Work
Freelance full-stack engineer
January 2018 — present
IDAGIO
IDAGIO is the world's leading classical music streaming service. I produce internal tools for the editorial team. Most recently, I've been working on reducing the time it takes to ingest an opera. What once took six hours is now down to 30 minutes. I am responsible for the whole stack: front-end, back-end and the database schema, as well as user testing with colleagues.
Kwara
Kwara are building user-focussed accounting software for credit unions in Kenya. As the first engineer, I focussed on rapid prototyping in Rails and React. Our goal was to provide validation of the business' ideas as quickly as possible, by building an MVP. As the team grew, I helped put in place product development processes (iterations, user stories), and shifted to concentrate on building a stable and user-friendly API.
Global Eagle
Global Eagle provide in-flight entertainment systems to airlines. I produced a system that processed large numbers of untidy spreadsheets containing music data, and automatically matched each track to a track from a catalogue. Built in Rails, the system provided an interface for producers to manually edit these matches.
MetaBroadcast
MetaBroadcast crunch TV metadata. I helped build and scale Java APIs that allowed issues with content to be tracked in a Cassandra database. Speed and accuracy were key, as the APIs powered an interface that allowed users to see an accurate picture of which content needed fixing.
Back-end engineer, SoundCloud
January 2015 — November 2017
Played a role in breaking down a Rails monolith into Scala microservices, so that new features could be built more quickly. Our focus was on providing a stable and scalable API platform for product teams to build upon, that could handle large amounts of traffic. Later on, I took a leading role on the Monetization and Subscriptions team. Outside of my core role, I also led the delivery of Unconscious Bias workshops, as well as our internal LGBT+ group.
Senior software engineer, BBC Future Media
August 2011 — December 2014
Engineer on the Linked Data Platform, which was used to drive automated pages for BBC News and Sport. I helped kick-start Scala development at the BBC, and pushed continuous delivery practices. Also helped to prototype a cloud-based encoding system for BBC iPlayer, the video on-demand service.
Earlier roles can be seen on LinkedIn.
Skills
- Languages: JavaScript, Ruby, Java, Scala, Python. Some Go.
- Frameworks: Ruby on Rails, React, Finagle, Express.
- Infrastructure: Heroku, AWS, Prometheus. Some Docker and Kubernetes.
- Databases: Postgres, MySQL, Elasticsearch, Redis.
Education
- University of Manchester, First Class Honours in Internet Computing.
- A Levels in Computing, Physics and Music, and an AS level in Mathematics.