Jason Doucette / Xona Games
 
hometown – Yarmouth, NS, Canada
residence – Seattle, WA, USA
university – Acadia University
college – COGS
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Jason Doucette's Resume / CV

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Mailing Address:

Jason Doucette
P.O. Box 75, Arcadia,
Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
B0W 1B0
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RESUME OBJECTIVE


My main areas of interest lie in Real-Time Computer Graphics, Real-Time Physics Simulations, and Artificial Intelligence. I have been programming since Grade II, and I have been self-taught in these fields, as well as video game programming, since Grade III. These skills can be applied to any real-time graphics application, as well as to high accuracy, non real-time products.

My other general skills involve video game design, graphic engine design, and GUI design - and the implementation of each. I am also very skilled in programming code and algorithmic optimizations. I have superior debugging abilities due to my pure logical understanding of any problem I am working on, which makes me an efficient programmer.

I have all around skills involving entertainment software. I understand them well from many diverse aspects - from an amateur gamer's perspective (the majority of a game's audience), to an expert's level (the people games are truly made for), to the programmers' and designers' view. I can analyze a game and understand its flaws from various end users' views, which many designers and expert game testers overlook. I also have the debugging ability to correct bugs properly, and possess the foresight to avoid these types of mistakes before implementation.

I would like to pursue a career in interactive entertainment / simulation software which will allow me to push the envelope of home computers in all of my fields of interest. It is my aspiration to become a video game programmer / video game designer, either by joining an existing company or using the funding from my own initiatives to start my own game development studio. My skills can be applied to any console / computer system. I have extensive abilities and unique tweaks and ideas for 2D systems, such as PDA devices and the Game Boy Advance (GBA). I can showcase my talent best with these systems.



EDUCATION

  • Acadia University
    Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
    Graduated with Bachelor of Computer Science.
    Achieved a 4.00 / 4.00 cumulative GPA in all Mathematics courses.
    Achieved a 3.87 / 4.00 cumulative GPA in all Computer Science courses.
    Achieved a 3.78 / 4.00 cumulative GPA in all Physics courses.
    Achieved a 3.77 / 4.00 cumulative final GPA.
    Full Acadia University Transcripts available.
    Made the Dean's List.

  • Centre of Geographic Sciences (formerly College of Geographic Sciences)
    Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, Canada
    Graduated with a Computer Programming Technician certificate.
    Achieved a 97.4% (4.00 / 4.00 GPA) midterm average, 92.6% (4.00 / 4.00 GPA) final average.

  • Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School
    Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
    Graduated with Honours.
    Achieved a 91% average with my courses concentrated in Mathematics and Sciences.

  • Home / Self Teaching
    Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
    Over 95% of my online showcased programs were developed at home.
    I taught myself how to program in the BASIC programming language in Grade II, at the age of seven. This occurred without the luxury of owning my own personal computer. I learned very quickly on a single VIC-20 available in my classroom at school, and on the TRS-80's that Radio Shack had on display at the time. As you can imagine, I did not have much time to use such machines. There were no computer rooms in elementary schools back then (the VIC-20 was available only because my Grade II teacher sold them through her home business). My parents bought my brother and me a TI-99/4A a year later, in Grade III (for the cheap price of $50 CAD, presumably because TI left the home computer market after reporting $430 million in losses). I have been self taught in programming and computer graphics ever since. I have only had the privilege to attend two computer graphics courses during my college and university education. Unfortunately, one only taught basic pixel plotting methods that I learned during elementary school, and the other barely touched upon basic 3D transformations, which I had already learned by high school.

COMPETITION RESULTS

The following are results of several Canadian Mathematics Competitions, American Mathematics Competitions, and Provincial Physics and Chemistry competitions. Please note that the grade schools I attended in Yarmouth (Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School and Maple Grove Education Centre) did not have specialized classes to review past competition tests, nor did we take time out of our curriculum to study / prepare for the competitions, as is done in the majority of the top placing schools. Upon seeing the results of the top placing students in my province, I often found that I was ranked high among a class full of students from a particular school that allocates an entire course solely for preparation of such tests. This gives their class an obvious, distinct advantage over students like me who have no knowledge or idea of any potential content within upcoming competitions.

Most of the tests are structured in multiple choice format with four possible answers; incorrect answers are worth -1/3rd of the question's value (that is, you lose points if you answer incorrectly), and a blank answer is worth 0. This eliminates the possibility of scoring points for guessing. The logic behind this scheme is as follows: If a student randomly guesses all answers, assuming questions are worth X points, he will get ¾ths of the test incorrect (-1/3 * X points per question), and ¼th correct (X points per question), resulting in a mark of 0, since the above two evenly cancel each other out (the points gained for every correct answer is cancelled by the points lost for three incorrect answers).

