A determined and ambitious junior Software Developer with a strong desire to learn.
I strive for quality and craftsmanship in everything I do and am looking for an opportunity to further my knowledge whilst contributing to real-world projects and problem solving.
After working in Retail Logistics for five years, I decided to move into Technology. I taught myself what was needed to get a job in Application Support at Gorkana, and was quickly promoted to Senior Engineer and then Team Lead within two years. During this time I was learning to program Ruby and PHP at home, and wrote some PHP and Perl at work. I realised programming was what I wanted to do, so applied to Makers Academy to accelerate my learning. I am now looking to join a company who will foster my first steps as a junior developer and give me the opportunity and support to develop my craft.
| | Self-led and Educational Exposure | Professional Exposure|
|--------|---------------------|----------------------|--------|
| Programming | Ruby and Javascript | PHP, Perl, HTML, CSS and shell scripts |
| Operating Systems | OS X and Heroku | Windows Server and Linux (Ubuntu) on a VMware vSphere estate |
| Frameworks | Sinatra, Rails, Foundation, Node.js and AngularJS | Support of .NET and Java apps |
| Databases | PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Active Record and DataMapper | Support and querying Oracle, Microsoft SQL and MySQL |
| Other | RSpec, Capybara, Factory Girl, Cucumber, Poltergeist, Selenium, Jasmine, Mocha, Protractor, Git, GitHub, Travis CI, Hound CI and Coveralls | Supporting workflows using RabbitMQ. Text search Software. Bulk email sending. |
While working at Gorkana I found new ways to solve the problems we were repeatedly encountering in my department.
For example, I realised that my team was repeatedly writing similar SQL reports for the Customer Services department. I created a web app in PHP to allow Customer Services to run the reports themselves. It taught me that there are many opportunities to improve business productivity with software if you can understand the business's needs.
At Makers Academy I was exposed to good coding principles which has improved my ability to write good, test-driven clean code. I understand that I have a lot to learn and although I can spot a code smell I may not at this moment have the skills to clear it up as well as I would like. I aspire to write code that is elegant, well crafted, I am proud of and enjoy returning to.
StieglitzGram is a clone of Instagram created in Rails using BDD.
I am particularly proud of ... I learned... what else can you say that is interesting?
It is written using Rails, Foundation and PostgreSQL. It is tested using RSpec, Capybara, Factory Girl and Poltergeist to help test the JavaScript
using blah for feature testing / bdd and blah for whatever
Gorkana Group
Market Leader in Global Media Intelligence
Application Support Team Lead (Jan 2015 to Jul 2015)
Leading and coaching application support team
Worked closely with business and development department
Involved in software release process
Senior Application Support Engineer (Jul 2014 to Jan 2015)
Deal with escalated support issues
Documentation
Project work: SQL stored procedures, Perl scripts, PHP pages
Application Support Engineer (Jul 2013 to Jul 2014)
Second line support IT service desk
SQL scripting and database support
Web application support
Cass Art
Independent Art Supply Retailer
Logistics Manager (Nov 2010 to Jul 2013)
Worked in Head office for Cass Art while they were a startup
Responsible for the delivery of stock from between sites and from suppliers
Provided IT support for tills and office PCs
Responsible for facilities and health and safety
Stockroom Manager (Nov 2007 to Nov 2010)
Music and Video Exchange
Retail Assistant and Computer Game Buyer (Aug 2004 to Nov 2007)