Alexander Collins

Summary

I'm a software engineer who enjoys solving real-world problems, working out clean algorithms and finding simple solutions. Always motivated when learning something new and working to benefit others. While rarely the loudest member of a group, I always voice concerns, ideas and offer a pragmatic perspective. Aside from technical skills, I thrive when challenged with something that requires a lot of thought and am always trying to plan ahead.

Outside of work, my interests include programming, writing and some arts - I'm always looking to try new things. I love going to music concerts (particularly metal), video games and hiking when I need to wind down.

Work Experience

Nov. 2017 - Current

AppSecTest Role: Lead Software Engineer

Lead developer of the ASAnalyzer React webapp, backend server and middleware server. Co-developed the DEX (apk file) static analysis engine. Co-developed our Kubernetes infrastructure stack and its Terraform/Terragrunt deployment solution. As one of two developers in the 4-man company, I was really able to feel and see the impact of my work and learn how to effectively work in a team.

• Developed a professional product suite with regular releases via CI/CD.
• Able to learn multiple tools and methodologies: React, CI/CD, Kubernetes, Docker, etc.
• Contributed to the company business and decisions that secured initial VC investment and eventual success.
• Learnt a lot about the startup business and ecosystem.
• Achieved a First-Class Honours from University of the West of England while actively working for the company.

Jul. 2016 - Aug. 2017

Intel Role: Technical Marketing Engineer (Internet of Things Group)

Accepted for a 14 month internship at Intel during my sandwich year at university. I developed, supported and marketed fullstack IoT demos and concept prototypes. Educated groups of school children on IoT, demonstrated prototypes to academics and plugged Intel's solution value-add in talks with groups of business leaders at both the London and Swindon Intel offices. This was all done in collaboration with multiple other teams.

• Learnt to develop fullstack IoT; this includes microcontrollers, SoC's, data science, web, android, etc.
• Led a project showcasing LoRa/LoRaWAN at the end of my tenure, gained expert knowledge and started research to publish a white paper under Intel. Salvaged this for my university dissertation.
• Actively maintained IoT demos for sales groups and worked with them as the go-to technical contact.
• Solely responsible for setup & hosting at HPE Discover London (2016) for the RFID Retail Demo at Intel's front-door booth. Gained valuable networking and sales experience.
• Successfully handed my role over to the successor intern, managed and trained them for 2 months. Was able to teach them a lot in preperation for their year.

2014 - 2018

University of the West of England (UWE) BSc (Hons), Computer Science

For my final year dissertation I produced a LoRa(WAN) library in C and an extendable Grove Sensor device framework in C++, this was bundled as a wireless sensor SDK for Microntrollers. Other projects include an RFC4330-compliant SNTP server & client, a single-wire communication protocol implemented on an embedded systems, genetic AI algorithm for finding patterns in data, and more. Achieved a First Class Honours at the end of my course, the Dean Award for Academic Excellence¹ (twice).
 ¹ Awarded for achieving an overall average mark of 75% or more across all modules.

Key Skills

Embedded

ARM, RFID, UART, SPI, FTDI, GPIO, Limited Memory & Resource handling

Data Handling

LoRa(WAN), Bluetooth, MQTT, TCP/IP Sockets, HTTP, AMQP, MongoDB, SQL, Grafana, AWS SDK

Environments / Tooling

Linux, Windows, Git, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Vagrant, VMs

Web technologies

React, REST, Express, JWT, Mustache, Grafana

Other

pyqt

Project Portfolio

I spend a lot of my personal time on various projects, ranging from development to more artistic things like photography, writing, arts. I wanted to share some here, you can find more at my portfolio site: https://alex-collins.dev/.

• ASAnalyzer A fully-featured web app that users upload APK files to and recieve information about data collected by third-party SDKs used within their app. Allows comparison between versions, generating reports, and a lot more.
• Smart Shelf 2 a fullstack IoT showcase demo I took responsiblity for at Intel. It used infrared sensors to calculate how many items were stacked on a shelf and was re-designed to demo the LoRa(WAN) technology later on.
• IoT MCU SDK containing a LoRa(WAN) library for the RN2483 module and extensible framework for Grove sensor modules.
• gearsix.net built using my own static site generator to host personal projects and share anything I'm currently nerding out on.
• dotfm python script written in my personal time because I got tired of typing out & remembering paths to edit dotfiles.

Misc. Achievements

• I taught myself to program (using C) at 19 during a gap-year.
• In 2017, I was in a team of 3 where we came 2nd place in a local hackathon competition: https://bit.ly/2vZTy63
• While at university I completed the UWE SU Leadership programme
• During my teens I trained 3hrs/week for hometown swim club and was one of the top county swimmers in my age bracket until I left for university. Our team represented England multiple times in friendly EU competitions.