Career Profile Summary

 

An experienced technical contractor used to working in a high pressure developing environment.  My skill set has developed to keep up with technologies from a science background using c, c++ and assembly for modelling electromagnetic fields, to client server web services.

 

Key Current Skills / used in last 5 years

 

Skill	competency	Duration commercial use ( years )
JAVA	Good	6
JSP	Good	3
Struts	Good	3
J2ME	Good	½
SQL	Good	12
LINUX  / Solaris	Average	5
Relativity	Good	5
J2EE	Average	3

 

 

Skills used in the last 15 years

 

Fortran, c, c++ , MFC, assembly .

 

Employment

 

MFC Contract Vocab tester

 

For the last ½ year I have been redeveloping a JAVA vocabulary tester for mobile phones. This buids on my extensive Applet programming. The resulting mobile application is a component in a product suite which allows the generation of text book specific vocab lists which can be generated to test between any 2 languages using text, audio and visual displays.

 

A major part of this program has been the development of a database interface which allows SQL records accessed by the PC based version of the program to be stored in a phone based text file which can be accessed by the same SQL commands via a set of java.sql like interfaces. This allows the application to be run either as PC based, applet based or mobile phone based.

 

A major constraint in the development of this application has been the range of mobile phones which have been tageted as potential users for the application , which has require terse coding, restricted API sets and good data compression.

 

 

IT Manager  ( contract )                                                                    July 2002 to January 2008

Turnkey Music, London

 

·         Turnkey music London is the largest single site music retail outlet in England employing 100 people on a single site. The primary specification was to produce an audit of the IT systems both hardware and software, assess the requirements going forwards, evaluate the plans put into place by the IT team and to complete java development on a music samples playback system.  The company at this point was using a COBOL point of sales package with limited reporting facilities and development potential.

 

The IT department was restructured and built up into a 4 man team comprising management and development, desktop management, server and network, web design ( DTP and front end) . I became the overall IT manager and lead developer / architect for all in house developments over the last 4 years.  During this five years I have had a 2 month rolling contract.

 

·         All software development has been on a J2EE business object model with subclasses to instantiate and synchronise to and from COBOL or MYSQL data structures.

·         Set up of MYSQL MIS reporting system with overnight data synchronisation ( JAVA / Relativity ).

 

·         Stock management application for stock item developments particularly driven by internet requirements ( JAVA ). With a remote warehouse and dispatch system , serialised items and a holding stock of hundreds of thousands of pounds, stock management, purchasing and reconciliation is crucial in the running of a large retail business.

 

·         Struts driven internet site ( JAVA / Struts ). 5 years ago the internet site for this company ( www.turnkey.co.uk ) was a few static pages. Now the internet site accounts for 10% turnover on a daily basis and impacts 20% on commercial sales if it is not running. I provided the back end layer for this web site which was built on the stock management system I had already written. We worked with the DTP department for the front end.

 

·         Data synchronisation script interpreter for maintaining internet, live and COBOL datasets.

 

·         Working closely with the managing director of the company to fulfil ad hoc requirements and business analysis. During the last year the company has been sold to a large musical chain. As part of this sales process there were many instances of ad hoc projects which needed to be produced to answer questions from the purchasers.  We have just completed migration of the point of sales information to a group wide system to be managed by the existing group IT department based in Scotland.

 

 

Programmer / Business Analyst ( contract )                                              April 1999 to July 2002

Primus Telecommunications, London

 

·       Primus Telecommunications is a call platform telecommunications company providing both fixed line billing and calling card services. The initial requirement was for a Visual Basic based system to interface with the billing systems to allow the marketing department to define and integrate ad hoc promotions into the billing system.

 

·       Visual basic, SQL Server

 

·       During the course of this contract as my understanding of the telecomm platforms evolved my role changed from that of programmer to working more closely with the business defining new products and taking charge of projects. I was overall project manager for the telecomm platform migrations which had to be complete before the year 2000 to account for potential issues arising from the Y2K bug.

 

Developer  ( payroll )                                                                                               1996 to  1999

Dorset Software Services

 

·         Dorset Software Services is a development house. It employs approximately 50 people both at a central development centre in Poole and provides flexible on site resources in the form of either personnel or outsourcing.

·         Visual basic, SQL Server, Access, C

·         Over time I became responsible for providing in house training courses on evolving internet technologies.

 

Programmer  ( payroll )                                                                                             1994  to 1996

Denne developments Ltd

 

·         Software development for modelling electromagnetic actuators in the motion base ( flight simulator ) industry.

·         Modelling of motion base response and performance to fixed loads.

·         C, C++, Assembly, Mathcad.

·         Visit client sites abroad to perform on the spot diagnostics and repairs of software and hardware.

·         Interface motion bases with Silicon graphics engine for exhibitions.

 

 

Education

 

B.Sc. (Hons first class)  Physics with Opto/electronics                  September 1988 to June 1993

University of Surrey, UK

 

4 year sandwich course. 1 year in Stuttgart Germany at a physics research centre working with semi conductor variable wavelength lasers.

 

A-Level: Maths ( A ) , Physics ( A ), and Music ( C )

 

 

Other activities and achievements

 

Languages      German ( conversational ) , Spanish ( conversational ), Chinese Mandarin ( conversational )

 

Sport               Kung Fu: Approximately every 2 months I teach a seminar around Europe on the system of kung fu which I train in. This year I have taught in London, Madrid, Southampton , Sheffield and Hamburg. The seminars are either by invitation from an association, or ventures which I set up which involves hiring the location, advertising and pricing. I run a small kung fu club.

 

                        Skiing: I have worked in a piste service team in St Anton in Austria which involved handing explosives, escorting troublemakers from the pistes and removing injured skiers

 

Other              Music / Piano:

 

IT                    I maintain an interest in IT outside of the professional arena. My major projects is a J2EE based client server architecture model which I use for my web sites. I have serveral web sites which provide customisable third party content. The main engine for this is a contact networking web site www.jabbalist.com which has evolved into and object driven search engine.

 

Personal Information

 

Sex                              Male

 

Date of Birth                1969

 

Nationality                    British / Austrian

 

 

References are available on request