Vanessa Lai

Leadership & Project Coordination

• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to develop proactive solutions for switch reliability and uptime enhancement.
• Enhanced overall team performance by providing regular coaching, feedback, and skill development opportunities.
• Delivered customer-facing technical training and provided on-site debugging support, bridging gaps between engineering and client teams

Network Analysis & Switch Stabilization

• Established clear performance metrics for the team which helped in tracking progress towards set targets effectively.
• Collaborated with other department leads to streamline workflows, improve interdepartmental coordination, and achieve business goals collectively.
• Conducted in-depth network traffic analysis and prepared detailed technical reports to guide firmware and hardware improvements
• Designed and implemented switch stabilization strategies, focusing on system robustness and crash prevention
• Analyzed crash logs and uplink monitoring data to troubleshoot complex network and hardware issues effectively

Platform Integration & NPI Leadership

• Led firmware development and full product lifecycle for the USW-Pro, USW-Pro-Max, ECS, and USW-Pro-XG switch series.
• Enabled platform firmware readiness from early-stage bootloader bring-up to Linux kernel transition across Realtek, Broadcom, and Marvell SoCs.
• Delivered system-level bring-up, diagnostics, burn-in and factory integration, including FCD/FTU manufacturing validation processes.

Feature Development

• Designed and implemented stacking system architecture in collaboration with NET team, enabling seamless switch cluster management and failover
• Developed Auto LAG (Link Aggregation) functionality with dynamic uplink selection and monitoring for redundancy and performance
• Led Etherlighting system design, integrating LED MCU firmware control with port status and diagnostics for improved visual feedback
• Architected and launched Layer 3 and enterprise network switch solutions, reducing complexity in IT deployments.

Network Analysis & Switch Stabilization

• Conducted in-depth network traffic analysis and prepared detailed technical reports to guide firmware and hardware improvements
• Designed and implemented switch stabilization strategies, focusing on system robustness and crash prevention
• Analyzed crash logs and uplink monitoring data to troubleshoot complex network and hardware issues effectively

ODM L2/L3 Switch

• Led ODM switch development for multiple platforms across diverse codebases, ensuring scalable and maintainable software solutions.
• Acted as L3 group team leader, managing software development planning, including specification design, architectural diagrams, techniques, and strategic implementation.
• Delivered customer-facing software training and provided on-site technical support, bridging development and client requirements effectively.

L2 Surveillance PoE Switch

• Implemented IEEE 802.1D STP and IEEE 802.1Q MSTP protocols for loop prevention and VLAN management.
• Developed ITU-T G.8032 v2 ERPS (Ethernet Ring Protection Switching) to enable fast ring topology protection and recovery.
• Designed and implemented QoS, bandwidth control, and traffic regulation mechanisms tailored for surveillance network traffic.

L3 Ethernet Switch Experience

• Developed core L3 routing protocols, including RIP and RIPng, to support IPv4 and IPv6 routing capabilities.
• Integrated SSL support for specifying cipher suites and declaring trust points to enhance switch security.

Patents

• Contributed to multiple patents in network protocol and device innovations (US/TW/CN).

Software Defined Networking Development & Platform Innovation

• Developed SDN solutions and formulated an open innovation service platform to enable rapid deployment of new network services.
• Directed cross-functional collaboration between cloud computing and networking teams to drive integrated development efforts.
• Designed and implemented the QoS module for OpenFlow switches, optimizing traffic prioritization and resource allocation.
• Performed performance benchmarking and conformance testing on SDN controllers and switches to ensure interoperability and reliability.

Chassis and Stacking Switch

• Designed and developed chassis and stacking switches, focusing on scalable and high-performance network solutions.
• Implemented and optimized L2/L3 protocol performance, ensuring low latency and high throughput.
• Developed a configurable ARP learning mode to enhance spoofing prevention and improve network security.
• Managed L3 cache control and designed L2 multicast bitmap sharing methods to optimize multicast traffic handling.
• Contributed to Zyxel’s proprietary stacking switch technology, enabling efficient switch aggregation and management.