Also note that, while the number of participating students may seem small, only the top students were allowed to participate. Because of the difficulty of these tests, the poorest fairing students of this elite group occasionally achieve a below zero score, meaning they would have faired better had they left the test with no questions answered, due to the penalties of incorrect answers.

Also included are my other achievements in high school and in junior high.


Grade 12

Highest Standing in Science Math 441
  • Mark 99%
  • Highest Standing in Honours Chemistry 541
  • Mark 90%
  • Received $200 from Lawton's Drugs
  • CAP High School Physics Prize Competition - Canadian Association of Physicists (Under the direction of Dr. Douglas Dahn, Department of Physics, University of P.E.I.)
  • 1st in Y.C.M.H.S.
  • 7th (of 423 students) in Nova Scotia and P.E.I.
  • Grade 12 Euclid Math Contest - Canadian Mathematics Competition
  • Score 71
  • 1st in Y.C.M.H.S.
  • 7th in Nova Scotia
  • ~300th in Canada
    (Note: due to insufficient Y.C.M.H.S. records, a request for information was made to the University of Waterloo. Ian VanderBurgh stated, "By the looks of it (a hand search!), you finished 7th in Nova Scotia. Nationally, harder to tell. According to our records, 3.1% of approximately 10000 finished with scores at least 71, so I would say that your national ranking was close to 300. That's the best we can do!")
  • Top 3% in Canada
  • Received Certificate of Distinction
  • Grade 12 A.H.S.M.E. (American High School Mathematics Examination, renamed to AMC12 in February 2000) - American Mathematics Competition
  • Score 95
  • 2nd in Y.C.M.H.S.
  • (ranking in Nova Scotia unknown, due to insufficient Y.C.M.H.S. records)
  • (ranking in Canada unknown, due to insufficient Y.C.M.H.S. records)
  • Nova Scotia Mathematics Competition - Canadian Math Society (3 hour exam, 6 questions)
  • 1st in Y.C.M.H.S.
  • 1st in Yarmouth County (Received cheque for $25 for County Prize Winner)
  • 3rd in Nova Scotia
  • Nova Scotia Achievement Tests (N.S.A.T.)
    The Percentile Rank shows the percentage of students in your grade in the province who did less well than you on the test, and have a range from 1 to 99.
  • 99th Percentile in Math Essentials
  • 99th Percentile in Math Applications
  • 97th Percentile in Science
  • Grade 11

    Highest Standing in Science Math 431
    (Note: The final exam was rather long, and had bonus questions which enabled a student to obtain a mark over 100%. In response to a student's request of what would happen if a student received over 100%, the teacher [Richard MacKinnon - recipient of The LaJune Naud Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching - now with Nova Scotia's Department of Education] stated that it had never happened before, and it would not happen. I got 108% on the exam, and my brother, Matthew Doucette, got the second highest mark at 90%. The remaining marks were from low 80's to well under the passing mark of 50%. Because the exam was abnormally difficult, the teacher scaled everyone's mark up 5.555% (the value required to bring Matthew's 90% to 95%). This would have brought my mark to 114%, but he believed I only deserved 100% (changing the 18% difference from 1st to 2nd highest mark to only 5%). Since the final exam was worth 50% of the final mark, the extra 14% taken away from my final mark resulted in a final mark 7% lower than what it should have been in comparison to my peers.)

  • Mark 92%
  • Received the Florence Margolian Winberg Scholarship
  • Highest Standing in INA330 (Technology Education)
  • Mark 85%
  • Grade 11 Fermat Math Contest - Canadian Mathematics Competition
    (I almost had a perfect mark on this test. The test was split into three sections. The first section consisted of ten easy questions, the second section had ten moderate questions, and the third had five extremely difficult questions. As is typical, I spent the majority of the three hours allotted on the last five questions. I answered every question with full confidence that my answers were correct, with the sole exception of question #25, the last question on the exam. I could not arrive at an answer. The next day, my physics teacher, Mr. Burton, asked me what the final question was. During my explanation I discovered the method to solve it, and then proceeded to solve it. Immediately upon arriving home, I wrote a computer program to confirm the solution.)

