Senior Backend Developer

• Feb 2023 - Present

VP of Engineering

• Jan 2021 - Jan 2023

As the first VP of Engineering at CluedIn I oversaw the development of the company from approximately four development contractors to a growing engineering team of 15+ developers with a focus on consistent delivery.This included:- Job specification and hiring.- Introduction of a dedicated QA team delivering automated testing alongside regression and performance tests.- Introduction of a dedicated operations team managing builds and automated procedures.- Implementation of development tools to support local development for internal and external developers.- Introduction of Azure Devops to normalize issue management and tracking across multiple repositories.- Raising development quality and communication through improved sprint management and promoting developer autonomy and responsibility.- A focus on improving cross-team processes through PowerAutomate/Logic-Apps and data based reports.- Enablement of a consistent delivery pipeline for a Kubernetes managed application composed from multiple repositories.- Purchasing and management of software licenses.- Consistent cross-business communication through advocation of engineering squads and goals.- Development and support for Azure marketplace managed applications including design and development of a custom billing service to support a flexible pricing model.- Promotion of knowledge sharing and training opportunities for all teams.- Extensive liaison with the VP Finance and commercial teams to drive revenue, seeking technical solutions to unblock potential opportunities - Worked closely with the VP People and team to ensure my remote teams were rewarded and remained engaged Show less

Technical Consultant

• Feb 2020 - Jan 2021

Lead Developer / Team Lead

• May 2013 - Jan 2020

Directly supporting a team of five local and two remote developers/QAs. Managing backlogs, sprint planning, stand-ups, retrospectives, code-reviews and general team planning procedures using Kanban, Scrum and SAFe. Additionally, acting as a knowledge authority for remote teams and the business on best practices with .Net Core, PowerShell, Nuget, and semantic versioning. The team spearheaded changes in the core platform, promoting removal of binary dependencies, breaking down monoliths, and decoupling features into independent services that focus on being cross-platform, cloud, and container ready. Sitecore Framework Built on .Net Core, the project introduced a significant departure to the core product, enabling new best practice approaches using SOLID principles, IOC/DI, TDD and semantic versioning. The framework libraries are now used for core logic in all Sitecore Products. Sitecore Install Framework A flexible PowerShell/JSON based framework to support installation and configuration of Sitecore Instances. Highly focused on customisation and automation to enable deployment of Sitecore on local or remote machines. This was the first public PowerShell module produced by the company, paving the way for PowerShell code styles, documentation, and build best practices. It is now used as a cornerstone for internal and external developers to achieve consistent deployments in devops pipelines. Sitecore Host A low ceremony, plugin driven service chassis that provides configuration, logging, and service composition out of the box. Supports invocation as a CLI or windows service. Plugins provide custom commands, services or web servers. Plugins enable internal and external developers to extend any host driven service in a consistent manner. Plugin development is supported through an MSBuild SDK package, enabling automatic generation of plugin assets, packaging, and distribution simply by adding a Nuget reference. Show less

Android Development Lead

• Oct 2012 - Oct 2013

Designed and created an enhanced version of the Invadr for IAS application specifically for the identification and submission of sightings of the Ash tree Dieback fungus. The project was well received by users and the media. The project is being led by the University of East Anglia's Adapt Group, and has the support of most key forestry and wildlife agencies. More info at http://www.ashtag.org. The app is available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.iasess.ashtag Show less

Web Developer

• Mar 2009 - Apr 2013

Developing enterprise CMS solutions on the Sitecore platform. In the course of working at Eduserv I progressed from a core developer on the DfE site to the Technical Lead role. In this role I helped reshape the project into a more iterative/agile 6 weekly cycle aiming to deliver continuous new features and enhancements for both internal and external users. Developing enterprise CMS solutions on the Sitecore platform. In the course of working at Eduserv I progressed from a core developer on the DfE site to the Technical Lead role. In this role I helped reshape the project into a more iterative/agile 6 weekly cycle aiming to deliver continuous new features and enhancements for both internal and external users.

Application Developer

• Mar 2007 - Feb 2009

My role saw me involved with a variety of internal and external systems for ALD. This included the upkeep and advancement of web applications and back-end data stores involving development in C#/ASP.NET and PL/SQL for Oracle. I also took on the role of Lead Developer for a variety of smaller projects, such as: Developing automated out of hour’s solutions (Bash/Python scripts running on a Solaris environment). Developing web services. Re-design/Maintenance of XSL documents. Oracle database cloning. Bug fixing current and legacy applications. Development and design of new applications. Show less