2016 - 2018

MSc (Distinction) Software Engineering and Internet Architecture, University of Bradford

Part time degree studied whilst working full time at the BBC. Modules studied include: Advanced Database Systems, Cyber Security and Data Mining.

2011 - 2014

BSc (First, Hons) in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, University of Birmingham

Modules studied include: Machine Learning, Logic Programming and Intelligent Robotics

2009 - 2011

Sixth Form - Fearnhill Mathematics and Computing College

A Level: Mathematics (A), Computing (A), Physics (B)
AS Level: Further Mathematics (A)

2004 - 2009

Fearnhill Mathematics and Computing College
GCSEs: 9 A*'s and 3 A's including Maths and English

2022 - Present
Toronto, CA

Software Engineer at Meta
Working on Virtual Assistant software applications for AR wearable devices in Meta's Reality Labs organisation.

2020 - 2022
Toronto, CA

Software Development Engineer II at Amazon
Working as a software engineer in the Amazon Flex team: building large-scale scalable systems able to meet the growing business demand of delivering to customers. Specifically working on services that motivate drivers to continue to want to deliver for Amazon by mechanisms such as handing out achievements, offering drivers promotions, and providing drivers with a rewards based loyalty scheme to give them perks such as cash-back and priority delivery scheduling.

As one of the founding members of the Motivation team I led the team technically, and helped create the team culture. I created documentation standards which were then adopted by other teams within the organisation, presented tech demos, and helped mentor newer members of the team; from experienced engineers to interns.

Technologies used include extensive Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud infrastructure built using CDK, employing Java micro-service architectures.

2018 - 2020
London, UK

Senior Software Engineer at British Broadcasting Corporation
Working in the Data Systems team (responsible for back-end products in News + Weather), acting as a technical lead on projects, and helping to design and architect new cloud based products that we are developing. I have had experience in mentoring and training new/graduate placement members of the team, helping grow their skills from little to no enterprise software experience, to writing and deploying production code.

During my time in this position I have worked on:

• Leading our teams transition to a new CI workflow, making use of JenkinsFile pipelines, and Docker containers, to allow for a more efficient and simpler way of getting our code deployed.
• Built an onward journeys recommendation system for news articles and the world service sites that we support from the ground up. Working with data scientists to create a highly scalable and available system that can provide personalised recommendations to users, using a variety of in-house developed recommendation systems. Technically, this is a cloud based RESTful API service consisting of multiple Spring Boot micro-service components running on AWS EC2 instances. Uses multiple levels of caching along with automated scaling policies, to provide a reliable service capable of handling thousands of requests per second.
• Most recently I led the development into deploying the BBC's new Image Digital Asset Management system: The Grid. This involved taking an open source Scala based multi-service project, deploying a rudimentary prototype version of it into the BBC's cloud ecosystem for a feasibility study, before re-purposing it for the BBC's needs and deploying it into a resilient microservice environment. I was tasked with identifying and managing the requirements as set out by the product owner, creating a development plan and delegating the work to be done. As The Grid was originally created by The Guardian, this project involved closely collaborating with their team and also involved contributing back to the open source project.

2016 - 2018
London, UK

Software Engineer at British Broadcasting Corporation
Software engineer working on the back-end systems for News. The team is responsible for a number of products, including; election systems, and the BBC's News mobile application back end.

Our services are primarily developed for the cloud, making heavy use of Amazon Web Services. Most code is written using Java, using technologies such as Spring, and Apache (Camel, TomCat) to create highly scalable RESTful services.

Working in an agile environment, with daily stand ups, and fortnightly sprints. As a small team we have direct contact with the business analysts, and the product team, so we can influence and discuss how to make our software as great as possible - whilst still meeting the required functionality.

Notable projects I have worked on:

• Sitemap Generator: A cloud based system to generate, and keep updated sitemaps for all content available across the BBC, with the aim to increase SEO. Makes heavy use of a PostgreSQL database, along with AWS lambda functions to keep the sitemap files constantly up to date. I acted as the technical lead; designing the architecture, working with product managers to gather requirements, and leading the development of the software.
• Elections: Results service that allows for the ingestion of raw data, persisting, transforming, and enriching it to the required JSON structure for the front-end website. It also provides a RESTful service and admin client for journalists to modify result data. Elections include the 2017 General Election, and the 2016 US Presidential Election.

2014 - 2016
London, UK

Graduate Developer at British Broadcasting Corporation
Various software development roles, rotating around various areas of the corporation, allowing me to experience different software systems and to learn new skills.

Teams worked on:

• News Back End Systems: Developing the cloud-based back end system that processes all data used by online and red button for the BBC's General Election 2015 coverage
• News Apps: Team set up to create and maintain the BBC news mobile applications. I worked as part of the Android development team, where I created and integrated Android Wear functionality into the main app, and also helped to fix bugs, and add features on to the main app.
• iSite: Internal CMS system used for storing content of the various BBC web pages. Worked on maintaining the existing code base; both on the front end and back end systems. Made improvements, and provided out of hours support to the cloud-based 'Tool Authentication' system which allows for BBC staff to log into tools based websites off the BBC network.

2010 - 2014
Letchworth, UK

Customer Advisor at Argos
Working at different positions in the store, including; till work, stock picking, customer service, handing out catalogues, and deliveries.

2006 - 2008
Letchworth, UK

Student ICT Technician (Volunteer)
Helping students and staff with any computer related problems, general computer maintenance.