Experience
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Cloudcall Ltd
Senior / Lead Engineer
2 years 2 months
Brought in to help re-build replace a legacy PHP based system that was self-hosted. Built a new platform using AWS services on top of a provider platform, designed using micro-service architecture, with a NextJs UI application to deliver an internal tool allowing configuration management of a complex set of systems and product offerings.
Projects
Re-platforming from legacy on-site to cloud-based
Overall this took different guises at different stages, but largely leaned into building using AWS services and a distributed event-driven architecture, leveraging SNS & SQS. It connected to multiple underlying service-providers and services and had to have good integration testing and design.
Micro-frontend builds
This was to facilitate component re-use between disparate systems with commonality, it used Typescript, React, GraphQL, connecting to a set of lambdas that formed a mirco-service backed architecture.
Tech
- Typescript
- React
- Javascript
- GraphQL
- NextJs
- AWS (AppSync
- SNS
- SQS
- Lambda
- IAM
- Cloudfront
- Route53
- S3
- API Gateway)
- Jest
- Cypress
- Node/NPM
- GitLab
- Github
- PHP
- PgSQL
News UK
Lead Engineer (contract)
1 year
Led development for the Commercial Engineering team, we overhauled/replaced the existing Admanager integration, achieving a 3-fold increase in ad-revenue on https://www.thesun.co.uk/
Helped the core Sun and Times teams do performance optimizations.
Setup the pipeline build for the Commercial Engineering team, using CircleCI(with npm / bash commands) to bring it in line with the wider NewsUK platform usage.
Projects
Replace existing Admanager/Prebid integration
This forms the mechanism by which The Sun (and later all NewsUK sites), have their ads delivered/displayed, so is absolutely crucial as it forms a major part of their revenue strategy.
Deployment pipeline
As we worked on a new system, it made sense to replace the existing (difficult and multi-step) process with one that was easy, reliable and consistent.
Sun & Times Performance improvements
Due to personal interest as well as experience in this domain, I was able to help the core web teams review, plan and enact a number of improvements.
Tech
- Typescript
- React
- Javascript
- Prebid
- Wordpress
- CirceCI
- Jest
- Cypress
- Node/NPM
- AWS
- Github
Telegraph Media Group
Senior Engineer
3 years 3 months
As a Senior Engineer at the Telegraph I played a leading role in cleaning up the implementation of their templates and renderers used. This has the long term aim of simplifying and improving: development, maintenance, testing and performance. This meant understanding the entire breadth of the offering of the Telegraph, its 45 different page types and their implementation details.
Projects
Rebuilding lists
lists form more than 60 % of the telegraph website.The first step constituted replacing 6500 topic pages
Front - end build process
Improving build and iteration time for front - end development on the AEM platform
CSS and JS linting for TMG
To help consistency of development approach and standards
Adding user - commenting
Integration with 3rd Party commenting system Livefyre
MyTelegraph
Allowing registered users to follow Journalists and Topics
Performance improvements
Part of a small set of people who drastically improved the performance of the Telegraph, taking Speed Index from 12s(5mb / 1mb 20ms latency) to 4s.That improvement was achieved incrementally on an old codebase, with the new implementation of templates, brought SI down to less than 2 seconds, see: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/) the overall performance measure was changed to leverage lighthouse reports.
Apple News Integration
Allowing telegraph news(open and premium) to be read on AppleNews
Launching Travel vertical
Bring the Travel section's 3rd party parts onto the telegraph.co.uk domain
Tech
- AEM / CQ
- Git
- Javascript
- HTML
- CSS
- SASS
- BASH
- Jest
- Node / NPM
- Akamai
- React
- Mocha
- BackstopJS
- Java
- Jenkins
- Apache
- AWS
- curl
IG Group
Developer
3 years 7 months
At IG I introduced the entire web-team to testing and ran lessons/sessions on both testing and javascript itself.
Projects
Building IG.com
Consolidating IG’s multiple websites (12 – one per country) down to just ig.com. This involved moving from a custom internal CMS to Adobe’s CQ CMS (now AEM). It posed a number of design and SEO challenges that had to be solved as well.
Improving the deployment process
The objective was to move from a 4-week release cycle down to 2 weeks, which involved introducing unit tests and functional testing as well as a script to run for the deploy process itself. I introduced and trained the team in writing and using unit and functional tests.
Making IG.com responsive
In order to comply with Google’s ‘mobile-friendly’ directives we established a number of best practices for the content teams to follow and tweaked components to make them work across as many devices as possible.
Stronger Encryption
In order to address a potential https exploit on an Akamai Edge server we had to work with several teams to implement a version of the password reset functionality that added another layer of encryption to the password being submitted. This work was also designed to follow the principals of graceful degradation and progressive enhancement.
Tech
- Javascript
- HTML
- CSS
- LESS
- Jasmine
- jQuery
- ExtJS
- Mocha
- Chai
- Sinon
- CasperJS
- Grunt
- Karma
- CQ
- Java
- SVN
- Maven
- Bamboo
- Jenkins
- JSP
- Apache
- Node
- curl
First*Clarity
Developer
1 year 6 months
I started as a UI developer working on a custom CMS for European Directories, using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I gained skills in SVN, command line, Java, Maven, Jenkins, and front-end testing. I also did wire-framing, documentation, and performance testing. Eventually, I became a team lead, co-leading a team of 20 front-end developers and conducting educational sessions on problem-solving principles
Projects
Fonecta & Degulesider
Yellow pages for Europe. I led a team building a site generator toolset. Worked on-site at client locations, including in different countries
Tech
- Javascript
- HTML
- CSS
- Jasmine
- jQuery
- Drupal
- Magento
- Selenium
- Java
- SVN
- Maven
- Jenkins
- JSP
- Apache
- CMS
- CRM
Collective Colour
Developer
1 year 7 months
Brought in to extend the service offerings provided by Collective. I took the lead on a variety of technical endeavours that were already undertaken by Collective, such as: a Web-to-Print Management System and Photobook-Software (built by a 3rd party which Collective created and administered products).
As the only developer there I was responsible for the setup of my working environment and the estimation of all quotes on any tenders or bids involving development work. I was also responsible for all interaction with clients regarding the development of their site including doing things like needs analysis and requirements scoping.
Netizen Digital
Developer
1 year 7 months
Gained exposure to the entire project life cycle. I gained many invaluable skills and frequently sort to learn from the highly experienced senior developers.
Tech
- HTML
- CSS
- Javascript
- JQuery
- C#
- PHP
- SQL
- XML
- XSLT
Freelance Web Developer
Developer
2 years
Built sites for local golf clubs, features included a news board and a diary, maintained by office staff who had little or no experience of maintaining a site. Designed to allow them to easily post news and update the schedule. Sites received praise from members and visitors. For one club site visits increased from 15 to 150 a day.
Tech
- HTML
- CSS
- Javascript
- JQuery
- C#
- PHP
- SQL
- XML
- XSLT
- CMS
- Joomla
- Word
- Excel
Netergy
Junior developer
3 months
Introduced to IDEs such as Adobe Go-live and also graphics programs such as Photoshop. First exposure to PHP and web development.
Tech
- HTML
- CSS
- Word
- Excel