Chessington, England, United Kingdom
I have worked in IT since 1978 in consulting and software engineering roles. I have worked at clients in the finance, retail banking, insurance, publishing, retail, aviation, smart metering, government, gaming, insurance, and recruitment sectors, which has given me a wide breadth and depth of experience. I am now looking for another opportunity - either contract or permanent. Before my last permanent position (15.5 years at Estafet), I was a contractor for nearly 18 years. I am a proactive person with a focus on quality and helping clients such as Elsevier, The Student Loans Company, Arqiva Worldpay, British Airports Authority and Michael Page International successfully deliver their projects/programmes. My top five skills are: Java, Spring Boot, REST, TDD and BDD
I was working to get certified as a Red Hat Certified OpenShift Administrator (EX280 exam).
I worked on-site at Estafet's clients in the payments, banking, publishing, retail, aviation, smart metering, government, and recruitment sectors. When I was on the bench, I worked remotely, on Estafet's internal projects. I had a variety of roles at customers' sites: Consultant, Architect, Development Team Lead, Senior Developer, Build Manager, Production Support Team Lead, and Mentor. Key Achievements At Elsevier (January 2020 - May 2023), I defined the solution architecture for the project. I then wrote all the documents necessary for the project to pass Elsevier’s internal technical review process, and thus get project funding. My contribution was acknowledged as being a key part of getting the project funded. I then implemented some key components and was recognised for helping the project go live. At the Student Loans Company (December 2019 - January 2020), in five days on site, I solved a complex issue between AWS Cognito and Apache Web Server, allowing the project (that had been blocked for months) to go live. At Arqiva (September 2016 - January 2019), I diagnosed many complex issues and ensured that they were resolved within the SLA. I led the support team and I implemented “go/no go” systems integration tests, which shortened delivery times and improved reliability. At Worldpay (November 2016 - August 2019), I was promoted to Build Manager and devised build and release processes that shortened the time to deliver releases, and increased reliability and projects’ velocity. At the British Airports Authority (January 2012 – June 2012), I diagnosed and fixed WebLogic/JMS issues, and automated their delivery environments, ensuring the project went live on time and to budget. The client recognised my contributions as being crucial the project’s success. At Michael Page International (April 2010 – December 2011), I led a team of ten people that delivered (from scratch) a very complex system for managing temporary bookings.
I worked with the Estafet DevOps practice on an internal project to create a suite of productivity software that was and was intended to show how the rapid delivery of high quality microservices-based systems can be realised by using containers, namespaces and a DevOps approach. The product was designed and built to a microservices architecture, and was focussed on enabling customers to realise the benefits of adopting Red Hat OpenShift as a platform. It covered all aspects of the software delivery lifecycle: requirements, design, development, continuous integration and delivery. The product was successfully demonstrated to Estafet management and Red Hat.
I was an Estafet Senior Consultant, placed at Elsevier as a senior developer. As at April 2023, the project I worked on had enabled Elsevier to allow its users to analyse more than 30 million patents from 105 patent offices around the world, with new patents becoming available to customers shortly after being published. This was a huge achievement by everyone involved, and is the most rewarding project I have worked on. Following on from my Squad Lead assignment (January 2020 to May 2020), I implemented some key project components in Spring Boot and Java, helping phase 1 of the project to go live in autumn 2020. In January 2021, I realised that, as implemented, the NiFi orchestration layer would not support future project phases. As a result, Elsevier engaged a NiFi consultancy, which greatly improved the orchestration layer and made it much more robust, efficient, extensible and reusable. The new orchestration layer was used by other Elsevier projects, reducing development and maintenance costs. In January 2022, I was assigned to another Elsevier project to provide expertise in Elsevier standards and components, and to implement services in Spring Boot and Java.
I was placed by Estafet as a Squad Lead in Elsevier's Life Sciences division, initially for three months. As the Squad Lead, I was played a key part in getting the client's project off the ground, reporting to the project manager. I defined the solution architecture for the project, and held face-to-face workshops with teams in London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam to refine it and make sure that all the teams were on the same page. I made a key contribution to getting the project through Elsevier's internal approval process, without which the project would not have been funded. This was four months of hard work, and the project was approved in late May 2020. Elsevier's project management recognised that I had been essential to getting the project approved. It had always been Elsevier's intention to recruit an FTE as the Squad Lead, so I ensured a smooth handover to the new Squad Lead in May 2020. I was then retained by Elsevier as a senior developer.
I was placed at the Student Loans Company (SLC) on behalf of Red Hat, through Estafet's relationship with Red Hat. SLC had had a complex issue for several months that was blocking their project from going live. They had consulted with AWS professional services to no avail. In five days on site, I diagnosed that the issue was between SLC's Apache Web Server and AWS Cognito, and had multiple underlying causes. I then worked out a fix that was applied to their Apache Web Server, allowing the project to go live shortly afterwards.