Experience

Lead application engineer on a small team building web applications enabling the entire UK private healthcare industry to submit data for reporting. This role has afforded me the opportunity to significantly improve my DevOps skills with responsibility for all Azure DevOps pipelines. Both the maintenance of existing GUI pipelines and the design of new pipelines using YAML to allow for shared components between pipelines and the benefits of source control. Microsoft Bicep Infrastructure as Code was also used to create and configure Azure Resource Groups, App Service Plans, App Services, Storage Accounts and a Container Registry. Projects included the creation of a new REST API based on Fastify, chosen for its performance and encapsulation, offering secured endpoints that included fetching reports from PowerBI and Azure Storage Account Shared Access Signature token generation. As well as customised login pages for Azure Active Directory B2C and extensive frontend work with React and Material UI. Day to day tasks involved solving the most challenging technical problems faced by the team in frontend and backend code as well as in infrastructure and ensuring everyone maintained a high standard of code with a special emphasis on security and confidentiality due to the pseudonymised healthcare data the company handles. Duties also included managing technical debt, working with the infrastructure team to manage new and existing infrastructure, and assisting with external penetration testing.

• Azure
• Azure DevOps
• Node.JS
• Fastify
• Git
• NPM
• Yarn
• ESLint
• Prettier
• React
• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• HTML
• CSS
• Bicep
• YAML

Provided technical leadership, line management and mentoring to my team developing a web application for internal and external customers to facilitate event management and venue sourcing. Led the architecture, design and implementation of an 8 month long project to retire two existing products and replace them with a new product better suited to the current business needs. The project saw extensive changes and upgrades to over half of the entire HeadBox technical estate including the creation of 2 new back services and a new front end application. Introduced GraphQL schema stitching to replace the existing "REST over GraphQL" pattern of tightly coupled front and back ends. This represented a signifanct reduction in technical debt, a signifcant improvement in development speed and was done without any impact on product timelines.

• AWS
• Node.JS
• PostgreSQL
• Git
• NPM
• Yarn
• ESLint
• Prettier
• GraphQL
• Apollo GraphQL
• URQL
• GraphQL code generator
• React
• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• HTML
• CSS

Member of a small team building B2B event technology assisting internal and external customers with venue sourcing, event management and financing. Duties included building front end React components with AntD to designs and the extension of existing back end services. Worked with my team to integrate two systems with very different data schemas; completely rebuilt the most affected front end service with GraphQL code generator to make working with the complex data schemas easier and more stable. In January I was given the opportunity to grow into the team senior, I gradually took on more responsibilities within the team and the wider department. In May I received feedback from my team and management that I was the senior in all but name and was formally promoted in June.

• AWS
• Node.JS
• PostgreSQL
• Git
• NPM
• Yarn
• ESLint
• Prettier
• GraphQL
• Apollo GraphQL
• URQL
• GraphQL code generator
• React
• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• HTML
• CSS

Member of a number of teams working on a variety of different projects covering the last 3 years of JavaScript technologies including a legacy in house developed SSR and BFF platform, a Next.JS, Gastby.JS, and Material UI monorepo, a React Native Android app and a new REST API built using clean architecture. Being a much larger company than any of my previous employers WorldRemit has presented a number of new opportunities for me; assisting designers make their designs technically possible, interviewing for engineering managers to offer a potential employee perspective, pairing with Android developers to overcome problems caused by the interface between React Native and the underlying native Java, and working with the security team to manage a last minute upgrade of the bot protection SDK to the new partner without affecting the end user experience or Product’s timeline are just a selection.

• Node.JS
• Git
• NPM
• Yarn
• ESLint
• Prettier
• Gatsby
• React
• React Native
• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• HTML
• CSS

Unpaid learning sabbatical, the goal was to learn how to architect and build a full-stack software as a service product. Written entirely in JavaScript and hosted on AWS and Heroku, the scope of this project has afforded a significant amount of personal growth and experience. Initially a blank slate, the project started with researching which technologies to use; React and NodeJS were chosen for the front and back ends respectively because they share the same language, with GraphQL used for the API, all are free open source software and each have extensive ecosystems surrounding them. Over time changes have included moving from MongoDB to PostgreSQL to prevent the need for relational logic in the code, replacing AWS AppSync (GraphQL API as a service) with Apollo Server to gain greater control over the business logic and moving the core logic from AWS Lambdas to Heroku to remove the long wait for first use. Built around an advanced template system that allows the user to customise the shape of their data.

• AWS
• Heroku
• Node.JS
• PostgreSQL
• GraphQL
• Git
• NPM
• Apollo GraphQL
• React
• JavaScript
• HTML
• CSS

Working in a small team has afforded a wide number of opportunities, challenges and responsibilities. The largest project has been researching, designing and creating a Windows Installer XML bundle containing a number of first and third party MSIs from scratch. This included knowledge of the Windows install process, WIX syntax to create the bundle and MSI XML markup, C# custom actions to configure the system and the Microsoft Monitoring Agent, building a custom bootstrapper including a controller communicating with the burn engine and a multi-page GUI using WPF and MVVM, and integrating with a third party WCF API. Other projects have included a number of PowerShell scripts running both locally and in Azure using Azure Automation and small desktop applications.

• Azure
• SCCM
• .Net
• .Net WPF
• PowerShell
• C#

Providing highly technical support to a large customer base, each with unique and complex environments. Technologies most frequently utilised include Active Directory, IIS, PowerShell, SQL, SCSM and SCCM. While at Cireson I realised the potential for a dedicated application to make the primary product easier to use and assist customers in providing log files and other diagnostic information to the Support team. Following 6 months of teaching myself C# and WPF in my own time and 3000 lines of code this application was well received and the perfect springboard for my next adventure.

Responsible for managing and providing all first line and second line activities in a highly technically complex environment for a user base of between 130 and 170 (headcount increased as the project progressed). Responsibilities included all department PowerShell scripting, management of SCCM, deployment of SCSM, imaging for desktop deployments using WDS, providing assistance to infrastructure engineer with networking and server estate, hardware procurement and stock management.