
Experienced developer, architect and technical manager
London, United Kingdom

Experienced developer, architect and technical manager
London, United Kingdom
* Developer, architect and technical manager with 10 years experience in web development.
* Strong web development knowledge with several years specialising in client side technologies.
* Experience developing code for very high traffic sites including the Yahoo! home page.
* Management of development teams of up to 10 developers.
* Voted Yahoo! European Manager of the Quarter (Q1 – 2007).
* Helped to build a world class web development team at Yahoo! - extensive experience in recruiting client side web developers for my teams and others at Yahoo!
* Experience of working with agile processes.
* Management of technical teams.
* (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
* Frontend performance, web application security.
* PHP, Python, MySql, Web Standards, Accessibility, SEO.
* Version control - CVS, SVN and Bazaar.
* Good UNIX skills.
* Automated testing with PHPUnit and Selenium RC.
* symfony, Drupal.
* Familiarity with Django.
* Prior work experience with Perl, TCL, ASP and Sql Server as well as other proprietary technologies.
(Public Company; TWX; Publishing industry)
March 2009 — Present (9 months)
Management of a web development team. Responsible for the company's woman and home interest web sites which include Marie Claire, housetohome and Woman & Home.
(Privately Held; Broadcast Media industry)
April 2008 — January 2009 (10 months)
Management of web development team responsible for building in house CMS (utilising Django and Python) and technical ownership of nearly 50 radio station web sites including Capital Radio, Heart, Galaxy, LBC and social business listings site - We Love Local.
Some hands on coding to support on going promotions and to fix critical bugs on We Love Local (a site built using a custom framework, PHP and MySql).
The first Django powered web site built under my management was Capital Radio (www.capitalradio.co.uk) which launched in August.
(Public Company; YHOO; Internet industry)
December 2007 — April 2008 (5 months)
Manager for the Web Architecture team at Yahoo! Europe which was responsible for setting and promoting best practices in frontend development. Areas of involvement included providing advise on internationalisation issues, input into the development of new web site frameworks, coordinated efforts to standardise site layouts (HTML/CSS layout grids) and specification and development of a browser nag bar aimed at encouraging Yahoo! users to keep their web browser up to date.
Member of Yahoo!s global frontend development management team which co-ordinated efforts between web developers in every region Yahoo! operates.
Member of Yahoo!'s Paranoid (security) team where I provided input and advise on frontend security issues such as XSS and CSRF.
Member of Yahoo!'s Exceptional Performance team. Primary focus was on frontend performance issues but also lead wider performance initiatives in Europe.
(Public Company; YHOO; Internet industry)
August 2006 — December 2007 (1 year 5 months)
Manager for the Shopping, Travel and Cars web development team at Kelkoo and Yahoo! Europe. We launched a new version of the Kelkoo, Europe's biggest shopping comparison site (www.kelkoo.co.uk). This represented the first significant change to the site in more than 5 years and made huge steps forward in terms of usability, accessibility and SEO effectiveness. The use of modern web standards was an important aspect of this relaunch. The site is now one of the largest publishers of Microformats.
Member of Yahoo!s global frontend development management team which co-ordinated efforts between web developers in every region Yahoo! operates.
Member of Yahoo!'s Paranoid (security) team where I provided input and advise on frontend security issues such as XSS and CSRF.
Member of Yahoo!'s Exceptional Performance team. Primary focus was on frontend performance issues but also lead wider performance initiatives in Europe.
(Public Company; YHOO; Internet industry)
June 2005 — August 2006 (1 year 3 months)
Developer for the Yahoo! front pages in Europe (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) where I worked on two iterations of the front page. This included developing and launching the latest version. Whilst in the role:
* Built a content management system for updating editorial content modules.
* Devised and wrote a user targeting system for key module on the Yahoo! home page that had to run efficiently in extremely high traffic situations without adding significant load to web servers. System increased engagement in that module by about one third.
* Met tight time scales for delivery of front page in Europe and worked extensively with the US front page team contributing code to the Yahoo! US front page - probably the single busiest web page in the world. Provided advise on internationalisation issues that would limit the ability for the home page to be localised.
* Helped deploy the core code to many other regions in which Yahoo! operates throughout the world.
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)
March 2004 — June 2005 (1 year 4 months)
Developed and maintained the company's web sites and online ordering forms for their broadband and hosting services. I was also actively involved in product specification and marketing activities and helped to launch VOIP and carrier pre-select phone services.
(Internet industry)
March 2003 — March 2004 (1 year 1 month)
Worked on a prototype for a new version of the company's customer web hosting control panel interface. This interface communicated with back-end systems via a structured XML-RPC interface.
Additionally I provided information architecture related advice to other developers within the team.
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
June 2002 — February 2003 (9 months)
Developed a number of e-commerce sites for this web design agency using a range of technologies. I also met clients to discuss their requirements both at the start of projects and throughout the development life cycle.
(Internet industry)
November 2000 — April 2002 (1 year 6 months)
Developed and maintained a financial web site which provided access to research reports, stock market quotes, interactive charting and virtual portfolio management tools. The site provided member subscription services and a pay-per-report shopping basket system.
Additionally I was responsible for the set up and maintenance of web and database servers in a hosting facility in the London Docklands area.
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Internet industry)
June 1999 — November 2000 (1 year 6 months)
Developed financial web sites for banks and other large financial institutions including Deutsche Bank and Citibank. The sites incorporated stock quotes, interactive charting, virtual portfolio management and other related tools. I spent my first 3 months of employment at the company working from their German headquarters in Frankfurt.
HND , Computing , 1998 — 1999
Programming languages covered during this HND included Pascal and C++.
Running, Tennis
2007 - Yahoo! Odyssey Award (Q2)
2007 - Yahoo! European Manager of the Quarter (Q1)
2005 - MySql Core Certification
2004 - Zend PHP Certified Engineer