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After 13 years in the localization process to adapt a product or service information to another language, culture or market business I have covered most fields of the processes involved, from development or design to global shipping, mainly in the Information Technology products and services area.

Far from getting comfortable at this accomplishment, I'm always looking for new challenges, including sharing and learning better ways to meet goals.

Whether you are a translator facing a technical challenge or a corporation willing to offer your products or services to the world, feel free to contact me at mail@ramonortega.com with queries, comments, proposals, requests or suggestions.

Here are the details of my CV, just in case you might avail of my expertise:

From December 2005 till present Based in Spain right across the Portuguese border but free to move as required, I've been working as a Localization Consultant and Engineer supporting corporations and translators on a project or task basis. In November 2007 I started Alor Translations, for a more corporate-orientated profile. Services offered are but not limited to: [+]

Some samples of products localized into other languages, either on my own or in partnership with leading professionals in the industry, are: [+]

Aimed to help translators, localizers and localization engineers alike, I developed the on-line String Lengths tool.

From May 2005 till November 2005 As a Localization Specialist at Epson Engineering Europe based in Paris, France, I carried out the localization process for manuals, on-line help, drivers and software bundled with Epson products, mainly printers, which included the following tasks [+]

  • Evaluate the localization process required by a product
  • Set a timeline coordinating factory, marketing, vendors and in-house resources constraints
  • Vendor support and evaluation
  • Reduce costs through managing resources and leveraging from previous localization projects
  • Design, implement and follow up processes across multiple departments as well as vendors

From October 2002 till March 2005 As the Operations/Production Manager at Glotas Translation Services in Spain, having six Project Managers (PM's) and 3 in-house translators reporting to me as well as managing over 50 freelancers and vendors. My main duties were [+]

  • Evaluate feasibility of client’s project proposals
  • Maximize productivity by monitoring current processes and tools while evaluating potential improvements
  • Monitor and balance workload among PM's and in-house translators
  • Follow up on PM queries and issues with clients and vendors
  • Keep all projects on schedule and within budget
  • Assess Management on production capability and availability
  • Vendor assessment and QA processes
  • Recruitment of new hires

From July till September 2002 I worked as a Software Localization Engineer for LionBridge Technologies at Dublin, Ireland. Responsible for the process of localizing Microsoft Messenger into 10 languages, the role involved [+]

  • Preparation of deliverables to localizers
  • Workload assessment
  • Localizers support and management
  • Timely deliveries of localized files to the client as per localization kit
  • QA tests and implementation
  • Bug free files which implied investigation, assessment and fixing of localization bugs

From March 1999 till July 2002 I’ve been working at Microsoft Ireland as a Software Test and Automation Engineer for Access 9, 10 and .Net which involved knowledge of ASP and HTML since Access included ADP files (web-based database applications). The main tasks performed were [+]

  • Develop testing scripts and applications in Visual Basic 6
  • Update and manage source code using Visual SourceSafe
  • Manage the testing process performed by vendors
  • Evaluate vendor's Quality Assurance
  • Vendor support in bug fixing
  • Run automation suites and debug automation tools
  • Enter and monitor bugs in RAID, a proprietary SQL Server bug tracking database
  • Participate in bug evaluation triage meetings
  • Improve and update testing and management tools
  • Analyze, design and automate test cases for localized versions

When I started at Microsoft Ireland I worked as a Software Localization Engineer for SMS 2.0 (Opal) from July 1998 until March 1999 which covered the localization project for the Tier 1 languages. My main tasks included, but were not limited to [+]

  • Manage the localization project performed by vendors
  • Hand off localization material to vendors
  • Hand off localized file to engineering
  • Support vendors in localization and debugging process
  • Monitor and apply localization efforts by the US pilot language (German) team
  • Extend Ireland pilot language (French) results to the rest of the localized languages
  • Contact between MILS (Microsoft International Language Services), vendors, testing team, management staff and engineering
  • Analyze, design and implementation of production tools to streamline tasks and processes
  • Debugging

From 1994 until 1998 I worked as a software developer for Tecno-Voice, an ISV (Independent Software Vendor), developing custom made applications both in Access and Visual Basic, mostly database front-end against Jet/SQL databases which in most cases were also designed by me.

Amongst other applications I developed Microsoft Opentool for management and configuration of volume licensing offers (MOLP).

In 1995 I took part in the adaptation and roll-out of Microsoft Manager 3.1, a Products & Services Support Group custom application, my first localization job. More recently, I have migrated, on a volunteering basis, Enable Ireland’s database from their legacy system (Paradox) into SQL Server.

I'm a regular collaborator to Free Localization, a cooperative translation project to help webmasters get free multilingual versions of their websites
 Design & Copyright: Ramon Ortega mail@ramonortega.com
Last updated on 5th May 2008