Introduction

I am a confident web & software developer with over 12 years experience especially with my key platforms such as Shopify - which I have put an emphasis on during the length of my career.

I have then worked heavily in the past years in the Corporate sector working for startups enabling them to create new flagship products using my new found love for Technical Architecture, I was able to be Lead Techncial Architect for the MVP stage of a new product in my last contract.

I enjoy implementing complex & automated solutions that help other departments to work smarter rather than harder - one of our current employer values we focus on is ‘finding solutions rather than problems’.

Shopify being my forte, I have many years experience with implementing themes, fully bespoke apps for things such as inventory management, automated flows and marketing/personalisation.

I also have experience with a large variety of other platforms/CMS/e-commerce platforms such as Wordpress, Webvanta and Concrete5 that I can expand on these during the interview process if they are required skills.

I am now currently freelancing with Wordpress & Shopify & PHP projects while I look for new employment so I am currently available for interviews & job specs please send them my way! I look forward to hearing from anyone who thinks they may have a role that I could fit. I am taking a course in DevOps so I should be able to look for jobs in this sector as DevOps sysadmin and automation is a new field I am looking at as well as returning to Shopify field.

I will consider part time, full time or contract employment options but they have to be fully remote due to my physical disability limiting my mobility severely.

I do have a bit of an unorthodox personality, but I think that actually helps when it comes to my ability to solve problems and I have been consistently working on my personal development for 5 years now and have seen much improvement, though I may need to stop being the class joker as often!

I am disabled with a condition that keeps me mostly housebound unless its to go GP, Hospital or something similar, there is no special requirements from an employer’s point of view as long as the job agreed is 100% remote as although I may be able to make some meetups, I don’t want to guarantee and then not be able to deliver.

My passion for computers started around the age of 11 and I have been obsessed and learning all I can since, so I hope I can find the right employer that is a stable environment for me to solve problems and enable a team to help them to solve problems as well. I worked with my previous team mentoring them on certain programming & advanced JavaScript/Vue.js techniques and in general too when required.

I like the team to be involved in technical decisions or at least discuss them openly and be able to push their own ideas into play. I believe everybody in a team has something to contribute and I believe strongly in the Agile methodology and running SCRUM sprint style development with iterations and tools such as Git Flow to enhance workflow speed and collaboration.

I have done a variety of projects over the years and I am considered language or job agnostic, having trained people in Leadership, Shopify, Software Architecture, Product Ownership, Project Management, Software Development in all areass, Automaiton and Process Creation and Enforcement, Consistency being key etc, I feel confident once I have found my feet in most roles.

I have been previously used & called the firefighter as I was almost weekly at previous roles for years been bought in to tackle a problem no other available engineer could solve usually on products or stores I had no knowledhghe of, and I wouild be bought in to fix the issue in any stack and any setup at any cost and attack the problem until it is finished and then post-mortem it for them to improve ongoing development and stop those holes from appearing.

Experience

Transreport

Feburary 2022 - December 2023
Lead Web Developer (2021) - Lead Technical Architect (2022 - 2023)
Task:

I began as a Lead Frontend Developer running and mentoring a small team revamping some legacy and badly written Vue.js with Nuxt.js framework and implementing Tailwind and updatig npm packages where required etc. After only a few months of this, I was approached by the CEO to work on the exciting new flagship project of the company (under NDA) so I suddenly got my dream position of Lead Technical Architect, with a contract to spend most of the next two years designing how to plan and then planning and executing the MVP of the project for the companies waiting on MVP delivery which began in Asia. When approached to take on this task, I made the company senior management it was already one year late to make the MVP in time, the MVP scope was eventually changed and it was delivered in the best way it could be. I would not of acheieved this withoiut such a dedicated & solid team from the TA secondaries down to the RoR developers working on the core.

Description:

During this my responsibilities were very high and I had teams for Mobile (iOS & Android), DevOps, Frontend, Backend Core (RoR & other technologies), DevOps (Docker, Terraform, AWS, Kubernetes), QA etc to rely on for creation of this MVP and the related architecture we designed previous using Simon Brown's C4 Model modified for our own use (dropping diagramming level 4, learning from mistakes). I helped to develop the SCRUM and development of CI/CD processes, I used ADRs and LRMs alongside Agile and even training Product Owners on the newer style of software creation. I found it the best time of my development career, unfortunately due to my health I believe I had my contract not renewed due to balancing numbers and the fact I work from home mostly as I am quite housebound (90% of the time) I picked a 12 person architecture team to lead the departments and be Tech Leads creating the technical tickets based on a complicated Jira setup with PMO and other departments, we managed to then run the MVP developmemt with rapid speed and deliver as much as we could despite setbacks (NDA again). I picked two Secondary architects and started to train them on how we were going to architect and plan what was a multi million global transportation software product. They constantly were allowed with all of the 12 total architecture team to take part in estimation planned processes, to ticket creation and mentoring their own teams, they were all allowed to bring up justiication for changijng or modifying any decision made by myself & my two secondaries, they kept a keen eye on the plan and development of the MVP and helped create huge processes to aid the team and we met online once a week as a small TA only call but we also were in constant contact.

