I'm a senior software engineer with over 6 years experience and currently work at Stora. Prior to working with Stora, I was a senior software engineer in the Front End Architecture team at FreeAgent and before that I was Head of Development at a digital agency called Primate.
I've used my technical and problem solving skills not only to deliver complex web applications but also make improvements to web performance and build pipelines. Excellent communication skills have enabled me to work closely with sales, marketing and engineering teams.
I started my software engineering journey in 1998, studying for a degree in Computer and Management Science but, after finishing with a 2:1 Honours Degree, I had an opportunity to work with an exciting new medical device technology. I re-trained and ran my own clinic for 11 years and combined that with research work on a hand held medical device for improving spinal biomechanics.
I sold the clinic in February 2015 but had been getting the bug for programming again one year prior to this. I knew this was the direction I wanted to take my career and enrolled in a bootcamp specialising in Ruby and Ruby on Rails before finding freelance work and it's been upwards from there!
Career
Nov 2021 - Present
Senior Software Engineer for Stora
More to follow soon!
Apr 2021 - Nov 2021
Senior Software Engineer for FreeAgent
Part of a small group of engineers setting up a new Front End Architecture team at FreeAgent. Our initial responsibility is to gradually port legacy JavaScript to a single, modern build pipeline. Our long term aim is to implement systems that improve the lives of the engineering teams working on the FreeAgent front-end, making adding and maintaining features a breeze. These responsibilities will range from enabling teams to easily maintain npm package versions, keeping the build pipeline fast, ease of using reusable code patterns and much, much more.
Apr 2019 - Mar 2021
Software Engineer for FreeAgent
Joined the Marketing Platform team which has responsibility for the FreeAgent marketing site as well as supporting multiple teams throughout the business. During my time, I helped setup the PageSpeed Insights API in our Data Warehouse to track the performance effects of changes in our code base. I added Perfume.js to the website which pushed Core Web Vitals measurements to our GA account for better oversight of Real User Metrics. I made significant improvements in deploy times and helped lead the project to move the static website from our self hosted infrastructure over to Netlify. This infrastructure enabled engineers to work closely with the Sales team to deliver personalised learning experiences for our accountancy practices and significantly increase engagement.
Aug 2018
Head of Development for Primate
In addition to the development work from my previous roles within the company, I worked with the Technical Director assisting other developers. On top of this, I started building internal projects to expand the scope and budget of work we could take on. Sites with my involvement on backend and server work: Book Week Scotland,Light Up A Memory,Gordonstoun.
Having worked as a freelancer, I was taken on full time primarily as a Rails developer but also had the chance to work on front end and Wordpress. Click on the following projects to find out more about my involvement: Cruise Loch Ness,Craneware Careers,Float Blog,Student Accommodation UHI.
Oct 2015
Freelance Work for Primate
Worked with Primate using LocomotiveCMS for Rails and worked with their designer and developers to create new pages built from design specs.
Aug 2015
Freelance Work for Katana Code
Worked with Katana Code on a Rails project for one of their clients. This involved creating a website to allow customers to log in securely to gain access to their information, view future events and make bookings.
Jul 2015
Tealeaf Academy Front End Foundations Course
My final project was a Todo application using my own MVC framework and utility library: Todo MVC
May 2015
Tealeaf Academy
Finished the course and built my first production Rails application to create a web application for managing a babysitting circle, Time Off Tokens. We also built a simple Reddit clone as our first Rails project and Netflix clone as the second project.
Dec 2014
Tealeaf Academy
Began work on this Ruby on Rails course. The initial part focused on learning Ruby and we built a simple web application using Sinatra.
Skills Summary
Ruby/Ruby on Rails
JavaScript
HTML/CSS
PostgreSQL
Netlify
GitHub
Relevant Education and Courses
Edinburgh University: 1998 - 2002
Computer Science and Management Science, 2:1 (Hons)
Pragmatic Studio: 2014
Ruby Programming
Tealeaf Academy: 2014 - 2015
Introduction to Ruby and Web Development
Rapid Prototyping With Ruby On Rails
Building Robust And Production Quality Applications
Business Experience
Director of Move Freely Solutions: 2003 - 2015
Ran an Edinburgh based clinic that specialised in technology to improve spinal biomechanics. Other services included full biomechanics assessment, Sports Therapy and Massage Therapy.
As well as clinical work, I undertook spinal biomechanics research with the University of Central Lancashire.