QA Automation Specialist at MessageLabs and Director of Birmingham Perl Mongers Limited
Birmingham, United Kingdom
- Current
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- Director at Birmingham Perl Mongers Limited
- Author at CPAN
- QA Automation Specialist at MessageLabs
- Past
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- Professional Lighting Engineer (Self-employed)
- Head of Intranet Development at QIIS
- Senior Developer/Team Leader at tw2
- Senior Developer at AAH Meditel
- Senior Developer at JPM International Ltd
- Software Developer at GEC Telecommunications Ltd
- Education
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- Coventry University
- Crewe County Grammar School
- Connections
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220
connections
- Industry
- Computer Software
- Websites
Barbie * (realname withheld)’s Summary
* Systems Designer
* Perl Developer
* Accessibility for the web
* Building Open Source Communities
* Organiser of YAPC::Europe::2006 Perl conference
* Organise social and technical meetings for Birmingham Perl Mongers
* Offer my speaking services to other Perl and Linux user groups
Barbie * (realname withheld)’s Specialties:
CPAN Author, Founder and current Leader of Birmingham Perl Mongers, presented technical talks to local Perl and Linux user groups, and have spoken at several international grassroots conferences about Perl, Open Source, testing and community building.
Background is as a C programmer, but quickly developed systems designer skills. Since 1999 switched to using Perl for sysadmin tools, web applications and backend applications.
Barbie * (realname withheld)’s Experience
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Director
Birmingham Perl Mongers Limited
(Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)
February 2006 — Present (2 years 7 months)
Birmingham Perl Mongers are a group for Perl programmers to meet and learn about the programming language Perl. We hold social and technical meetings each month, and hosted the 7th annual YAPC::Europe Perl Conference in Birmingham in August 2006. Further information can be found on the website: http://birmingham.pm.org
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Author
CPAN
(Non-Profit; 1001-5000 employees; Computer Software industry)
July 2003 — Present (5 years 2 months)
My contributions to the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network are free software available under the Artistic License or the GPL. Together with over 3,000 other authors, the CPAN is one of the biggest code repositories in the world.
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QA Automation Specialist
MessageLabs
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Computer Software industry)
March 2003 — Present (5 years 6 months)
Joined ML as a Senior Software Engineer, using Perl to help maintain and develop infrastructure software. This developed into a Technical Architect role, followed by a promotion to Development Manager for Infrastructure, responsible for both the infrastructure and mail engine teams.
During 2005 I became Development Manager for New Services, responsible for the Content Control, Image Control, Boundary & User Encryption, Archiving and Recovery solutions. My role encompassed people management, peer reviewing designs and code, ensuring development test suites were created for all software releases, together with mentoring new team members were appropriate.
In June 2006, I took over the role of CPR Manager, which entailed managing critical problems in the live production environment, across the company's global infrastructure, requiring out-of-hours on call responsibilities, providing coding support and technical analysis skills to manage critical issues to their timely completion. -
Professional Lighting Engineer
Self-employed
(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Entertainment industry)
August 1984 — December 2004 (20 years 5 months)
From 1984 to 1992 worked with several small bands, most notably IQ and Ark, with whom I travelled around the UK and Europe, working as a general roadie, lighting engineer, stage manager and driver.
From August 1992 turned professional lighting engineer working as inhouse or hired hand for several Birmingham music venues, including The Foundary, The Adrian Boult Hall, The Town Hall and The Irish Centre. Worked on the crew for several well know acts including Debbie Harry, Gary Numan, Take That among many many others.
From September 1996 to December 2004 work almost exclusively as lighting engineer and crew chief for Birmingham Jazz, for their concerts in a variety of Birmingham venues including The Midlands Arts Centre, The Custard Factory, The Adrian Boult Hall and The CBSO Centre.
Since January 2005 now work part time as concert advisor and lighting engineer for the roots 'n' blues folk band Slim Pickins. -
Head of Intranet Development
QIIS
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)
March 2001 — December 2002 (1 year 10 months)
Responsible for designing and developing the intranet system that is still used by LEAs across the UK. Company folded and some staff took on the further development of the software as i2Q.
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Senior Developer/Team Leader
tw2
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)
September 1999 — February 2001 (1 year 6 months)
Responsible for the design and development of websites for The Register, Gartmore among many others. Responsible for a team of 4-6, extended to include graphic and layout designers as and when required.
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Senior Developer
AAH Meditel
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)
March 1998 — September 1999 (1 year 7 months)
Responsible for the further development of the System 5 practice manager software, used in over 1000 General Practice Surgeries in the UK. Instigated and managed the Y2K evaluation of all software produced by the company.
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Senior Developer
JPM International Ltd
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Computer Software industry)
August 1996 — March 1998 (1 year 8 months)
Developer of "fruit machines". Worked on AWP, SWP, Bingo and Club machines. A senior C programmer, writing embeded software to power the games, animation, reels and event handling.
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Software Developer
GEC Telecommunications Ltd
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Telecommunications industry)
August 1987 — August 1992 (5 years 1 month)
Aided the design and development of the code that was used to design System X telephone exchanges. Responsible for the Dimensioning software and the several screen editors which enabled the engineers to create the plans and parts lists in order to build the physical exchange.
Barbie * (realname withheld)’s Education
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Coventry University
HND Computer Science, Computer Science, 1985 — 1987
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Crewe County Grammar School
O Level, 1977 — 1982
Additional Information
Barbie * (realname withheld)’s Websites:
Barbie * (realname withheld)’s Interests:
Perl, Linux, free software, open source software, music, website design, accessibility, community, conference speaking.
Barbie * (realname withheld)’s Groups:
Birmingham Perl Mongers,
London Perl Mongers,
Wolves Linux User Group,
Gloucester Linux User Group,
Malvern Linux User Group,
Birmingham Linux User Group,, Belfast Perl Mongers, Perl Mongers
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Perl Mongers -
CPAN Developers -
YAPC::NA 2008 - Chicago, IL -
Advanced Perl Users (JAPH)
Barbie * (realname withheld)’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
