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Experience

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ABOUT ME

With dual Masters in Business (MBA) and Computer Science (M.S. in C.S.), Bhavin Gandhi has 18+ years of business experience in various aspects of Leadership and Management roles, in private and public organizations. Experience includes quality assurance (QA), software development, project management, and strategic leadership in designing and implementing resource efficient solutions for high-tech industries.

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PROFILE

18+ years of I.T. experience in all phases of software development life cycle (SDLC).
Seasoned software development executive with strong educational background (MS in CS and MBA).
Experienced Software QA Manager with 10+ years of software testing and automation experience.
Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with 7+ years of experience in managing various projects under $10 million.
Certified Scrum Master (CSM) with 5+ years of hands-on experience in leading multiple agile teams.
Experienced in supervising, mentoring and leading multiple teams of 20+ software developers, manual testers, automation engineers, SDETs, software contractors, project managers, and engineering managers.
10+ years of direct people management experience with up to 10 direct reports.
Proficient in building high-performing engineering and QA teams through mentoring and hiring.
Experienced in managing geographically distributed teams located in Canada, Austria, India, China, and USA.
Skilled in providing strong leadership and driving the overall quality assurance strategy for the organization.
Proven track record of taking ownership and driving results in a technology driven environment.
5+ years of demonstrated experience in providing senior-level strategic oversight and management to diverse technology teams and bringing software products to market.
Experienced in delivering complex software products, developing test automation frameworks, and creating continuous integration infrastructure for enterprise applications.
Experienced in developing test automation and continuous integration infrastructure and pipelines for enterprise applications.
Proficient in planning, organizing and managing work within time and cost constraints of the project.
Expert in strategic decision-making and implementing efficient processes within the organization.
Proficient in providing technology training to non-technical resources and improving throughput.
Experienced in creating project plans, managing resources, scheduling tasks, and tracking progress.
Skillful in developing management systems and performance measurement dashboards to transparently track and report on the performance of the team.
Experienced in creating product road maps, project plans, resource management plans, and progress reports.
Six Sigma Green Belt certified professional with hands-on experience in implementing efficient quality processes to improve the overall productivity of the organization (ISO 9001/Six Sigma).
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with ability to partner with employees at all levels.

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TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE

Project Management tools: Clarity PPM, Microsoft Project, Team Foundation Server (TFS), SharePoint, JIRA
Process knowledge: Agile, Iterative, Waterfall, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), ISO 9001, Six Sigma
Programming Languages: C, C++, C#.NET, VB.NET, Perl, Java, VB Script, SQL, PL/SQL, Python, Scala, XCode
Testing Tools: Test Complete (TC), Quick Test Professional (QTP), Quality Center (QC), Selenium, Coded UI, NUnit
Version Control System: TFS , Perforce, GitHub, Star Team, Subversion, and CVS NT
Operating Systems: Windows 95/98/XP/NT/Vista/7/10, UNIX, Linux, Mac OSX, Android, iOS, Amazon Cloud
Other technologies: Web services, WCF, WPF, .NET Framework, HTML5, XML, Java Script, Unity, SOA (service oriented architecture), SaaS (software as a service), Micro Services, AWS, Unity 4.0
Other tools: MS Visio, Visual Studio, MS Excel, MS Access, MySQL, SAP, Matrix, Code Collaborator, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, G-Suite

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Sr. Software Dev Manager

International Game Technology, Reno, USA

Jun 19 – Present

International Game Technology (IGT) PLC is the market leader in gaming industry, with 2016 revenue of $3.8 billion, and has over 14,000 employees all over the globe. IGT is the foremost supplier of casino gaming machines and gaming/lottery monitoring systems in the world.