Tools:
Management Technical Software Architecture Ruby on Rails PostgreSQL Nuxt.js Vue Tailwind Git Kubernetes Jira Terraform
DSL (Simon Brown Struturizr) Docker Mentoring
System Integrations & Support C4 Model with Structurizr

Vivo Life LTD

August 2019 - November 2021
Lead Developer
Task:
I was bought in again to help develop the first in-house development team using my knowledge of Shopify & ability to quickly solve problems.
Description:

My responsibilities include the day to day running of the team itself trying to adhere to Agile/SCRUM practices where we can while we implement it on a higher level in the business. I mentor the other developers on their Liquid & JavaScript skills and general help with communication with 3rd parties and the like.

The team is then also run by the Product Owner/Project Manager who handles more of the administration & business process side - it works well.

I also was their very first in-house developer so I spent the last 2 years fixing everything for everyone, even hopping down to the factory if the label printer was throwing a wobbly! Luckily now I have a full team at my disposal that I got to pick, it makes life a lot easier.

I also regularly communicate & work with other departments in the company to firefight any issues or to work on improving their own internal processes if we can using automation or some sort of service.

Tools:
Shopify Liquid Vue Tailwind Docker Vagrant AWS
DevOps Tools e.g. Docker, Kubernetes
SysAdmin of Microsoft, MacOS and lots of flavours of Linux systems Git Git Flow Bitbucket Servers General IT Support System Integrations & Support

InspiraDigital

2010 - 2016
Lead Developer
Task:

After just 1 week of work experience, while starting my university course one year early due to being awarded an automatic A* on my current course due to the teachers not being able to understand what I was going on about half the time. So at 19 I started at InspiraDigital and worked for them both freelance & employed for many years. They are a dedicated Shopify expert agency and that gave me the experience I have with the platform today. I managed to help the fledgling agency to the starting business it turned out to be, working on all technical aspects of the business not just Shopify but mucking in wherever needed as I have a big emphasis on the team I am a part of in any position and try to carry out as much as I reasonably can if it will helps. This job also taught me a lot about the industry especially Shopify business side which means I can also advise brands on tactics related to the platform as well.

Description:

My responsibilities include the day to day running of the team itself trying to adhere to Agile/SCRUM practices where we can while we implement it on a higher level in the business. I mentor the other developers on their JavaScript skills and general help with communication with 3rd parties and the like.

Tools:
Shopify Liquid Vue Tailwind Git Git Flow Bitbucket Servers General IT Support System Integrations & Support

Myself

2008 - Present
Freelance Developer & Shopify consultancy
Task:

I have been working on/off with clients all over the world including being the CTO of an African charity, supporting small & local Shopify business all the way to advising larger brands on their Shopify technical strategy.

I have even created fully bespoke Node.js apps that happily serve a steady amount of users and don't seem to have any big issues or firefighting needed yet, seeing as it launched early 2020 I'd call that a good project, Nuxt.js framework was great too to help me develop using Vue quickly.

Tools:
Shopify Wordpress WooCommerce Windows, Linux, Unix system admin or troubleshooting Networking Security Mobile Other CMS or SaaS web systems Multiple programming languages

Always Keep Learning

I'd like to expand my skills and knowledge in several fields as always

  • Shopify 2.0 new improvements e.g. Hydration through Server Side React, Markets, Checkout Extensions etc.
  • Automated DevOps & AWS / DevOps in general
  • Vite
  • TypeScript
  • More Unit Testing in development processt
  • Adopting SOLID principles for OO programming
  • Prototyping and Wireframing, e.g. with Figma, Adobe XD
  • Agile/SCRUM and other methodologies for software development & team management.
  • Headless Shopify - The future!
  • Advanced JavaScript knowledge to further my expertise in my favourite language.
  • Learning more languages such as Go, More paradigms and to constantly keep up with software tech!