  • Score 127
  • Top 0.2% in Canada
  • 1st in Y.C.M.H.S.
  • 3rd (of 1,033 students) in Nova Scotia
  • 51st (of 24,195 students) in Canada
  • Received Certificate of Distinction
  • Qualified to write C.I.M.C. (Canadian Invitational Mathematics Competition)
  • Only top 150 students in Canada wrote this exam.
  • Score 27
  • Grade 12 Euclid Math Contest - Canadian Mathematics Competition
    (Note: I wrote this contest in Grade 11. Any student in a grade lower than intended grade for the contest is allowed to compete. This was the first year I was made aware of such opportunities. I regret contest administrators had never brought this up in earlier years.)
  • Score 48
  • 2nd in Y.C.M.H.S.
  • 59th in Nova Scotia
  • Received Certificate of Distinction
  • Grade 12 A.H.S.M.E. (American High School Mathematics Examination, renamed to AMC12 in February 2000) - American Mathematics Competition
    (Note: I wrote this contest in Grade 11.)
  • Score 108
  • Top 1% (of over 400,000 North Americans and 2,500 Europeans and Asians)
  • 1st in Y.C.M.H.S.
  • 3rd (of 424 students) in Atlantic Canada
  • 125th in Canada
  • Qualified to write Grade 12 A.I.M.E. (American Invitational Mathematics Examination) - Level 2
  • Those who scored 100+ on A.H.S.M.E. wrote this exam
  • Scored in top 50%
  • Received Certificate of Participation
  • Received Award of Merit for Math competitions
    Entered updated version of the Algebra Computer Program in Regional Science Fair
  • Attended the Seventh Annual Alcan-Huggins High School Science Seminar at Acadia University
  • Nova Scotia Mathematics Competition - Canadian Math Society - (3 hour exam, 6 questions)
  • Top 30 in Nova Scotia
  • Grade 10

    Highest standing in Math 421
  • Mark 99%
  • Grade 10 Cayley Math Contest - Canadian Mathematics Competition
    (Note: I wrote the test without a calculator, since mine had graphing capabilities, which I was told was illegal minutes before the exam commenced.)
  • Score 102
  • 2nd in Y.C.M.H.S.
  • 32nd in Nova Scotia
  • Top 10% in Canada
  • Entered first version of Algebra Computer Program in Regional Science Fair
  • Received 1st prize in Seniors category
  • Received The IBM Regional Computer Technology Award
  • Attended the Sixth Annual Alcan-Huggins High School Science Seminar at Acadia University
  • Grade 9

    Grade 9 Pascal Math Contest - Canadian Mathematics Competition
  • 1st in M.G.E.C.
  • Score 94.75
  • 9th (of 1,250 students) in Nova Scotia
  • Top 3% in Canada
  • Nova Scotia Achievement Test (N.S.A.T.)
    The Percentile Rank shows the percentage of students in your grade in the province who did less well than you on the test, and have a range from 1 to 99.
  • 99th Percentile in Math Computation
  • 98th Percentile in Math Basic Concepts
  • 87th Percentile in Science


  • WORK EXPERIENCE

    February 2016 - today
    Oracle

    Principal Member of Technical Staff
    Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
    Block Storage

    August 2014 - February 2016
    Amazon

    Software Development Engineer
    Amazon Game Studios

    January 2013 - August 2014
    Amazon

    Software Development Engineer
    Fire Phone - Amazon Maps (Dynamic Perspective)

    June 2012 - January 2013
    Amazon

    Software Development Engineer
    Fire Phone - Entertainment & Games Group
    Also helped with the Home Screen and SDK.

    July 2008 - June 2012
    Xona Games

    Video Game Developer
    My brother, Matthew Doucette, and I started a video game development company with the idea to enter Duality ZF into the Dream Build Play 2008 world wide competition with a 2-month alpha build of the game. We entered but didn't place, presumably since the game was not complete; it was only a single level. We entered the Dream Build Play 2009 the following year, and quickly after the Dream Build Play 2010 (as it was moved from late in the year 2009 to early in the year 2010). We placed 7th in the world in 2009 and 5th in the world in 2010. The game is still under development, with time off for it to produce a few smaller titles (Decimation X, Decimation X2, Decimation X3, and Score Rush), and is planning on being released on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PSN, and Steam.


    Duality ZF trailer.

    Please read more about our games released, and work here: Xona Games.

    July 2004 - July 2008
    Xona.com

    Non-profit
    Started a technology blog, Xona.com. It has achieved 500,000 raw page views within its first year. Xona.com is a second priority, behind Project X, so relatively little effort has been placed into it, so far. Upon completion of Project X, I hope to grow it further.

    January 2003 - July 2004
    Project X

    Entrepreneur
    I commenced work on a revolutionary computer graphics technology.

    This project has been put on hold due to our involvement in the video game industry, with our new company, Xona Games. We would like to return to this project in the future at some point to finalize it, but even if that never happens, we've learned a world of information regarding developing high quality, large scale software.

    May 1999 - August 2000
    Saw Tooth Distortion

    Self Employed
    My brother, Matthew Doucette, and I worked on an interactive entertainment software development project, Evolutionary Prototype. The project has been placed on hold to explore greater opportunities.