Managed a team of 20+ software engineers, software testers, and field support engineers within the Electronic Table Games (ETG) product line, with hiring, firing, promotion, and budgetary authority.
Evaluated and modified existing team structures to better utilize resources and provide a more satisfying work environment to employees.
Provided mentoring, guidance, and thought leadership to multiple teams within the ETG’s vertical.
Evaluated employee’s performance and created opportunities for team member’s professional growth.
Developed product roadmaps and worked with all the stakeholders to create project schedules with reconciliation of actual against budgeted resourcing plans.
Interfaced with business units to create ROI cases for new projects and presented business cases for reducing operational costs of the ETG vertical.
Coordinated with upper management, product management and sale’s resources to maintain a list of global and local project priorities.
Supported internal and external customer base of deployed ETG products.
Worked closely with stakeholders in engineering, program management, product management, and compliance teams to help remove roadblocks and ensured deliverability of highest quality products.
Provided strategic guidance for product development paths to ensure extensibility and scalability of products, including potential support for dispersed ongoing userbase.
Evaluated development environments, software tools, and hardware used to make the product.
Led recruitment and hiring of new team members and managers with active involvement from the existing team members and peers.
Fostered a collaborative and self-managing environment through coaching and mentoring of employees.
Ensured disciplined engineering design and development practices are followed by the team members for high quality product releases.
Initiated, fostered, and maintained positive working relationships with internal and external development organizations in an agile/scrum environment.

Technology/Tools: Clarity PPM, JIRA, Perforce, C++, C#.NET, Unity, SQL, PowerPoint, Excel, SuccessFactors, Matrix, SAP, Microsoft Teams, Confluence, SharePoint.

Accomplishment(s):

Successfully migrated all the ETG’s projects from Waterfall to Scrum within 6 months and improved the quality of deliverables by 16%.
Reduced game development time by 18% by assisting the development team in making appropriate commitments through story selection, task sizing and sprint planning.
Reduced product deployment costs of ETG products by 28% through multiple product re-architecture initiatives.
Developed a process of selective submission to reduce the compliance submission costs by 16% through an automated dashboard for the executive team.

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Software Dev Director

VistaCoders LLC, Reno, USA

Apr 17 – Jun 19

VistaCoders LLC is a technology consulting start-up founded in 2017 and headquartered in Reno, NV. It is an applications development company that partners with entrepreneurs and businesses around the globe to help them take their ideas from inception to tangible reality.

Led and managed a team of 20+ developers, QA engineers, project managers (PMs), engineering managers and support engineers in India.
Oversaw all technical aspects of the company from leading a development team to establishing strategic plan and long-term vision for the company.
Hired the best talent and managed the team’s growth domestically and internationally.
Built an effective organizational structure to improve scalability, accountability, speed, and quality throughout our technology team.
Implemented a repeatable and reliable Scrum/Agile process within two development verticals to balance business needs and quality of work.
Managed all product delivery schedules, specification reviews, roadmap planning, budgeting, and resource allocation.
Aligned priorities with business needs to maximize focus on the highest-returning initiatives based on time, cost, quality, and impact.
Defined the company’s strategic direction to develop innovative products like – SellGone, so that the company can grow and differentiate itself from its competitors.
Led efforts to develop company-wide best practices, standardized specification guidelines, and inter-departmental communications.
Designed training and development programs to increase quality of personnel and our software products.
Advised the CEO, CFO, and COO on the long-term technical strategic direction of the company by leading them to make large strategic technical bets.
Raised funds for the company by regularly meeting with perspective investors and presenting our business plan to them.
Inspired and excited internal team around the long-term vision of the company and convinced our investors that VistaCoders is the best choice to invest.
Developed an effective internship program by assessing the needs of the organization and defining project-based objectives for our interns.

Technology/Tools: PowerPoint, Excel, SQL, HTML5, Java, C, XCode, C#.NET, Python, Android, iOS, GitHub, Zoom.

Accomplishment(s):

Built an entire engineering team of 20+ resources from ground-up within just 9 months’ time period.
Partnered with 6 Indian colleges to develop an effective internship program, which helped in reducing our operating costs by 12% and decreased our turnover rate by 18% in FY2018.
Helped the executive team to raise around $1,000,000 in capital and funding by creating and presenting the business plan in front of multiple prospective investors.
Spearheaded the effort of getting “SellGone” product selected as one of the members of StartUpNV by going through their rigorous vetting process, which allows only 15% of their applicants to be their members.

