C# Developer

As well as leading the entire development team, I was solely responsible for the architecture and the majority of the development on the core product. TestDrive is an entirely script-less automated testing solution that enables non-programmers to harness the advantages of automated testing.

TestDrive allows automated testing to be performed across many different technologies including native C++ and Visual Basic applications, managed .NET applications, Delphi, SAP, Lotus Notes, Flex, IBM 5250 emulator sessions as well as websites in both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

This type of development requires large amounts of R&D and a comprehensive low-level understanding of how applications run on the Windows operating system. Almost single handedly, I have produced a solution that has allowed Original Software to become a competitor to companies like Microsoft, HP, IBM and Micro Focus and be recognized in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

Whilst at Original Software, I identified a new and untapped market that could make use of the R&D I had performed. Working with the intellectual property owner, we developed an entirely new product for the support and help-desk markets under a new brand.

TrackPath continuously tracks all user activity on any PC running a modern Microsoft operating system so that a full user friendly audit trail is instantly available in the event of operating system or application problems. This makes TrackPath the perfect solution for large user communities supported by a central help desk. The help desk operators are no longer reliant on the ability of a user to recall the steps that led to their problem as the user can send a fully documented audit trail with two mouse clicks.

I joined Tessella after completing my physics degree and worked my way up the hierarchy. I worked on a variety of projects that required software written to specific standards such as ISO9001 and FDA 21 CFR Part 11 for use in medical and scientific industries.

During my bachelor of science degree at the University of Reading, I wrote a piece of software to replace some old experimental hardware for studying the Fourier Series. The software allowed students to see the effects of varying the parameters with real-time graphs.

A good architecture is possibly the most important feature a large piece of software can have. My experience in the industry has taught me that there is no approach that suits all problems and failing to producing an architecture that is appropriate to each scenario is where many fail.

With the correct architecture in place, new developers can get up-to-speed quickly and become productive in a shorter time scale. Maintenance is also significantly easier if you are not fighting an architecture that is creaking at the seams.

I have led a small but very experienced and technically capable development team for over 8 years. The team has varied in size between 4 and 6 developers and we pride ourselves on the size and quality of the collection of software products we produce and maintain. As a team, we compete with software solutions from other providers that have hundreds of developers working on the competing software.

The team I lead is pushed very hard to often produce results they do not think they are capable of. A combination of building the right team, empowering each individual to develop as an individual and acknowledging their desire to progress their career makes a very effective and efficient development team.

I have 16 years’ experience writing innovative applications on Windows operating systems. For the last 10 years this has been predominately in C# with WinForms and C++.

My speciality is in looking to solve challenges that other developers deem to be impossible. My low-level knowledge of the Windows operating system allows me to stretch the limits of the technology and achieve results that bring unique selling points to the software that competitors struggle to match.

I enjoy making slick and responsive user interfaces that users find easy to use. A well designed user interface can transform complicated software from what could easily become shelf-ware into software people actually want to use.

Much of the desktop software I’ve written requires a connection to a database for data storage. Although this is like the majority of corporate software, my skills exceed those of most developers when it comes to interrogating the inner workings of the databases. Part of a complete automated testing tools is the ability for that tool to capture all changes the application under test makes to the database. The ability to analyse inside these databases and extract this type of information requires a very deep and low level understanding of how each database platform works.

SQL Server
Extensive experience of third party libraries that enable software to interrogate the internals of SQL Server.

Oracle
In depth knowledge of the LogMiner within Oracle and how to automatically parse and extract relevant information.

IBM DB2
Experience working with System I developers to coordinate how to obtain and understand low-level system information and present it in a Windows desktop application.