Senior DevOps Engineer

• Mar 2023 - Present

DevOps Engineer

• Jan 2022 - Mar 2023

Member of the DevOps team working with various parts of the business helping to automate workloads and provide expertise in building IaC and pipelines.Azure PipelinesBicepGitHubAKSAzurePromoting DevOpsHelping move Python apps to the cloud and automate processes being ran on local machines.

Chief Technical Strategist

• May 2021 - Jan 2022

Part of IT Leadership Team alongside Head of Project Delivery & Head of Infrastructure and guiding architecture, standards and best practice and encouraging self-learning.Lead the Security Steering Group to help drive better security practices.Managing a new Tenant in Azure- Designing the Management Groups and Subscriptions to match the organisational team structures- Creating/Assigning Azure Policies- Deploying changes via IaC with Bicep/TerraformContinued workshops to help develop build up the skills in the teams Show less

Cloud Systems Engineer/Architect

• Nov 2020 - May 2021

Part of a system transformation project migrating solutions from legacy systems into more modern architectures and into a hybrid Cloud/On-Premises structure with potential to move to a fully cloud model and working as a consultant on Azure technologies and Architecture to help shape the future systems. Bringing a focus on cloud security and architecture best practices to make sure we are building secure solutions that are fit for purpose.Advocate for DevOps, Agile, Azure Best Practice, IaC (Infrastructure as Code) and self learningHelping improve knowledge by running Workshops on: - TDD - Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Terraform/Bicep - Integration Testing with Specflow/Playwright - Azure Pipelines - Azure Functions .NET Core 3.1 and .NET 5 - Azure API ManagementSecurity champion - Introduced Snyk to drive a dev first approach to securityMentoring developers building python apps and getting them running in the cloud.Trying out Go and Python languages in AzureAzure Virtual NetworkAzure Private LinkCI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps YAMLIaC with Terraform/ARM/BicepUse of Packer to build VM imagesDocker and Docker-composePowershell 7/Azure CLIGit source control (Azure DevOps/GitHub)Diagrams as CodeGraph QLPimCore Setup in AzureCustom Azure DevOps Build Agent Setup with Azure VM Scale sets Show less

Senior Software Engineer

• Jan 2020 - Nov 2020

Member of the Developer Experience and Site Reliability Team (SRE) working on improving the Cloud infrastructure creation, maintenance and security. Utilising build pipelines and IaC (Infrastructure as Code) using ARM/Ansible/Terraform deploying to Azure. Encouraging DevOps, Agile, Azure Best Practice, IaC and the use of containerisation with Docker. CI/CD pipelines using TeamCity and Octopus Deploy/Azure DevOps YAML Azure Web Apps/Functions Azure Table/Blob Storage Azure Virtual Networks Azure Virtual Machine Scalesets for Build agents Use of Packer to build VM images for build agents Azure Traffic Manager Powershell Core/Azure CLI Git source control (BitBucket/Azure DevOps) Visual Studio Professional 2019 Jira/Azure DevOps New Relic APM Show less

Senior Software Developer

• Apr 2018 - Jan 2020

Cloud platform development using Microsoft Azure, creating services to handle product and pricing information and quoting. Multiple systems require pricing information and there are a number of different solutions being used. The design of this set of services is to have one solution that every application uses. Created the design and architecture for the services using Microservice Architecture with Service Fabric and Azure Functions. This presented an interesting challenge as the infrastructure is maintained by a separate team in a different location. Trying to influence DevOps and Agile working practices alongside the Scrum Master to allow better ways of working. Encouraging the team to do more pair programming/mobbing and work towards becoming a cross functional, self-organising team. Applications and Infrastructure as code are all deployed using Azure DevOps (formally VSTS), once code has been approved then it is automatically rolled out into our Dev/Test environment and runs the Integration test suite. Member of the Cloud guild, aligning the vision of moving applications to the cloud and defining guidance for all development teams. Taking advantage of the latest C# features and .NET Core 2.x. Migration of Application to .NET Core 3.1 (December 2019) Azure Table/Blob Storage Azure Virtual Networks Azure ApplicationInsights ARM Templates Powershell Git source control Unit testing with xUnit/NUnit and NSubstitute Integration testing with BDD framework Specflow and Postman Collections Visual Studio 2017/2019 Enterprise with Resharper Running workshops on TDD, Specflow, Azure Functions and ARM templates Show less

