage and catch regressions before release.
   • Investigated and implemented targeted performance improvements to existing C++ code.

Education

Education