Employment History

2005 – 2009

Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council

.NET Web Developer / Project Co-ordinator

Designed, developed, and supported a range of cross-council “Document Exchange” web services between the top seven disparate Research Council back office systems and the online 'Joint Electronic Submission' system (www.je-s.rcuk.ac.uk), which is responsible for processing research grant funding proposals from the 50,000 strong online academic community every year worth over £1billion.

Project Co-ordinator of a number of significant Research Council milestones:-

• 2009 February - electronic Grant Maintenance
• 2008 November - electronic Award Deliverables
• 2007 April - Merging of PPARC and CCLRC into STFC
• 2007 March - electronic Peer Review

Involved in high-level requirements gathering and technical design meetings with the top seven research councils (EPSRC, BBSRC, NERC, ESRC, MRC, AHRC, and STFC), producing “harmonised” technical specifications defining the required XML exchanges.

Introduced a 'smoke-testing' culture and controlled procedures to ensure effective regression testing of new releases. Developed an internal Back Office Simulator (BOS) VB.NET windows app to allow testers to instantly re-create the full library of supported documents after each build.

2004 – 2005

Intro Ireland

.NET Web Developer

Designed and developed an online tourism website prototype incorporating Amazon Web Services.

• Designed and developed ASP.NET front-end.
• Designed and built required back-end Access database structure and dynamic SQL statements.
• Integrated Amazon Web Services search and reporting facility.

2003 – 2004

Decare Detal

ASP Web Developer

Applied change requests and bug fixes to the Washington based mission critical financial intranet system and database using classic ASP and SQL Server (Transact SQL stored procedures).

2002 – 2003

Liberata

.NET Web Developer / Team Leader

Designed and developed a secure financial management intranet to facilitate the payment of care homes in the South London Borough of Bromley.

• Team leader of 5 web developers and principle .NET Architect of the intranet.
• Designed and developed VB.NET classes, ASP.NET Pages and User Controls.
• Designed front-end look and feel, login security and site menu navigation.
• Designed the Sequel Server relational database and structured queries (Transact SQL stored procedures).
• Responsible for WC3 Accessibility compliance (Watchfire Bobby).

2001 – 2002

Faber Music

ASP Web Developer / Project Co-ordinator

Designed and developed an online product catalogue, web-shop, credit-card transaction and order tracking Internet for the Faber Music classical music portfolio.

• Designed and developed a library of classic Active Server Pages (ASP), Structured Queries (SQL) and Javascript validation routines, incorporating secure customer registration, login security, product search facility, shopping basket and order tracking.
• Re-designed existing Access database structures to conform with e-commerce and data protection standards.
• Implemented credit-card transaction authorisation using third-party Secure Socket Layer (SSL) host.
• Introduced automatic Email notification and workflow messaging.
• Directed client and third-party agencies towards a successful launch.

2000 – 2001

Spring Group plc

ASP/VB6 Web Developer / Team Leader

Team leader of 12 programming staff tasked with developing an on-line recruitment registration website offering a share-participation scheme.

• Developed ASP and VB6 code to interrogate and update Sequel Server and DB2 databases using ADO and 'IBM Client Access' ODBC drivers.
• Organised NT staging servers and introduced strict procedures to separate and regulate development, test and live production environments.
• Quality assured all development changes and live system updates.
• Supervised and co-ordinated resident Sequel Server and IBM DB2 database administrators and implemented improvements to database structures and Structured Query Language (SQL) stored procedures. Monitored query and index performance and optimised response times.
• Chaired technical review meetings and consulted in high-level management decisions.
• Supervised go-live process, stress testing and analysed heavy loading behaviour.

1999 – 2000

Wunderman (WCJ)

Database Administrator (DBA) - Microsoft Sequel Server.

Responsible for designing, building and amending relational database structures, SQL Stored Procedures, Triggers and ASP code to satisfy the UNICODE storage, retrieval and update requirements of WCJ's global client's Internet, Extranet and Intranet sites running Microsoft Sequel Server.

• Designed and built complex conceptual and physical relational database models and published detailed database schematic diagrams for the ASP development team.
• Controlled live database revision updates and implemented master-to-slave database replication events across multiple international sites.
• Developed high performance parameter-driven Stored Procedures for the ASP development team.
• Introduced elegant caching mechanism that eliminated response time issues under heavy loading.

1992 – 1996

G&R (UK)

Windows Software Support Engineer

Responsible for pre and post sales customer support of Windows and Java software terminal emulator package Glink, developed by Gallagher & Robertson A/S, Norway.

• Supported over 300 corporations, County Councils, RAF installations and Police Forces in UK and Ireland.
• Post sales product installation, configuration and performance tuning.
• Supervised rollout of software updates and new releases.
• Developed and presented a range of product courses and workshops.
• Developed Visual Basic VB6 applications for customers using Glink Scripting language and Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) involving automatic input and extraction of data between Windows and a variety of proprietary operating systems running on Bull, DEC, UNIX, ICL, HP and IBM kit.
• Developed line-spy programs to analyse and decode proprietary terminal protocols (VIP, ANSI VT and IBM 3270)

1991 – 1992

Alexander Howden

PC Software Engineer

Responsible for design and development of an automated and unattended Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system for the PC to exchange insurance claim related digital documents.

• Integrated five third-party software packages (Clipper, Glink terminal emulation; Interbridge file transfer; ExpEDIte message translation and Bull SCREENWRITE Transaction Processing System).
• Detailed knowledge gained of Electronic Data Interchange For Accounting Commerce and Transport (EDIFACT) and Common Claims Message (CCM) standards.
• Dealings with London Insurance Bureau (Lloyd’s, LIRMA and ILU), London Insurance Market Network (LIMNET), London Insurance Brokers Committee (LIBC) and IBM Information Exchange.

1990 – 1991

Stowe Computing

SCREENWRITE / COBOL Developer

Implemented change requests to Air/Sea Freight Customs Clearance and Forwarding system (INFOTRAC). Gained good appreciation of import/export manifest handling.