I'm a driven and pragmatic software engineer dedicated to efficient and robust, long-term solutions.
My career range between web/cloud software development to embedded firmware, while these are two ends of a spectrum the experience of both provides me with unique insight and approach to development for either.
I enjoy working in small teams with little friction, where sharing ideas and helping each other out is easy.
Outside of work, my interests include gaming, music gigs & festivals, more programming and long walks/hikes. Sometimes I engage in writing and photography projects too, although I'm more shy about those.
Experience
Solagen Embedded Software Engineer May 2023 - current
Manufacturers of award winning and innovative Solar powered, LED traffic safety signs and highways products.
The company software/firmware developer, responsible for maintaining 10+ year old embedded firmware, a fullstack IoT system for remotely controlling signs, an Android App used for commissioning signs, the company's customer management system and much more. Solagen operated thousands of road safety signs across the UK and Australia.
- Developed C firmware for a 4G modem, that would provide networking for all Solagen signs going forward.
- This used a low-power 8-bit PIC with a multiplexed UART line to communicate with a Telit LE910Cx using AT Commands and parent board. This established mobile data connections (3GPP - LTE with UTRAN & GPRS fallback) and SMS messages inter-sign communication.
- Salvaged the company CRM / sign management portal, which was a very unreliable 15+ year old PHP behemoth, SQL database and Java service which had survived a poorly-handled migration.
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Added Docker support (to provide a reproducable setup recipe if it died), restored lost internal accounts, provided DB backups, migrated an SMTP server which was getting flagged for spam to Sendgrid (for easier management), fixed DNS issues it had and fixed a lot of everyday issues people were experiencing with the system.
- Maintained the company Android applications. These apps were used by customers and field engineers to commission signs. These were becoming severely depreciated and could no longer be found on the Play Store for newer versions of Android, I updated them and fixed a lot of issues causing this.
OneTrust Backend Software Engineer Mar 2022 - Aug 2022
The Market-Defining Leader for Trust Intelligence.
As part of the acquisition, we integrated AppSecTests technology as a 'OneTrust cloud' SaaS. This required learning their ecosystem (Kafka, Azure, Spring, Angular) and delivering within 5 months.
- Refactored our Kotlin APK decompilation and analysis engine runtime to fit into OneTrust's technology ecosystem, using SpringBoot, Kafka, Azure.
- Sped up integration by helping identify the core value of AppSecTest's technology (archiving the rest).
- Proactively looked for different OneTrust offerings our product could integrate with and provide value to.
- Contributed a rough technical design for a OneTrust cloud service model.
- Provided immediate value to the service by developing system to translate results into a 'Google Play Data Safety' document, which users could use to submit their apps for Play Store approval.
AppSecTest Full-Stack Software Engineer Nov 2017 - Mar 2022
Analysing of third-party data collection behaviours.
Analysis of third-party data collection behaviours. One of two developers for 4-5 years in a 5-man startup. We created a Kotlin decompilation static analysis engine, which disassembled & analysed Android apps (APKs) for security, legal and privacy compliance issues.
We successfully made an exit, selling the technology & team to OneTrust.
- As one of the co-developers of the core static analysis engine, it was my responsibility to translate the technical value of the technology into a digestible sales pitch for our business.
- One of the key decision makers driving the direction of the product, transparent communication was key to this.
- Worked on tight deadlines (and budgets). This experience really taught me the impact, cost and value of how I use my time, quick & assertive decision making was often paramount to success.
- Enabled cloud deployments by developing a network I/O layer to the solution, which was a key value to the its success.
- Responsible for showcasing the value of data the product could collect by developing & maintaining the frontend and backend server/services of our webapp sales demo.
- This was used to pitch our technology for our acquisition.
- I stepped up to own this responsibility after our team struggled to get resource for a full-stack developer.
- I started working for the company during my final student year and still achieved a First-Class Honours.
Intel Technical Marketing Engineer Jul 2016 - Aug 2017
A 14-month internship in the Internet of Things (IoT) team.
- Led a project researching & showcasing LoRa(WAN). This involved C firmware for an Intel Quark, which communicated with a RN2483 LoRa device, the research went on to form my dissertation.
- Successfully handed over my role to the successor intern. Managed & trained them for 2 months and was able to teach them a lot in a short space of time. Really enjoyed sharing knowledge like this.
- Given sole responsibility for the IoT RFID demo in Intel's front-door booth at 2017 HPE Discover London
- Developed & maintained fullstack IoT demos & prototypes. Became an internal go-to contact for my team.
- Learnt & developed fullstack IoT solutions: MCUs & SoC's, data science, backend, frontend.
- Educated groups of school children, demonstrated prototypes to academic groups, plugged Intel's solution value-add to business leaders in both the London and Swindon Intel offices.
- Collaborated with teams outside of development (e.g. Marketing), provided better insight for solutions.