| Jul 2008 - Sep 2008 |
Blog Developer (Contract)
Guardian News & Media, London
The Guardian has run its blogs using Movable Type for several years, but they are currently in the process of moving them into their in-house content management system.
This role involved maintaining and enhancing the current blog platform editing templates, changing navigation, implementing new performance tracking code). There was also some work supporting the team who were porting the blogs to the new platform. This included advising them on the structure of the Movable Type database and providing data dumps to enable them to test their processes.
In parallel with this, there was also work acting as a general “toolsmith”, providing useful utilities to the development team. In particular, I built a system that parsed data files containing details of Cyclometric Complexity and made that data available to developers through a web-based application. |
| Jul 2007 - Jun 2008 |
Developer (Contract)
UBS, London
Maintenance and development on a project which allows developers to reverse engineer a database schema from Oracle and Sybase database servers. The files generated can be stored under source code control and any changes made to these files can be applied to the database server in an intelligent fashion. This system is a strategic tool which is used by many of UBS's internal development teams to keep track of database schema definitions. The source code is approximately 100,000 lines of highly object-oriented Perl code.
Major Achievements
- Designed and implemented a four-fold speed increase in Oracle processing
- Prioritising bugs from many user groups
- Organising software releases to UBS's global network of file
servers
|
| Apr 2007 - Jun 2007 |
Software Engineer (Contract)
BBC Future Media & Technology
Developer on an internal web service which distributes schedule information to many BBC web applications. Service written in Perl (using DBIx::Class and Catalyst), uses MySQL to store data and runs on Apache under Solaris.
|
| Apr 2006 - Mar 2007 |
Web Developer (Contract)
UBS, London
Developer in the storage management group. Writing web-based reports to monitor storage usage and measure group KPIs.
Major Achievements
- Set up intranet site for storage management group
- Process daily data feeds from Veritas monitoring software
- Design and implement system database
- Design and build daily and weekly reports using Perl, Template Toolkit, Javascript and Ajax
|
| Jul 2005 - Mar 2006 |
Developer (Contract)
BBC New Media and Technology, London
Developer working on various aspects of the BBC's main web site. The systems were implemented in Perl using an Oracle database running on Solaris.
Major Achievements
- Maintenance and enhancements on a number of systems used to build the BBC's home page
- Work on implementing replacement data feeds
- Liaison with web producers responsible for content of web site
- Main maintenance developer on postcoder application
|
| Jan 2005 - Jun 2005 |
Developer (Contract)
Guardian Unlimited, London
Developer working on various aspects of this award-winning web site using various technologies including Perl, Javascript, XSLT and Oracle running on Linux and Solaris. This included not only the public facing web site but also a number of internal content management tools
Major Achievements
- Various fixes to browser-based applications to increase cross-browser compatibility
- Work on an application to take XML data feeds from newspaper systems and convert them for web site use using XSLT
- Various bug fixes and enhancements to Perl programs
- Liaison with users of the internal CMS tools
|
| May 2004 - Dec 2004 |
Senior Perl Developer (Permanent)
Outcome Technologies, London
Senior developer working on systems to gather data on the effectiveness of medical treatments. Systems built using Perl (mod_perl), Apache and MySQL on Linux servers.
Major Achievements
- Introduction of Template Toolkit and Class::DBI to increase programmer efficiency
- Design of localisation framework
- Line manager for team of four developers
- Development of system to move configuration from code to data
|
| Jan 2004 - Mar 2004 |
Developer (Contract)
KarmaDownload.com, London
Complete redesign and reimplementation of the web site for online record company.
Major Achievements
- Replacement of old Windows/IIS/Access/Cold Fusion architecture with Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl
- Automation and streamlining of business processes
- Integration with third party online payment system
|
| Oct 2003 - Dec 2003 |
Developer (Contract)
Guardian Unlimited, London
Various tasks involved in the maintenance and development of GU's award winning website.
Major Achievements
- Design and implementation of system to filter and load NewsML files into database using XPath
- Refactoring of various data feed systems
- Mentoring team members on Perl and Extreme Programming
|
| Dec 2002 - Sep 2003 |
Developer (Contract)
AMP, London
Support and enhancements on AMP's financial information website. Site implemented using Perl, Apache and Oracle on Unix platforms (Linux and Solaris).
Major Achievements
- Training and mentoring other developers in Perl and web technologies
- Design and development of system to extract statistics on the success of marketing campaigns (implemented in Perl and SQL)
- Face to face interaction with marketing team to identify and fix problems with the web site
|
| Jun 2002 - Nov 2002 |
Technical Architect (Permanent)
Bibliotech, London
Technical design and implementation for a web-based community aimed at schools. Site was implemented using mod_perl with Informix as the back-end database with Linux and Solaris as the server operating systems.