Senior .Net Developer

• Oct 2016 - Apr 2018

Cloud platform development and architecture using Microsoft Azure, creating services to take requests from and push notification to thousands of devices. The devices utilise the Android OS but are not Google certified which provides an interesting challenge to the Notification platform. The platform takes advantage of Microservice Architecture in order to deploy parts of the infrastructure independently and decouple the system logic. There is also integration with the Broadworks Broadsoft Platform via OCI and XSI events and actions to retrieve events from the PBX e.g. Do Not Disturb, Call Park and Retrieve as well as requesting information from the PBX. Created the design and architecture for the notifications to accommodate the next device that would be Google certified, to take input from the Broadworks platform and send notifications via Azure Functions, Azure Notification Hub and Google Firebase. The deployment pipeline is managed by TeamCity and Octopus Deploy to easily manage the many parts of the server architecture which has a mixture of Windows Services, Service Fabric Services and Web Apps. Monitor production applications and react to issues as they occur in order to fix issues quickly. Encouraging the team to become a self organised DevOps team. C# 6/7 (Visual Studio 2015/2017 Professional with Resharper/DotCover) .NET Core 1.x and 2.x ASP.NET Core MVC/WebAPI Unit testing with xUnit/NUnit and NSubstitute/MOQ Log4net/Serilog with Application Insights and Raygun Integration testing with BDD framework Specflow Maintaining builds in TeamCity and deployments in Octopus Deploy Azure Service Fabric (Microservices) Azure Web Apps Azure Functions (Serverless/Nano-service Architecture) Azure Table/Blob Storage Azure Service Bus/Event Hub Azure ApplicationInsights Azure Notification Hub Azure Cosmos DB ARM Templates Powershell Agile - Scrum for teams with the SAFe Agile Framework Show less

Senior Software Developer

• Mar 2016 - Oct 2016

Development of application style websites for an OS style system that provides users with a social platform. WebAPI C# backend Angularjs 1.2+ frontend Typescript Gulp/Grunt C# 6 (Visual Studio 2015 Community with Resharper/DotCover) Dependency Injection (Autofac) Unit testing with xUnit and NSubstitute Jetbrains Webstorm for Angular Development Mongo DB (Document Database) Encouraging developers to use TDD and embrace testing as part of their code. Creating/Maintaining TeamCity 9.1.x continuous integration build server. Show less

Software Architect

• Mar 2015 - Mar 2016

This role was part of an architecture team designed to provide expertise from many rather than a single architect. I was able to start influencing a move to use distributed source control (Git), improve the BDD testing and looking at a more SaaS architecture where possible. Also looking at DevOps and seeing how we could benefit from this.Most of my time in this role was design and implementing RESTful services to create simple API's to allow easy interaction between parts of the system and lightweight Angularjs 1.x clients for users. Show less

