Projects | Skills | Education | Experience | Interests
I am a software developer currently working for Vodafone, who enjoys being creative and to using my problem solving skills to do something exciting and make a difference. I completed a degree in Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh in 2016, and after eighteen months of not knowing what I wanted from a career, I found a way to satisfy my love of problem solving and fixing things when I began to teach myself to code. I enrolled in Makers Academy 16-week coding bootcamp in May 2018 and graduated in August 2018 after thoroughly enjoying the course. I have worked at Vodafone for the past 9 months, gaining experience working on a large-scale React web application.
Over the last couple of months I have been working on an online version of the strategy board game Diplomacy, using it as an opportunity to master previously used technologies such as express and webpack, and teach myself new technologies such as Typescript, Preact and MongoDB. The repo can be found here.
The Makers course focussed on pair programming, test driven development, agile processes, and learning by doing. You can see my progression throughout the course on my Github, but see below for a few select projects to demonstrate what I learnt over the 12 weeks of the course:
| Title | Description | Timeframe | Technologies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hip Hip Array | Final group project at Makers, an educational tool for beginner coders to help find array methods in three languages. | 10 Days | React, Express, Javascript, Ruby and Python |
| Bank Tech Test | An example tech test, written in ruby to demonstrate TDD, OOP and clean code principles. | 1 Day | Ruby |
| Game of Life | An implementation of Conway's Game of Life written in React as an example tech test. | 1 Day | React, Javascript |
| Acebook | Group project. A clone of facebook, including log-in functionality, posts, comments and likes. This was my first project using React. | 2 Weeks | Ruby, Rails, HTML |
| PiratesBNB | Group project. A pirate-themed clone of AirBNB, where sea-curious landlubbers can hire a ship for weekend marauding. | 1 Week | Ruby, Sinatra, SQL, Node, Express, Javascript, jQuery, Jade, HTML, CSS |
| Airport Challenge | An individual project written after one week of the course to get to grips with OOD, and SOLID principles | 2 Days | Ruby |
Over the course of the Makers bootcamp, I have developed a strong understanding of the ideas behind writing clean code, and take care to ensure that the code I write is test driven, DRY, and follows SOLID principles. An example of my use of TDD and clean code can be found in my Bank Tech Test, as listed above.
I have always enjoyed fixing things and understanding why they work, which is what lead me to enjoy maths and science when I was younger, and programming now. I have a good logical and analytical mind, and so I'm skilled at quickly working out where a problem lies and how to fix it. For my Makers final project, my main task was building the javascript models that would take an input and a desired output as strings, convert them to usable objects and work out array methods that would get from one to the other, including generating and testing potential function arguments. This can be found in the projects section above. I pick up new skills quickly, and this has helped me to stay ahead throughout the course.
I work best as part of a team, and thrive on collaborative problem solving. At Makers, I was a keen proponent of pairing and social coding, finding that my teams were more productive when we worked together to solve problems, rather than working separately. Using Agile processes and XP values allowed me and my team members to keep up to speed on exactly what being done and needed to be done next. I am a good communicator, and I'm sure to make the effort to understand differing viewpoints when they arise. I come up with my best ideas when I have someone else to bounce them off, and find the social aspect of group work motivating and energising.
I am passionate about tech, and am excited by the cutting edge and where the future of tech is headed. Artificial Intelligence, Virtual and Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things are all brimming with possibility, and I would love to be a part of realising that. I have contributed to SC2AI, a community effort to develop artificially intelligent bots capable of playing Starcraft II, which has been chosen as Google DeepMind's next target after Go.
I attend tech meet-ups around london, including Tech for Good (a community dedicated to using technology to do good in the world), an indie game development meet-up, and Javascript AI.
16 week coding bootcamp which focuses on a number of principles and technologies:
- OOP, TDD, MVC, DDD
- Agile Processes
- Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, React, Express, Node, Python, PostgreSQL, Heroku
Chemistry BSc
My dissertation centered around the non-photochemical laser-induced nucleation (NPLIN) of sugars. I chose this because a) it sounds impressive, and b) working with lasers sounded one hell of a lot cooler than it ended up being.
A Levels in Maths, Chemistry and Drama, all at A* Grade.
11 GCSEs at A* Grade.
Vodafone (October 2018 to present) Junior web developer, working mostly in JavaScript and React. Helped to build the sim-only page of the web-shop. Included working in small agile teams, with a strong focus on code-quality, performance and automation of processes.
Court of Protection (February 2018 to June 2018)
Admin Officer for the case progression branch
Health Education England (August 2017 to February 2018)
Quality Support Officer
King's College Hospital (June 2017 to August 2017)
Admin Officer
Barburrito (September 2016 to June 2017)
Team Leader
- A very sociable person with a keen interest in film and music.
- I have attended Glastonbury Festival (almost) every year since I was 10.
- Play guitar in my spare time.
- A member of the independent Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square
- Enjoy table tennis and squash, and I also occasionally play overly-complex board games with friends.