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Sr. Software QA Manager

International Game Technology, Reno, USA

Dec 14 – Apr 17

Supervised, mentored and lead the team of 20+ manual testers, automation engineers, and SDETs.
Managed 3 different testing teams containing integration engineers, automation engineers and manual testers.
Managed an off-shore team of 10+ manual testers and contractors in our China, Canada, and Austria’s branch.
Provided the strategic direction to the Product Assurance (PA) organization and created long-term plans for implementing new test strategies in the Games Platform Engineering department.
Reviewed, planned, and improved existing infrastructure of the Quality Assurance (QA) department through implementation of efficient tools and processes.
Reviewed historical, existing and ongoing bugs to identify areas needing specific attention, and then resolved those issues in timely manner by partnering with PMOs and engineering teams.
Worked with PMOs, managers, engineers, and operations team to develop innovative testing solutions that meet market needs with respect to functionality, performance scalability, and reliability.
Worked with product management, engineering, professional services and project management teams to set and manage testing priorities for various products within resource and time constraints.
Defined the quality criteria and the success metrics for various products and services by implementing new processes using Team Foundation Server (TFS), SharePoint, Quality Center (QC), and JIRA.
Designed and implemented test automation frameworks based on SOA (service oriented architecture) and SaaS (software as a service) to help out manual testing efforts.
Mentored, guided, and coached the entire QA team of 20+ engineers through daily scrums, weekly one-on-one meetings, and performance reviews.
Created a team culture of excellence and high performance through team work and implementation of SMART MBOs (management by objectives).
Acted as a Scrum Master and coordinated testing efforts by communicating with customer support, game engineers, PMOs, and offshore QA engineers.
Evaluated and recommended new technologies to increase test efficiencies including development of automation tools for testing across platforms.
Hired new employees as needed and determined optimum staffing mix, by location as well as internal vs. outsource, and balanced them over time.

Technology/Tools: Six Sigma, MS Project, PowerPoint, Excel, MySQL, C#.NET, NUnit, QC, JIRA, TFS, VMware, SuccessFactors, Matrix, SAP, SharePoint, Confluence, Code Collaborator, Skype for Business.

Accomplishment(s):

Decreased the overall testing cycle’s time by 32% through development of new automation tools and through removal of redundant processes in FY15.
Increased efficiency of sanity and regression testing by 47% through the introduction of continuous integration framework and the longevity testing framework.
Reduced the total number of errors found in field by 12% in FY17 as a percentage of total Foundations produced.
Improved process efficiency and customer service by replacing previously haphazard e-mail based system with a sophisticated JIRA and QC (Quality Center) based field issue tracking system.

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Software Engineering Manager

International Game Technology, San Francisco, USA

Oct 11 – Dec 14

Led and mentored a team of 7 software developers, QA engineers, a business analyst, a system engineer, and a technical project manager.
Transformed the automation team from operating within the waterfall methodology to operating within the agile framework for faster customer feedback.
Acted as a Scrum Master of the Tools and Automation team by leveraging skills of project management, client management and team leadership.
Conducted interviews and performed analysis in order to create business cases for tools and automation projects that can help improve overall efficiencies of the organization.
Designed, developed and maintained agile-based project management system using TFS to monitor project’s progress, create product backlogs, and document software defects.
Developed and delivered organization’s training materials and workshops for building knowledge and skills to facilitate the agile transformation.
Delegated manual testing work to the offshore team in China and worked as an onsite coordinator.
Trained manual testers in both classroom style and online training for developing and executing automated tests using the automation test framework built by the team.
Managed the end-to-end release process for the system automation test framework, from planning to deployment of the product.
Created specific project plans to ensure that automation tools are delivered on time, within budget, adhere to high quality standards, and meet customer expectations.
Evaluated training and development needs of each and every team member, and developed training programs customized for each individual’s needs.
Championed cultural change and collaborated with other managers on plans and techniques for accelerating and advancing the organization’s transformation to the new more efficient methodologies.

