James Benson

Senior Software Engineer | Sainsbury's Tech

Greater London, England, United Kingdom

About

Software engineer with 9+ years experience in the retail industry. Skilled in Java, Kotlin, SpringBoot, Python, and AWS. Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from University of Hertfordshire.

Experience

  • Sainsbury's (Full-time · 7 yrs 5 mos)
    • Senior Software Engineer
      Aug 2020 - Present · 5 yrs 11 mos

    • Software Engineer
      Feb 2019 - Aug 2020 · 1 yr 7 mos

      Working on the Argos brand with Sainsbury's. Currently on the same project as below.

  • Argos (London Area, United Kingdom)
    • Software Development Engineer
      Feb 2018 - Feb 2019 · 1 yr 1 mo

      Working on in-store technology, namely Pay@Browse. Payment enabled devices enabling customers to search, browse, and buy products from Argos stores. Core technologies I use are: Java/Kotlin (SpringBoot), Python, and AWS (IoT, CloudWatch, Lambda and serverless applications). Other duties involve keeping all 7000+ devices happy and operational.

    • Graduate Software Engineer
      Sep 2016 - Jan 2018 · 1 yr 5 mos

      Two rotations in two teams, checkout and in-store technology. The latter is where I stayed after the graduate scheme. Checkout was working on the legacy WCS application which Argos was migrating away from at the time. Needless to say, I enjoyed my next rotation more. I joined the in-store team at the time we were setting out to replace all the Kiosks in the Argos estate. I had a key role at the time to build a service to manage all 2000 of them. Three of us built the tool which was still vital to the project 3 years later.

  • Junior Developer at Core Data Systems
    May 2013 - Sep 2013 · 5 mos

    At Core Data Systems I supported the maintenance of clients’ websites and I worked closely with another developer. Being aware of, and logging, time spent on each task was essential within this job role so clients could be billed accurately. One large project I was involved in was the redevelopment of the company’s intranet to store clients’ details as well as information about each job and invoicing the clients. Another was a travel page on a client’s site using the Transport for London API’s for train times for specified stations, also using Google Maps API’s to show a map of the traffic in the local area.

  • Team Member at Odeon & UCI Cinemas
    Sep 2010 - Sep 2013 · 3 yrs 1 mo

    At ODEON I was on the front line for communicating to guests on a daily basis, providing information as well as finding solutions to any complaints. Team working and organisational skills were also vital to communicate with other staff, especially at busy times. I have also been welcomed back during the summer holidays while I am at university.

  • Trainee Web Developer at Carewizard
    Jan 2013 - Mar 2013 · 3 mos

    I had a short term contract with Care Wizard Ltd where my role as a Trainee Web Developer was to assist the senior developer with the design and development of the website. I was given my own tasks to complete within tight timescales including maintenance applications to update the database on a regular basis from an external source with error reporting, development of the user administration web forms as well as front end development on the main site. I was also given responsibility of publishing and updating the website on the live server.