Curriculum Vitae
I am a Web Developer based in London, UK. I have experience with everything from User Interface Design to Programming and overall Website Architecture. This mixture of front and back-end skills lets me avoid many of the compromises that are often typical of dealing with the differing priorities of designers and programmers.
I have a keen interest in various aspects of Graphic Design and how they can be applied to the web. I take care to consider font and colour choice, as well as grid systems, in order apply a clear and consistent look across an entire site. I keep myself informed of new ideas and findings regarding User Interface which is invaluable in developing interfaces that are both modern and well-considered.
Conversely, my background in Computer Science equips me with the ability to develop robust underlying systems. I have solid programming skills and can pick up new programming languages and technologies quickly, I'm particularly mindful of methods for allowing websites to scale effectively as they grow. Whilst I am eager to embrace new tools and methodologies, I'm also pragmatic about identifying the core requirements for a project - I try to be mindful of future requirements, but not at the expense of overcomplicating current developments.
I also have extensive experience using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer to aid in evidence-driven development.
Part of a small team of developers responsible for developing and maintaining the company's various websites, primarily focusing on our commercial website for Forbidden Planet.
I initially worked on these sites whilst they were built in Java using the Tapestry framework (aided by Spring and Hibernate), whilst some satellite sites and administrative tools were built using Ruby on Rails. Since then I have been instrumental in migrating the sites and tools to Django after being impressed by its elegant approach to web development.
Forbidden Planet is now built using Django and a number of third-party python modules, as part of this rebuild I streamlined our integration with FileMaker (used for our internal staff systems) through a combination of using PyFilemaker and both SOAP and RESTful Web Services. I have begun to investigate product recommendation algorithms based on K-Means Clustering with the aim of providing customer-specific product recommendations in the future. I have also developed automatic syndication of our product catalogue with Google Products through use of their API.
I developed the majority of the client-side JavaScript on Forbidden Planet, using the JQuery library to simplify development. JavaScript is used for everything from simple image carousels, banner impression/link tracking and event/e-commerce tracking via Google Analytics.I am currently involved in the redevelopment of Titan Magazines. This constitutes a complete rewrite of the codebase in Django, whilst leveraging many of the modules already developed for Forbidden Planet. Whilst not functionally as complex as an e-commerce site, this development has presented a set of problems that required a much deeper understanding of Django to solve.
Responsible for updating the University's online 'calendar' for 2007 using their in-house CMS.
Responsibilities included improving the markup (HTML) and stylesheets (CSS) for the University's blog system in order to improve accessiblity and browser support, as well as producing new blog styles
My degree course included (but was not limited to) the following modules:
Introduction to Software Engineering - Primarily covered software development methodologies.
Distributed Multimedia Systems - Image, Audio and Video compression techniques.
Programming for Computer Scientists - Bash scripting and Unix/Linux command line.
Human-Computer Interaction - Design of user interfaces.
Database Systems - Design of efficient database schemas.
Artificial Intelligence - Path-finding algorithms such as A*, as well as Genetic Programming and other AI principles.
Research Directions in Computing - Bioinformatics, Quantum Computing, Game Theory, Web Metrics.
3rd Year Individual Project - Developed a Java application that was able to host a range of simple Cellular Automata such as Conway's Game Of Life. This required delivery of the complete application within a strict deadline.
4th Year Group Project - Developed a utility for exploring fault-tolerance of Java programs. Included development of 2 example control systems; a simple boiler and an air traffic control system.