Technology/Tools: Selenium, Test Complete, C, C++, C#.NET, Java, Perl, SQL, Python, MS Access, MS Project, Excel, TFS.

Accomplishment(s):

Dramatically increased overall employee satisfaction rating from 64% to a record high of 87% percent in an employee opinion survey taken for FY12’s performance.
Unified and centralized existing tools’ inventory, and reduced development and support costs of these tools by 30% in FY13.
Built an agile development team from ground-up to release the test automation framework within just 10 months, which automated 12% of total test cases through GUI Automation.
Designed and developed Ezpay automation framework, which reduced manual labor cost by $120,000/year.

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Part-Time Business Consultant

Angel Worldwide Trading Company, USA

Sep 10 – Jan 12

Angel Worldwide Trading Company was established in 2011 as the premier import-export agent and distributor specializing in luxury retail products. Based out of Reno, Nevada; their agents have developed relationships in over 40 countries. Although they primarily distribute their own brands, they are always seeking to expand their mix of products and establishing prosperous relationships with manufacturers, distributors, and retailers worldwide.

Helped senior executives in developing a business plan, acquiring the business space, and developing the company’s website.
Defined long-term organizational strategic goals in conjunction with company’s senior executives.
Provided leadership and direction to the senior sales executives and expanding management team.
Acted as a liaison between company’s executives and their outsourcing partners in India.
Built, developed and maintained relationships with key clients and outsourcing partners.
Pursued sales leads from prospective clients and delivered presentations about the business.
Provided recommendations to strategically enhance financial performance of the company.
Developed appropriate policies and procedures for effective companywide operation.
Monitored and controlled company’s assets and cash flow through financial analysis, and provided company’s performance reports to senior executives.

Accomplishment(s):

Converted an idea for a business to a real business by setting up the work-space and configuring the financial system for the business.
Helped company to push out several breakthrough products in the US market by establishing new relationships with Indian exporters.
Designed and delivered organization-wide training programs to standardize major company’s processes.

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Technical Project Manager

International Game Technology, Beijing, China

Mar 09 – Oct 11

Defined and implemented a product strategy and road-map for IGT’s system team.
Provided project management and direction for multiple concurrent mission critical projects.
Managed the end-to-end release process for IGT’s system products (sbX, Advantage, Ezpay), from planning to deployment of the product.
Analyzed project’s feasibility, documented all requirements, and created WBS to allot work to team members.
Interacted with stakeholders, subject matter experts (SMEs), perspective customers, and product owner to get the requirements and define the scope of the project.
Created project plans to ensure that projects are delivered on time, within budget, adhere to high quality standards, and meet customer expectations.
Conducted weekly status meetings with engineering managers, product managers, tech leads, and business analyst to discuss and review the status of the projects.
Continually tracked key project milestones and adjusted project plans or resources to meet project’s objectives.
Identified, monitored and mitigated project risks throughout the project’s lifecycle.
Wrote and developed product collateral such as product descriptions, product feature’s presentations, and technical white papers.
Served as the primary point of contact to the internal clients during the development life cycle of projects.
Provided service level support for various automation projects, which included defining processes, methodologies, policies, standards and templates.
Developed project deliverable templates and process standards to get ISO 9001 certification for our team.
Provided feedback for process improvement, program enhancements, and strategic alignment with company’s overall business.

Technology/Tools: MS Project, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, TFS, SharePoint, WCF, WPF, Web Services, Skype for Business.

Accomplishment(s):

Delivered sbX 3.2 – Advantage 9.2 project on time and within budget with 92% customer satisfaction.
Increased overall productivity of the development team by 28% through mentoring, communication and implementation of efficient processes.
Improved team morale through cross-training, team meetings and one-on-one personal development sessions.