    Summer 1999 - Summer 2000
    Burridge Campus, NSCC

    Incubation Center Staff
    Helped to set up and commence an incubation center at NSCC's Burridge Campus.



    EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

    • Speedcubing. I can solve a Rubik's Cube in under 15 seconds:



    • Member of the YMCA.

    • Was involved in intramural basketball at Y.C.M.H.S., the College of Geographic Sciences, and Acadia University.

    • Organized a 4 on 4 basketball tournament at the College of Geographic Sciences.

    • Was a member of the Yarmouth Minor Hockey League.

    • Hobbies include playing sports (basketball, hockey, etc.), canoeing, playing intellectually stimulating games (chess, othello, checkers, etc.), listening to music, problem solving, reading and learning.

    • Computer Programming. The following links are also available as links off of my main page:
      1. Projects / Games - my major programming projects
      2. Computer Graphics - my individual real-time graphic effects, software rendered
      3. Artificial Intelligence - game playing A.I.

    • More Computer Programming. Having an interest in numerical patterns, I have broken a couple of mathematical records via computer programs. A program I created in hand optimized assembly code currently holds the world record for the Longest Delayed Palindromic Number. Another program once held the world record for furthest computation of the 196 Palindrome Quest (my work has been passed onto others to continue the quest). Please visit my World Records page for more information.

    • I am the founding member of the demo group / real-time interactive simulation (video game) software developer Saw Tooth Distortion. Our latest project, Evolutionary Prototype, was placed on hold due to the arrival of greater opportunities.

    COMPUTER RELATED SKILLS

    Hardware:

    • x86
    • Xbox 360
    • Windows Phone 7

    Programming Languages:

    • C# / .NET Framework
    • XNA Game Studio
    • C++ with OOP (Object Oriented Programming) (MS-DOS, Win32 Console and Windows Applications)
    • Python
    • x86 Assembly Language (Real Mode, Flat Mode, Protected Mode)
    • Turbo Pascal 5.5 - 7.0 with Object Oriented Programming (Real Mode, Flat Mode)
    • TMT Pascal (32-bit Protected Mode)
    • Borland Pascal 7.0
    • Visual Basic 6.0, .NET
    • TI BASIC
    • TI Extended Basic
    • GW-BASIC
    • Q-BASIC
    • QuickBASIC
    • Java
    • JavaScript
    • ANSI C
    • Perl / CGI / CSS
    • PHP
    • LISP
    • Prolog
    • SQL
    • Modula-2
    • FORTRAN 77, 90
    • CA-dBFast 2.0
    • shell scripts
    • DOS Batch files
    • HTML
    • XML
    • DHTML
    • etc.

    Operating Systems:

    • Windows Phone 7
    • Xbox 360
    • Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, NT, XP, Vista, 7
    • MS-DOS 3.2 - 6.22, 7.0, all Windows versions
    • Mac OS 5.0 - 8.1, OS X
    • Unix
    • Linux
    • RedHat
    • VAX/VMS
    • X-Windows
    • etc.

    Applications:

    • Server
      • Apache HTTP Server
    • Graphic Design
      • CorelDraw
      • Paint Shop Pro
      • Adobe Premiere
      • Adobe Photoshop
      • Jih-Shin Ho's Display
      • Windows Paint
      • Avid Cinema
      • Tiled Map Editor
    • Compilers / IDEs
    • Internet
      • Reachout
      • Netscape Navigator
      • Microsoft Internet Explorer
      • Mosaic
      • Mozilla Firefox
      • Google Chrome
      • Newsgroups
      • Telnet
      • FileZilla (Client, Server)
      • FTP, FTPS (FTP Secure, FTP-SSL)
      • VNC
      • Gopher
      • iStar Navigator
      • Pegasus Mail
      • Eudora
      • elm
      • pine
      • Gmail
      • Hotmail
      • Outlook (Express)
    • Utility / Maintenance
      • Norton Utilities
      • PC-Tools
      • Disk Defrag
      • ScanDisk
      • DriveSpace
      • DoubleSpace
      • SpinRite 6.0
      • WinZip
      • PKZIP
      • RAR, WinRAR
      • ARJ
      • LHA
    • Office Tools
      • Microsoft Word
      • WordPerfect
      • Easy Write
      • Microsoft Excel
      • Lotus 1-2-3
      • Microsoft PowerPoint
      • Maple V
      • vi
    • Database
      • MySQL
      • dBASE
    • Music Composition

    Other Skills:

    UNIVERSITY REFERENCES

     
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    Jason Allen Doucette | Xona Games | The First Pixel