SmartBear, a leading provider of software development and visibility tools, has hired world-class artificial intelligence (AI) leader Jim Wu as VP of AI and Data Science working in the SmartBear Innovation Labs and product management leader Anthony Bryce as VP of Product Management. Both are supporting the company’s strategy to provide critically-needed visibility for developers to manage quality outcomes across the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC) as the market shifts to modern developer-led practices. Jim previously served Nuance Communications for more than 14 years, most recently as VP, Corporate Research. Anthony served BMC Software for 12 years, most recently as Director of Product Management. 

“With the growing complexity of technology, like public cloud infrastructure and the move to microservices-based applications, it has become increasingly difficult for development teams to problem solve when applications go awry for end users,” said Dan Faulkner, Chief Product Officer at SmartBear. “We are thrilled to welcome Jim and Anthony who will lead efforts to accelerate confidence and quality across the entire SDLC by augmenting our popular tools that support modern developer-led practices. This will ensure SmartBear continues to meet development teams where they are, providing the tools and useful insights they need to deliver optimum application performance while enabling developers to get back to doing the work that matters most.”   

Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, Jim brings more than 20 years of R&D experience in machine learning (ML), neural networks, automatic speech recognition, natural language processing (NLP), and other related fields in AI. He was Chief Scientist, Dictation Research at ScanSoft and Principal Scientist at Lernout and Hauspie Speech Products. Before moving to the U.S., he was a researcher in Nortel Networks’ Advanced Speech and Language Technology Group in Montreal, Canada.  

“I am excited to work with the SmartBear teams to augment our products with AI capabilities, where they can most benefit our customers,” said Jim Wu. “Whether we are further enhancing our popular test automation tools with AI or delivering something entirely new, our goal is always to help software development teams maximize productivity and quality with the least hassle.” 

Anthony is based in Bath, England and brings more than 20 years of product leadership experience, primarily in IT service management, IT operations, and cybersecurity markets. Previous to his BMC employment, Anthony served as Head of Product Management at Micro Focus as well as worked with early startups in various product management and product marketing roles. 

“With modern observability practices, we can collect data from complex landscapes, and with the right tools, provide deeper and more useful insights on how to efficiently fix and optimize a deployed application,” said Anthony Bryce. “With popular tools like Bugsnag and AlertSite in our portfolio, our focus is on adding increasing layers of visibility for developers so they can rapidly iterate and deploy software with increasing confidence whilst ensuring great end user experiences for their customers.” 

Traditionally, IT teams have been monitoring deployed software for errors, trying to rectify any application issues experienced by end users. More recently, developers are increasingly taking on this role using practices and tools to ensure applications are deployed and available, and end users are benefiting from a digital experience that gets better every time software is deployed.