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Sr. Software QA Engineer

International Game Technology, Reno, USA

Jan 08 – Mar 09

Led, managed and coordinated the activities of 4 manual testers to design and develop automation tests.
Designed, developed, and maintained test automation scripts for both the front end and the back-end of the IGT’s systems applications.
Executed manual and automated tests to ensure that new code, functionality, or new releases have not introduced errors into existing functionalities.
Reviewed product requirement documents and functional specifications to develop test strategies, test plans and test cases for the software product under test.
Understood the requirements by participating in meetings with business analyst and engineering team, and then provided estimation for testing efforts.
Tested the product against the user requirements to identify and resolve problems from end user’s perspective.
Executed manual test cases against the software requirements, and recorded test results in QC.
Collaborated closely with engineering team to isolate and reproduce defects across all parts of the system and identify gaps in coverage.
Worked with product development teams to prioritize bug fixes, maintain the bug list, and own tracking/reporting of metrics.
Proactively came up with innovative methods to improve software quality, test coverage, efficiency and regression coverage.
Efficiently managed resources from remote locations, like Las Vegas and San Francisco.
Trained cross-functional team of 6 people, on how to use the automation frameworks to convert their manual tests into automation scripts.
Analyzed current test suite of manual tests to create automation strategies for reducing the overall testing cycle.
Designed and implemented various automation framework to reduce manual labor.
Designed, developed and maintained automation framework for integration testing, using service oriented architecture (SOA) and WCF services.
Reviewed manual test cases against business requirements to create traceability matrix.

Technology/Tools: QTP, QC, Test Complete, Java, C, C++, VB.NET, NUnit, TFS, SharePoint, Coded UI, WCF, WPF.

Accomplishment(s):

Designed, developed and deployed a test automation framework for IGT’s system products using Test Complete and QTP, which reduced overall testing time by 18%.
Wrote and executed 500+ test cases for new features under test, and found 128 total defects within just 6 months of total testing time.
Designed and delivered an automation tool for the production line, which recognized the savings of $300,000/year in total labor cost on the manufacturing line.

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Database Consultant

Book of Odds Inc., Boston, USA

May 07 – Aug 07

Book of Odds, Inc is a startup company focusing on creating a unique database of probabilistic and statistical information which will serve as the basis for print publications and a dedicated website. My role in this project was to lead a team of 6 non-technical personnel to develop various process standards, while simultaneously working to create basic database schema for the project.

Assisted in defining current processes in the company and provided recommendations for process improvements, which saved $20,000 and 800 hours’ worth of work.
Lead and trained the team of 6 non-technical personnel on the company’s database system.
Managed priorities and workload associated with multiple concurrent tasks such as database design, technical support and other managerial tasks.
Discussed and analyzed database needs and translated them into efficient physical database designs and structures.
Understood and analyzed business needs, understood existing research and designed the database according to requirements.
Provided in-depth technical expertise of database management systems, including database architecture, installation, and technical support of the database.
Supervised and coordinated activities of team by providing IT customer support services, including network and database setup.
Managed, developed, trained, and mentored staff on projects and assessed their performance for engagement.

Technology/Tools: MS Access, MySQL, Excel, PowerPoint, Skype.

Accomplishment(s):

Designed and developed database application that standardized many common processes and tables.
Provided simplified interface for data accumulation, which reduced data gathering time by 60%.

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Software QA Engineer

Broadcom Corporation, Andover, USA

May 06 – Dec 06

Broadcom Corporation is a major technology innovator and global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, with 2007 revenue of $3.78 billion, and has over 6000 employees all over the globe.

