Employment

Tasked with building a booking system enabling schools to book supply teachers to cover classes. Built on the Laravel framework, we made use of the native API infrastructure to allow tight mobile app integration for push notifications to supply teachers with SMS as a secondary option.

Another Laravel project, this time for selling merchandise for their upcoming fitness challenge show as well as all details for the event.

Short term contract working on two Wordpress sites for local theatres, mostly responasive front end.

Laravel re-build of a health food service newly acquired by BodyPower. I was responsible for building the ecommerce side and CMS and the overall business logic to provide screens for the different operations within the business, from kitchen to plating to packing and then dispatch.

URG own a number of e-commerce sites and use intelligent automation to manage the day to day retail back office tasks. My work here involved working alongside their in-house developer, fixing bugs and adding new features to their back office bulk processing app, built on the FuelPHP framework. It took me a couple of days to get up to speed with FuelPHP but I found it very similar to Laravel.

Additionally I spent time refactoring non-framework specific code into a more portable format in preparation for migrating across to Laravel in the near future.

Another contract with Bonfire; with all their in-house devs busy, I undertook 2 small Wordpress builds. Then the re-development of an existing large .ASP site onto the Laravel framework. Both front-end and back-end in each case.

Contracted to work with the Jupix departments creative team post takeover by PSG (Property Software Group). Tasks involved:

> Customer support - working through support tickets backlog from vast list of clients (estate agents)
> Custom liaison, resolving issues with clients over the phone
> Implementing mainstream development practices
> Improving turn-round of support queries
> Development of Wordpress themes and plugins to support the integration of the Jupix system into client web sites
> Implement and maintain multisite instances
> Supporting external developers on behalf of externally hosted clients
> Integration of further 3rd party products attained by PSG takeover (Vebra/Alto)
> Improving security across our hosted client solutions
> Working with colleagues across multiple departments to both develop and improve products and services

Contracted to work on a project along side one of their permanent members of the team, I undertook mostly front end development on a project built on Concrete 5. Working from designs provided in PSD format I utilised Bootstrap SASS, jQuery and implemented a radius distance search functionality with the Google Maps API for a leading national provider of retirement housing and care service. I also undertook some work on projects for clients including Big Yellow and Stone Island clothing brand amongst others. Other development work included Wordpress and Shopify.

I was hired to help with the development of a module for their new framework to replace their existing Loyalty program site. Working with another contractor I undertook the front end integration into several high profile magazine sites including Elle UK, Harper's Bazaar and Mens Health. Additionally I worked on several other existing projects adding feature enhancements as required.

Contracted to work alongside another developer for a two week period to help in the development of a Laravel project for Bosch, which had crept slightly behind, in order to maintain the original completion date.

Contract working directly from provided technical specification and PSDs. Working directly alongside one of Hearst internal project managers, I undertook both the front-end and back-end development of a Wordpress site that pulled stories from a number of their huge publication sites focusing on celebrating the lives, aspirations and achievements of British women.

Thereafter I was also involved in some bug fixing and adding features to some existing well-known publication sites including elleuk.com and cosmopolitan.co.uk.

Short term contract working on existing Wordpress multi-site setup, fixing bugs and adding new features.

Carried out feature request changes to a project I previously worked on with WAR. Then undertook a new Wordpress build from scratch for a high end hi-fi system manufacturer.

Working remotely as a freelance developer developing their own site which had, for a long time, been awaiting an overhaul.

I was asked back to TMW to perform updates on a Diageo site I had previously worked on along with some feature requests.

My contract here covered a period when they had no permanent developer and I undertook work on several projects, all WordPress based. Work involved both front and back end coding. Some projects were started from scratch and others were continued from where the previous developer had left them. Once they had a new permanent developer, I handed over any projects that were incomplete.

During my time at WAR I undertook one primary project through the entire project cycle on an existing site built on the SilverStripe framework. I had never touched SilverStripe before this contract but soon become acquainted with its pros, cons and quirks. Additionally, I was asked to work on some other projects utilising Drupal (multi locale ecommerce site) and further SilverStripe related work.

I was contracted by TMW to work on a DIAGEO project for their Ketel One Vodka Modern Craft Project; this was built upon the Joomla framework as requested by the client. After this I worked briefly on a number of mini marketing projects for TMW clients such as Unilever (Lynx, Lynx Vevo, Flora, Comfort Pure), T-Mobile and Richmond (Richmond Sausages). My contract ended after completing a number of phased additions to the DIAGEO Reserve site built on WordPress.

I was hired for a short term contract working on the redevelopment of a CMS driven extranet for a large well known bank.

During my time here on a contract basis I developed a number of custom e-learning type applications upon the Joomla framework (J!1.5 andJ!2.5) for use by some large companies to internally profile there staff abilities with regards to their roles within the respective companies. Some of the work involved implementing new functionality on existing applications and others were completely new and stand-alone; some with and some without custom built Joomla administration CRUD areas.

EC2 IT contracted me to work on various web projects on behalf of their clients, ranging from online brochures to large stock ordering systems and intranets.

H18 hired me to rescue a project after the previous developer flopped out on them; this was in between projects at EC2 IT.

RakeTheRake is the largest and most reputable rakeback affiliate in the poker market. Working in conjunction with all the top poker rooms to increase traffic to their sites, and to secure the best rakeback deals for online poker players.

I was contracted by RTR to setup, configure and integrate a community forum (vBulletin) with their new site due for launch end of 2010. The integration involved creating a bespoke Single Sign-On (SSO) and account synchronisation API with their new site which is built on a non-LAMP platform. This was then extended for Cross Domain Single Sign-On (XDSSO) to cater for an array of partner and peer sites.

vBulletin was employed for the purpose due to its robustness and the ability to extend functionality through the 'hooks and plugins' feature. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) was also a key requirement for the deployment, as was affiliate links and banner advertising. The community forum will cater for 100's of thousands of users.

Tribal Group (was initially Cambridge Training & Development when I first started) had an international reputation for the design and development of educational software using an array of technologies.

As a senior developer I often took a technical lead role on multiple active projects; juggling them based on priorities that changed almost daily. The software department was always very busy and left little room for error. The separate production and testing departments very much relied on the flow of work via the software department.

Projects varied from small information only sites to large bespoke e-learning portals, using open source applications such as Joomla and Moodle and frameworks such as Symfony; to mobile (m-learning) activities; to CD and VLE based interactive learning materials created with an in-house SCORM authoring tool.

My role here was diverse and dynamic. Working within a manufacturing environment I was solely responsible for the entire company's web strategy. I worked directly with both the marketing and sales departments as well as the R&D department in South Africa .

My main duties included:

Design, build and manage consumer site
Day-to-day updates (galleries, news, promotions, video, general content)
Technical support to 7000+ Forum users
Targeted e-news deployment for promos, site updates etc. to 50,000+ registered consumers
Oversee the smooth running of Info-pack orders and Product Registration
Consumer data capture for bespoke reports

Other duties included the design, build and management of:

Dealer Resource Centre's
Community site
Ecommerce site
Product micro sites
Team rider sites
Other sites for contracted staff (photographers)

Due to the relatively small size of the company, I worked in most areas of the business. Ranging from meeting clients and preparing time estimates for jobs, through to designing concepts for various projects and occasionally leading a small design team.

The majority of my time was spent hands on, building sites, adding client-side and server-side functionality; working alongside other developers. Almost all multimedia and CD-ROM related work was my responsibility. I have worked on projects for several large companies, including Nelson Bakewell, Pearson Education and Simoco.