3M Motor Vehicle Systems and Services

Who We Are
3M Motor Vehicle Systems and Services (MVSS) is a software development organization within the Traffic Safety Systems Division of the 3M Corporation. MVSS is primarily responsible for development and implementation of Motor Vehicle related software and services. MVSS maintains primary development centers in Austin, TX and Tucson, AZ, with additional facilities located in Denver, CO, and on the 3M Campus in St. Paul, MN. Within MVSS, over 150 individuals and growing are filling roles of business analysts, quality assurance, data stewards, database administrators, IT operations, developers, project managers, and MVSS management. Our main goal is to work collaboratively and effectively to create quality software that not only meets, but exceeds our customers expectations.

Our Products
3M MVSS products currently span two main areas, outlined below; however our business and sales teams are currently in the process of evaluating and responding to business activity in other motor vehicle related areas. Our primary focus is centered on marketing an Enterprise Suite of applications designed to support the day to day operations of a motor vehicle department. This suite includes products to support: Motor Vehicle Registration Solution that supports the registration and titling of motor vehicles. Driver Record and Issuance Verification Solution that supports the issuance of credentials and management of customer driving records. Commercial Transportation Management System that manages fleets of commercial vehicles. Accounting Transaction Money Manager which is a point of sale and financial management and revenue reporting system that accepts payments and then distributes revenue to the appropriate accounting ledgers. Dealer Licensing and Registration Solution that manages automotive dealership organizations licenses, permits and license plates. Common customer 360 view, which takes the concept of the customer as the single most important entity of the product universe.

We also market products that support business activities within and outside our division. These products include: Digital License Plate (DLP) System that supports the ordering and manufacturing/tracking of license plates. Digital Validation Systems (DVS) that supports the production of vehicle registration renewal forms and stickers.
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Together these products comprise a complete service offering. For more information please see http://www.3M.com/tss/rfs.

Our Technology Base

3M MVSS is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. While we develop, maintain, and support our own development standards, processes, and best practices, these are based on those established by Microsoft. Our applications are .NET based and developed using the Visual Studio development tools with C# as the primary coding language. Windows Server is our server O/S and is used to host Internet Information Services (IIS) for our application/web tier. Windows Server is also used to host our SQL Server database environments. Active Directory Services are used for both authentication and authorization of the application. To manage our task workflow and maintain our source code we use Team Foundation Server (TFS). MVSS uses a multi-layered application architecture generally deployed on 3 physical tiers. Our applications are primarily Winforms based, using the Smart Client Architecture for our enterprise application suite. The UI layer communicates to an application tier through a set of SOAP based web services. ADO.NET is used to provide data access and connectivity to the database, and some of our most recent projects have been developed using a proprietary business object framework and ORM based off of the Microsoft DSL tools. ASP.NET is also used within our applications to support management and reporting features of the application. We are also actively engaged in a project to migrate the entire enterprise application suite to the web utilizing the ASP.NET platform with webforms. 3M MVSS is also focused on improving our enterprise application suite, taking advantage of new frameworks, tools, and technologies that allow our application to grow in a positive direction. Some of the latest technologies such as ASP.NET MVC, LINQ, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Silverlight, Windows Identity Foundation (WIF), and Entity Framework are either being actively implemented or evaluated for future use.

Our Implementations
MVSS is most closely follows the Rational Unified Process (RUP) development methodology and tailored to meet our specific needs for managing risk on a project. As it relates to development, each project is typically broken into several implementation phases, each lasting 1 year or more. Within each of these implementation phases exists anywhere from 8 to 12 development cycles, each cycle being 4-6 weeks on average. At the beginning of a development cycle, requirements and business rules are turned over to the development lead and senior development staff. The development lead is then responsible for assigning task work related to technical specifications, development, unit testing, and code reviews. Development teams can contain anywhere from 2 to 8 developers under a single development lead. Application architects are available on an as need basis for each project and will work with the teams on architecture and design issues. The entire development team will at times interact with project

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management, business analysts, IT operations, DBAs, and quality insurance staff to ensure a successful implementation of the project.

Our Environment
Our work environment at 3M MVSS is based on an overwhelming desire to succeed. We do this not at each others expense but for each others growth and continued professional development. We foster a creative environment that values and supports each individuals unique viewpoints and ideas. Senior development leadership at MVSS supports and welcomes the involvement of all development team members throughout the SDLC. We are certainly accountable for the work we are tasked with, we are accountable to ourselves as individuals, and we are accountable to each other as teammates. 3M MVSS needs staff capable of taking advantage of this unique opportunity.

Our Expectations
3M MVSS has a defined set of expectations that apply for all developers on staff. We believe that these expectations and guidelines must be followed to maintain a positive culture within the organization and to enable a productive work environment. A developer coming into the organization will go through a set of training materials and processes to become acclimated to the type of projects we are working on, standards and guidelines, best practices, and general work environment. Once assigned to a specific project a developer will be responsible for working with their development lead to ensure tasks are completed on time. Typically, early on developers will not be given requirements & business rules and asked to generate a set of technical specifications; however in time this may be a process that a developer may be asked to be involved with. Developers may be asked by their leads or an architect for a code review session as well. Interaction with others will consist of primarily the development lead, project management, and potentially the architecture team as well as the business analysts. Development leads will typically have the most interaction with the architecture and analyst teams. Developers will rarely interact with a client directly. Other daily practices that all employees are asked to follow include, but are not limited to reporting time spent on task work, maintaining status of task and checking in code within TFS, and maintaining excellent communication with team.

