Principal Engineer

• Oct 2022 - Present

Senior Software Engineer

• Jan 2021 - Sep 2022

SPAN is a digital innovation firm that strategizes, designs and develops digital products for clients ranging from small startups to large global brands. SPAN works across industries, devices and borders helping businesses to deliver powerful capabilities embedded in compelling, delightful experiences.

Technical Lead

• Jul 2020 - Dec 2020

I headed a small technology team responsible for producing and maintaining urban mobility software. The technology landscape, while being predominantly PHP, also included a few of Android, Java and Python projects. I inherited three projects with looming deadlines, which resulted in most of my time being spent with hands in the code. I was also able to institute a few process changes, such as implementing sprints/planning/retrospective, migrating the team from Trello to Jira and embedding Jira Service Desk for client support/communication. These were really only made possible due to invaluable support from my lead developer. I was also actively responsible for migrating the production/staging infrastructure from Google Cloud Platform to Amazon Web Services. Of the three projects I was working on, the most notable one involved developing an Android SDK to track participating commuters' movements through the public transport system. I also developed the analysis engine which was able to detect distinct trips from a collection of GPS coordinates.

Hiatus

• Apr 2020 - Jun 2020

I took some unscheduled time off to augment my skills by completing a number of online courses and certifications. Udemy Courses - React - The Complete Guide (incl Hooks, React Router, Redux) - React Native - The Practical Guide [2020 Edition] A Cloud Guru Passed - Amazon Web Services SysOps Administrator - Associate (Passed) - Amazon Web Services DevOps Engineer - Professional (Preparation Only) Cloud Academy - Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Exam (Preparation Only) CTO Academy - Management Skills Courses

Software Architect

• Nov 2018 - Mar 2020

In this role I worked closely with the professional services team to provide support and implement customisations on multiple systems that were acquired by the parent company. Beckon - https://www.beckon.com This is a marketing analytics tool that ingests data from multiple sources, and transforms them into an internal normalised format, allowing the user to perform queries over all their advertising platforms. Technologies - Tapestry - Hibernate - PostgreSQL - AWS EC2 - AWS SQS - AWS S3 - AWS CloudWatch - Docker - Apache Lucene - AngularJS Unify/OnBrand - https://wiki.onbrandcloud.com/index.php/Unify OnBrand is a DAM (Digital Asset Managment) application built on top of Unify, an EMCS developed in Java. Technologies - Unify -- Java -- Spring -- Hibernate -- Apache Solr - OnBrand -- AngularJS -- Javacript -- CSS -- HTML -- JSP -- XSL -- Selenium -- Cucumber

Software Engineer

• Feb 2016 - Sep 2018

Fancam produced giga-pixel panoramas of the fans attending sporting. They achieved this by stitching together hundreds of individual high-res photos shot using an automated camera rig. The first project was to take the fairly manual process, that was performed on premise in Cape Town, and migrate it to AWS. The end result was that we were able to bring the process down from 24 hours to 50min. The second project was to extract demographic information from the images and make it available via an API which would drive a customer dashboard. The third project was probably the most fun and challenging. The idea was to be able to isolate a person sitting at a specific zone, row, and seat number. The value to the client, a sports venue, was that they were able to identify whether season ticket holders were actually attending events, and use that to predict attrition rates. Through all these projects I tried to make as much use of Serverless technology as was suitable for the problem at hand.

Senior Software Engineer

• Jun 2015 - Feb 2016

During my time with the Android Development Team I was tasked with: - Implementing mobile application Metrics using StatsD - Improving the build process - Implementing the automated acceptance tests - Implementing business features During my time with the Android Development Team I was tasked with: - Implementing mobile application Metrics using StatsD - Improving the build process - Implementing the automated acceptance tests - Implementing business features

Software Developer

• May 2013 - Jan 2015

I was responsible for re-implementing the Integrated Pollution and Waste Information System (iPWIS) for the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP), Western Cape Government. The system was responsible for the registration of organisations involved in the generation, treatment, recycling and disposal of hazardous waste. The previous system was built on outdated technology that was no longer supported. Due to a waterfall development methodology, the legacy system had taken 5 years to develop, and failed to meet the business needs of the department. Using modern technology and best practices, I was able to streamline the human process within the department and re-implement the system in 12 months. We also achieved greater compliance from all stack holders.

Software Developer

• Mar 2012 - Apr 2013

Responsibilities: - Networking and infrastructure maintenance - System design/architecture - Technical Operations - Development - Mentoring New Technologies - Installed and configured a private instance of WSO2 Stratos - Eclipse RCP/SWT/SWTBot - Esper CEP Engine Responsibilities: - Networking and infrastructure maintenance - System design/architecture - Technical Operations - Development - Mentoring New Technologies - Installed and configured a private instance of WSO2 Stratos - Eclipse RCP/SWT/SWTBot - Esper CEP Engine

Java Developer

• Sep 2010 - Feb 2012

I was part of a team that was developing an Import Control System for Luxembourg's Administration of Customs and Excise. My primary roles were deployment and system integration. Deployment - scripting WebLogic domain creation and migration using WLST - scripting WebLogic application server and Oracle database server installation - scripting Solaris 10 installation using Shell and JumpStart System integration - integration testing using soapUI - debugging Oracle Service Bus configuration Secondary roles included mentorship and system support.

Java Developer

• Jan 2010 - Sep 2010

In this position I worked outside of team with the main focus of developing an in-house system test harness. I also spent a large amount of time setting up the continuous integration environment using Subversion, Maven, Hudson/Jenkins, Nexus, Sonar. In this position I worked outside of team with the main focus of developing an in-house system test harness. I also spent a large amount of time setting up the continuous integration environment using Subversion, Maven, Hudson/Jenkins, Nexus, Sonar.

Software Engineer

• Jun 2009 - Dec 2009

I was part of team that was tasked with converting a legacy system that was using JDO/Versant FastObjects for persistence to use Hibernate/PostreSQL. The first phase of the project was two fold, convert the code to use the new persistence mechanism, and to migrate the legacy data. Another non-functional requirement of the project was that there should be no perceived decrease in performance of the system. The data migration process needed to complete in a single weekend, using the initial process the largest database took close on five days to complete. It was also prone to memory leaks, and thus needed to be restarted constantly. I took on a sub project to multi-thread the data migration process and spread the load across multiple nodes, as well as identifying and fixing all the memory leaks. Technologies involved JBoss, Hibernate, PostreSQL, FastObjects, JVisualVM, JHat

Junior Java Developer

• Apr 2007 - May 2009

Investigate and fix bugs, monitor external and internal integrations as well as server health, complete requests for specialized reports and data fixes. Investigate and fix bugs, monitor external and internal integrations as well as server health, complete requests for specialized reports and data fixes.