Senior Software Developer

• May 2012 - Mar 2015

Working on Bespoke software for Exxon Mobil, adding new features and maintaining the Loyalty Platform. This involved working with code written in a variety of languages and frameworks. Some of the legacy applications were in C and classic ASP.The most noted projects I worked on were:• Tesco – Integrating the Loyalty Platform with Tesco Clubcard, making it possible for Esso petrol stations to give customers clubcard points when they buy fuel. This project involved liaising with Exxon and Tesco including developers in India. Whilst the project was worked on by a team in the beginning, by the end I was the sole developer and oversaw the release to production and supported the initial pilot roll out. All the code was written in C# and using Dapper micro ORM for the database interaction.• Hardware Refresh – Upgrading the Loyalty Platform hardware and software solutions. Moving from Windows 2003 server to Windows 2012, SQL Server 2000/2008 to SQL Server 2012. This included upgrading a classic ASP management website to ASP.NET MVC 4/5. The website was a layer over the database to allow our customer (Exxon) to self-manage the configuration of the Loyalty Platform.I also maintained a number of applications used by the development team:• SVN (Subversion) source control server, updating to the latest SVN and patching the server• Atlassian Crucible – Code Review Server• Jetbrains TeamCity – CI/CD server• Media Wiki – Wiki server to host the development documentationThe rest of this role was mentoring developers in use of the technologies and frameworks used in the platform and encourage working with Agile (Scrum, Kanban), TDD and BDD, becoming self-organising teams and using code sharing via package feeds e.g. NPM, Nuget (even setup in-house nuget packages via TeamCity nuget feed).I was also able to continue working with UI design for some of the websites with Balsamiq Mock Ups and promoting the need for good UX. Show less

Senior Software Developer

• Sep 2007 - May 2012

Senior software developer in R&D environment, providing well designed software solutions for the Public Safety market with an innovative and motivated team. MirraIV Team Integration of ETAI trunk recording into the call recording platform and providing a web based UI to configure the call recorder for a variety of inputs, Analogue, Digital and Trunk. All development for the call recorder in C++ linux platform. Web UI developed using HTML, CSS, Javascript, XML. Custom javascript libraries as JQuery was not approved to use. Nice Inform Team Adding additional features to the flag ship product that provides audio/video playback and incident management for Public Safety systems (Emergency Services, e.g. 911) Development in C#. Other responsibilities include: The role of Usability Authority (UX) and have a good eye for detail and design. Created/Maintained Application Style Guides and created application graphics and icons using Adobe Photoshop CS 5 Build Controller role, creating/maintaining builds in Final Builder 6/7 Creating installers using the WiX Install Framework (v3.5) Show less

Software Engineer

• May 2005 - Sep 2007

Development and maintenance of a rules engine designed for ERP systems to provide a codeless environment which can create applications or web applications connected to a database (SQL Server, Oracle, etc.). Desktop client application written in Java 2 v1.5, Swing, using Eclipse IDE for Windows 2000/XP platform. This included development of an expression engine to create complex rules and dials, gauges and chart controls to use for reporting. Introduced coding standards for C++ and Java. Introduced build numbering and automated build process. Introduced using an installer to distribute the software. Introduced source code control. (Code co-op) Show less

Software Engineer

• Jul 2003 - May 2005

Development of near Real time Air Traffic control simulation software for Air Traffic Controller training. Written in C++ with STL libraries on windows XP/2000/NT systems. Borland C++ Builder v3/v5 IDE. Projects: • 3D Tower - Development of an API to allow system to use 3D Image Generators to provide a 3D Air Traffic Tower simulation for enhanced ATC training. This used a system from Evans & Sutherland which provided the hardware and software to show the 3D models, the challenge was then to provide the information from the 2D simulator to project onto the 3D landscape. Show less

Software Engineer

• Sep 1999 - Jul 2003

Development and maintenance of near Real time Air Traffic control simulation software for Air Traffic Controller training. Written in C++ with Rougewave and STL libraries and X-Motif on Solaris platform. Project planning and risk assessment and testing of the platform. Projects: • Development of client-server solution to provide additional simulated information e.g. weather data, using Java v1.1 and utilising technologies RMI (Remote Method Invocation), JNI (Java Native Interface), HTML, CSS and Javascript. • Adding the ability to simulate Holding Patterns in the simulator, this involved understanding the patterns as well as implementing them. • Adding the ability to show Tanking, this is for military simulation, to show a Fuel Tanker on a radar display and then allow up to x air craft to be shown as refuelling on the display. This involved lots of discussion about how the UI would display this. Show less