Major Achievement
- Integrating site with WorldPay ecommerce services using Perl over HTTP and HTTPS
- Interfacing RSS data feeds with site
- Design and implementation of web-based interface to file storage area of site
- Work on performance tuning site. This involved work on Perl programs, mod_perl configuration and SQL queries
|
| Mar 2002 |
Developer (Contract)
Alaris Medical Systems, Basingstoke
Refactoring work on a web-based system for booking repairs to medical equipment. Perl scripts communicated with SAP using an XML interface. Resulting XML converted to HTML using XSLT.
Major Achievements
- Refactoring of a number of Perl programs into one program driven by a configuration file
- Development and testing of XML queries to interface with SAP
|
| Jan 2001 - Jan 2002 |
Developer/Trainer (Contract)
Acxiom, London
This contract was split equally between working as a developer in one of Acxiom's development teams and devising and running internal Perl training courses.
Major Achievements
- Implementation of a system to reconcile new contact data against existing contact records
- Building a system to send emails automatically to users who had registered on a web site
- Design and implementation of a rule-based system to process the responses from questionnaires
- Devising and running training courses
|
| Sep 2000 - Dec 2000 |
Developer (Contract)
Sportal.com, London
Working in the feeds team of this sports web site. The feeds team handled both incoming and outgoing data feeds. These feeds were in a number of formats, although XML was prevalent.
|
| Jun 2000 - Aug 2000 |
Developer (Contract)
Credit Suisse First Boston, London
Working in the European Financial Control Group on a system which ran overnight to make various trade and position information available to Financial Controllers either directly or via various downstream processes.
|
| Nov 1999 - May 2000 |
Webmaster/Developer (Contract)
Industrial Bank of Japan, London
IBJ had only recently decided to implement intranet technology within the bank. This role therefore involved a large amount of high level architectural work as well as installing and configuring a web server and implementing various systems using it. Also working on a system which took data from a Stratus system and loaded into a Sybase database.
|
| Sep 1999 - Nov 1999 |
Support Team Leader (Contract)
Fidelity Investments Ltd., Kingswood, Surrey
Leading a team of three people which acted as second-line support for Fidelity's customer-facing web site. This team supported all of the technologies used on the web site including Perl, Sybase, HTML, XML and Java Servlets.
|
| Jun 1999 - Aug 1999 |
Developer (Contract)
QXL Ltd., London
Various tasks as part of a major redesign of QXL's web site. Both the look and feel and the back end processing were changed. Most of the work was customisation of an off the shelf e-commerce package called InterShop. The data was all stored in an Oracle database.
|
| May 1999 |
Freelance Web Designer
Magnum Solutions Ltd., London
Design and implementation work on various web sites.
|
| Jun 1998 - Apr 1999 |
Developer (Contract)
Credit Suisse First Boston, London
Various tasks involved with large Sybase database used for Equity Research. The system was undergoing many changes to enable it to handle the Single European Currency.
|
| Nov 1996 - Jun 1998 |
Developer (Contract)
SBC Warburg, London
Various tasks involved with a large, globally replicated Sybase database containing the bank's major data warehouse. The database design was highly normalised and therefore the performance of database queries was of paramount importance.
|
| Oct 1995 - Sep 1996 |
Team Leader (Contract)
Nomura Research International, London
Recruiting and leading a team of four developers working on the design and development of a system to produce Middle Office reports from a Sybase database. System implemented using Sybase stored procedures, Korn shell scripts and C++. Prototypes and development utilities developed in Korn shell, Perl and Tcl/Tk.
|
| Apr 1995 - Oct 1995 |
Developer (Contract)
Banque Paribas, London
Design, development and maintenance on a back-office accountancy system taking data from various internal and external feeds and reformatting it for use in Dodge.
|
| Feb 1993 - Apr 1995 |
Senior Analyst Programmer (Permanent)
The Walt Disney Company Ltd, London
Design, development and user support on a retail decision support tool. System developed using client/server architecture. Data stored in Sybase database running on HP 9000 Series 800.
|
| Aug 1992 - Feb 1993 |
Software Engineer (Permanent)
Comtext International Ltd, London
Designing and developing GUI front end to Telex/Fax/Email service using C++ cross platform development tools (XVT) and Visual Basic.
|
| Aug 1988 - Aug 1992 |
Programmer/Senior Programmer (Permanent)
Learmonth & Burchett Management Systems Plc, London
Various design and development tasks largely based around the data modelling part of a CASE tool.
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