FAQ
The following is a list of frequently asked questions from candidates to the MVSS development staff during the interview process.

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Will there be interaction with clients?

For developers, the answer is usually no, there will not be client interaction on a regular basis. There may be some occasions where the client may be on site at one of our development centers or you may be asked to attend an introduction session for a project; however neither of these are a common occurrence. Developers may be asked to communicate with a business partner on a regular basis for specific task work, such as working with a business partner who is building a piece of the application remotely; reports or interfaces are an example of this work, and would require an MVSS developer to assist with integration into the application. Individuals who are development leads or Architecture will likely have interaction with clients and business partners on a regular basis. These interactions may consist of architecture and design sessions, development process questions and issues, and potentially client meetings.

Will there be travel involved in my position?

Again, the answer for this is generally no for developers. Development Leads and Architects may be asked to travel; but this is kept to an absolute minimum to meet the needs of the project.

What are the team sizes?

Development teams may vary in size anywhere between 2 and 8 developers per team. Teams are most often grouped per implementation phase a single team will work on the Drivers Licensing and Issuance Verification system, whereas another team will work on the Vehicle Title and Registration phase. Each team will consist of a development lead, which will be responsible for tasking the development staff with work for the implementation phase. While architects may be assigned to a project, they are generally not considered to be a part of the development team.

What will my role be?

Our interview process is used to identify candidates to fit the needs of our organization. At times this may be to fill a Development lead or Architect position; however usually this is to fill development positions. After going through a training process, developers will be assigned to one of several development teams and will begin getting task work from the Development Leads. As a developer you will be asked to complete task work on time, unit test code, ask questions as they arise and report issues to the lead, and attend any code review sessions as established by the Development Lead. In addition, given adequate time on a project, you may be asked create technical specifications from requirements and business rules provided by the analysts.

How will I grow within MVSS?

While all developers look to advance their skills and knowledge, we are sensitive to the fact that some developers look to advance into a senior or lead position, and possibly even an architecture position. For those developers content to remain in a developer role there are opportunities to work on various
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projects to gain additional knowledge and understanding of our application architectures and design. For those looking to advance into a new role, there are also opportunities to do so.

What happens when my project is over?

When we identify developers within our organization who display the qualities we like to see in an individual, this candidate will typically be asked to move to another project when coming off of a completed project.

Can I contribute to the team/organization?

Yes, developers of all levels are encouraged to contribute to the development teams, whether that contribution is on a project or organizational level. An individual that may have an idea for improving a process or practice, or sees something that is lacking is encouraged to bring it up to the development lead and/or architecture team. The individual may then be given the opportunity to develop the idea and possibly present the idea to the team.

What software/tools versions is MVS using?

The MVSS development process is generally supported by current technologies and products that are evaluated and decided to be a good fit for the applications as well as the organization. The following is the version information for our most heavily utilized applications and products: Visual Studio 2008 (Current plans to upgrade to 2010) .NET Framework 3.5 (May be 4.0 when we upgrade to VS 2010) Windows 7 for development environments Windows Server 2008 R2 for hosting IIS, SQL Server, etc. SQL Server 2008 R2 TFS 2008 (Current plans to upgrade to 2010) Sharepoint 2010 (In progress)

You have WinForm projects and ASP.NET projects. I'm a ____ developer. Would I be placed on the other type of team?
We evaluate each candidate for their skills and put them on the project where they'll best fit. If a developer has skills in both and has a preference, they can tell us during the interview so we get them better placed.

You currently have WinForm and ASP.NET projects - does your organization have plans to develop using WPF, Silverlight, etc.?
We will unlikely be using WPF for any projects given the current direction Microsoft is heading. We have an R&D team that is evaluating Silverlight and other technologies for feasibility of moving our projects in other directions. We try and evaluate new technologies as they come out, discuss them, and see if they
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fit within our products. If we see a fit we will try and migrate portions of the application to use newer technology as we can, such as incorporating LINQ queries into code where DataSets were used or replacing parts of an application with Business Objects, but it's typically within the constraints of a given project. There are R&D hours as well where we can evaluate newer technologies and decide how they would fit so that individual projects can take advantage.

What are next steps after an interview?

The team that makes up the development interview committee will typically decide on a candidate within 2-3 days after an interview. In certain cases if the team that interviewed feels that a second interview would be beneficial for any reason may request a second interview, which typically is not as technical in nature.

When will I hear how I did on the interview?

Typically within 3 to 5 business days a candidate should hear a response from their recruiter.

Can you give a hint about how well I did right now?
We interview many candidates, by many teams. We have to bring each candidate to the group to discuss their skill compared to other candidates and what open positions we have. Generally candidates will hear something within 3 to 5 business days.

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