I am an experienced product manager making the switch to engineering having completed Makers Academy - a 12 week software development bootcamp.

I have previously worked across a range of industries and disciplines (academic, travel, media and energy) in a variety of roles including commercial, technical and managerial. I love to learn and to be challenged. Above all I enjoy problem-solving within a cross-functional team.

As my career developed I found that I was becoming further and further removed from the root of the many problems that a company encounters. Consequently I was also further removed from problem solving - which is my key area of expertise. That is why I am taking this career switch. I want to get closer to the problems that a company faces and solve them with my experienced skill set whilst continuing to learn and adapt to new challenges.

My academic training was heavily analytical. I have benefitted from adopting this outlook and critical thinking methods into my professional career. One question I often ask myself and my peers is - "why?". I find that this simple question is an incredibly powerful tool in problem solving which:

1. helps us to really understand all aspects of a problem and get to the heart of the details;
2. forces us to reflect fully on our own understanding of a problem and develop the ability to explain it; and
3. encourages us to constantly review our position, focus, efficiency and allocation of resources.

My professional experience and my academic background and training give me a unique insight into understanding and appreciating the needs of a company and the ability to really contribute to a team.

I have pinned a handful of projects to my github. I have chosen these not because of their quality but because each project represents a milestone in my training and development.

It Is Always Soup - This was the final project of the Makers course. A team of 3 had just under 2 weeks to go from a vague theme (eco friendly) to a full production application. The product - an application that will give a list of recipes and instructions for a user's input kitchen scraps. Very proud of this project and everything we learnt along the way. At time of writing it has over 90% test coverage and a full CI/CD pipeline (Travis and Firebase). None of us had any previous experience in building a progressive web app let alone in the framework (React) that we used here. It can be used here - It Is Always Soup.

Takeaway Challenge - This project was the second weekend challenge of the Makers course. It was very early on in the course, and far from perfect, but the work here is representative of the leap in my learning and understanding of concepts such as modelling, TDD, SRP and Dependency Injection.

Makers BnB - This was the first week long (5 day) project I worked on as part of a team. I am highlighting this because it showcases my abilities when working within a team. My personal contribution to this project that I am most proud of was writing an API endpoint in the controller that then was called by a Javascript frontend that also included an on page filter. Again, this is not a perfect piece of work, but it shows my good understanding of the technologies involved and the progress I made in Javascript after just one week's exposure to it.

TFL Database - This is a project I started working on before the Makers course. It is rough and hacky and has no tests but I'm really proud of this work. It is illustrative of my passion for solving problems with technology. My plan is to rewrite this and extend and use this data to work on a fairest place to meet problem.

I pride myself on my interpersonal skills and my ability to communicate clearly and effectively with all people.

I am a good listener and I am effective at synthesising ideas. I absorb and process information quickly and find that I am able to crystallise issues and effectively 'playback' to a room clear options from their suggestions.

During my time at Makers I consistently received feedback from my classmates that I was excellent at explaining complicated concepts in a simple manner; that I was patient and clear with my explanations and that as a result I was a good pair partner.

Whether it be a new technology (Ruby, Javascript), a new industry, new people or a new problem - I learn quickly and with enthusiasm.

While at Makers I had my first true exposure to Javascript. Within my second week of exposure I had understood the link between a Ruby backend and Javascript frontend by writing an API in Ruby that was utilised by clientside Javascript to render and then filter data. This was something I did without explicit direction, using my own initiative by thinking through and fusing the disparate concepts I had just learnt.

I like to get to the crux of what is the right problem to be working on and supporting a team to achieve that goal. Over the years working as a product manager, senior product manager and group product manager this has been crucial - when resources are tight it is important to be working on the problem that will drive the most value for the business.

• OOP, TDD, MVC
• Agile/XP
• Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, Sinatra, ORM
• RSpec, Jasmine, Cabybara, Simplecov

• PhD Nuclear Astrophysics

• BSc hons Physics

Kaluza (March'18 to April'19)
Senior Technical Product Manager I was the senior product manager at clean energy startup Kaluza (formerly VCharge) responsible for all 3rd party integrations - from storage heaters to wind turbines and everything in between.

Here I learnt a lot quickly from how the energy industry functions to the details of how a brand of storage heaters physically works. Whilst getting to grips with the industry and company I was simultaneously providing the team with a clear focus, consistency of work, streamlining work processes and trying to avoid context shifting as much as possible within the confines of a startup environment.

The Guardian News and Media (March'15 to March'19)
(Group Product Manager, Solution Architect, Solution Analyst I began work here as a Solution Analyst and moved quickly to become a Group Product Manager, responsible for managing 3 product teams. I worked on a range of projects and technologies from bespoke web analytics to all digital advertising across the Guardian.

Sunvil (Nov'08 to March'15) A SME tour operator where I held a number of responsibilities from programme management, sales, copywriting, marketing, pricing and budgeting - in essence all of the skills needed to run a company.