Analyzed business needs, designed and developed automation tools to reduce manual labor hours.
Lead project teams to ensure that all supporting applications are developed on time, within budget, and beyond client expectations.
Created a project support team and provided single point-of-contact for all parties — clients, management, and project staff — throughout the entire project life-cycle.
Lead, trained, managed, and mentored a team of 4 manual test engineers.
Coordinated testing with cross functional teams and allocated resources by projects.
Developed, managed, and executed test automation strategy, test plans, and test cases.
Managed and distributed test coverage reports for middle management, and prepared status reports for upper management.
Closely interacted with development and project teams to understand system requirements.
Developed detailed test cases from business requirements using HP Quality Center.
Manually executed test cases by using positive and negative data inputs in HP Quality Center (QC).
Developed functional testing framework using Quick Test Professional (QTP) for GUI automation of the product testing.
Performed the black box testing, functional testing, load testing, regression testing, and user acceptance testing of the software application.
Created detailed QA documents including test plans, test cases and test reports.

Technology/Tools: Microprocessors, C, C++, Perl, VB.NET, PL/SQL, VB Script, Skype.

Accomplishment(s):

Implemented automation tool for report generation, which reduced test management and defect tracking time by 40%.

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I.T. Consultant

Gandhi Brothers, Mumbai, India

Jun 03 – Sept 05

Gandhi Brothers Pvt. Ltd. (Gandhi Brothers) is a manufacturer & dealer of chemicals and solvents, with 2005 revenue of INR 2.8 million and 26 employees spread over 8 different regions throughout India. My role in this company was to develop efficient technological solutions to increase their productivity, and reduce operational expenditures through automation of their manual processes.

Provided the policies, methodologies, and templates for managing projects within the organization.
Provided support and guidance to the new I.T. Manager on how to manage projects and on how to use project management software.
Collaborated with the VP of Engineering and other stakeholders to mitigate known I.T. risks, through innovative thinking, in order to meet and exceed client expectations.
Identified client’s active needs, produced design requirements, and directly translated them to the key deliverable.
Developed I.T. strategies with business users, defined business objectives and identified cost/benefit impact to the company for the proposed projects.
Collaborated with Sales Manager, Operations Manager, and Account Manager for delivering appropriate account management software by determining approach, scope, and deliverable.
Interfaced regularly with business unit managers to define project direction and system change priorities.
Implemented effective and consistent methods of communicating changes to business unit managers/stakeholders.

Technology/Tools: VB Script, MS Access, Excel, HTML, Java Script, LAN, WAN.

Accomplishment(s):

Increased company’s revenue by Rs. 200,000 through development of new marketing strategies and acquiring new projects, using technological solutions such as online marketing.
Reduced account management cost of the company by 40% through various software solutions.

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I.T. Intern

Gandhi Brothers, Mumbai, India

May 02 – Jun 03

Gandhi Brothers is a manufacturer & dealer of chemicals and solvents, with 2005 revenue of INR 2.8 million and 26 employees spread over 8 different regions throughout India. My role as an IT intern was to provide hardware and software support for all the organizational needs, and reduce operational expenditures through automation of their manual processes.

Trained and lead new engineers, who joined newly formed I.T. team.
Trained non-technical staff (like Account Manager, Process Manager, etc.) on how to use technological solutions for increasing operation’s efficiency.
Developed innovative marketing strategy through the use of the Internet, to increase company’s visibility and sales.
Developed efficient technological solutions such as account management software, to increase company’s productivity.
Assisted in resolving reported issues in a timely and efficient manner; opened, tracked, and closed trouble tickets.
Escalated problems as necessary and provided timely status until transferred or resolved.
Provided remote and on-site support for the company’s hardware and software including: desktop computers and company’s proprietary software.
Managed workload, customer expectations and business priorities to achieve customer satisfaction.

Technology/Tools: VB Script, MS Access, Excel, HTML, Java Script, LAN, WAN.

Accomplishment(s):

Resolved all the software and hardware issues of the organization with turnaround time of 24 hours.
Trained factory workers and non-technical staff on company’s proprietary software, which improved company’s efficiency by 30%.

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INTERESTS

• Traveling, photography, blogging, counseling, consulting, cooking, cricket, swimming and singing.

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Bhavin Gandhi

My purpose is to help people to better manage, lead and organize their businesses and lives, in the 21st century.
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