Consulting / Managing / Architect / Advocate
I have spent the past 3 years in a ‘Services Consultant’ role at IBM and then Informatica. I'm used to leading delivery
and leading technical direction where required whilst getting on with the technical work.
I have experience of managing support and engineering staff both onsite and offshore. Recently this was as a Python and
Integration engineering project, prior to that supporting and advocating for a large big data project on the IBM Cloud
(hadoop) and leading Java engineers for an MDM project which included travel to India.
As part of an IBM labs role I was also an Advocate for IBM software products and engineering on them. I frequently
visited customers to talk about this and spoke at a lot of conferences in many different countries, had articles
published, book mentions. I also helped run open source projects on behalf of IBM.
Software Engineering
My true love, this isn't work. I've been writing code since I was 10 in some shape or form. I've been a professional
software engineer, self taught, for 27 years in lots of languages and on lots of platforms. I can (and love to)
learn new ones.
These day's I am more of a consultant where I do lots of different things and specialise for a few months at a time
then switch to something completely different. I guess that's my skill being able to do that.
I do however have the experience to know how to switch, how to get red hot again at that discipline and therefore how
to research and do it right. I especially get very good at different discipline's again very quickly by just doing
real work.
Pipelines
I'm used to working with Git and previously Clearcase. I also have experience of working with Jenkins for CI/CD and AWS CodeStar.
Python
The most recent of my experience. I spent most of 2019 designing and coding a Python 3 framework on RHEL Linux
platform to perform data integration and automation functions across systems at a large Bank. I designed the Git
processes and with others setup the pipeline through production using Jenkins. I like Python its pretty easy, it
gets the job done quickly, there are many useful libraries to help you make short work of requirements and you can
pull in software engineers from other languages and with leadership will pick it up quickly.
Java
I was a software engineer (Advisory, the step between engineer and senior/lead) within IBM labs for 11 years. For
most of those years I wrote Java, as well as other langauges.
I have written Java for IBM software products, Servlets, Cloud based administration consoles, WebSphere based
extensions for an MDM product, designed and built a gatekeeper for code updates into the cloud (allowing updates for
bug fixes or releases to be turned on/off at will). I've not written Java full time for a couple of years now, aside
from pet projects, so I am rusty, but eager to get back on the wagon.
Javascript
Before there were frameworks (ie Angular, Dojo, JQuery etc) I was building frameworks. I've used Node.js, React,
Dojo, and JQuery (a little). I've built cool desktop client's for customers using Electron to perform actions
against applications that provide REST API's.
Serverless - Lambda
I have written serverless Lambda functions on AWS including CD/CI deployment. I am extending this serverless knowledge to include running on Kubernetes platforms. Cloud agnostic Serverless based development I believe is a key future strategy.
Web
Most of my software engineering has been around web servers. Whether that be Apache http or tomcat, IBM Lotus HCL
(Take your pick) Notes and Domino. Web applications are my thing and I undestand how to put together/engineer
solutions for frontend and backend, deal with authentication, security, accessibility, bidi, integration with
database's (most). I'm no visual designer but i'm still an ace at html and css. I can steal your standard and apply
it to an application.
Notes and Domino (Lotus IBM HCL)
The bulk of my early career was based on this product. Writing client or web applications. Engineer on the product
itself (IBM Labs Littleton and Westford). Doing Advocacy, speaking at conferences, articles etc. I was one the first
engineering on XPages (JSF), I wrote code that is used by probably hundred of thousands of people in their email
clients, calendar, bookmarks, websites, social websites. I wrote blog software that was acquisitioned by IBM and
included in their products. Lotusscript, Java, Web expert. Won a global IBM award years before working for them for
an eCommerce site (one of the first insurance quotation sites to hit the internet - that's how old I feel).
Salesforce
Salesforce is an area of interest to me as it reuses a lot of knowledge from my "collaborative" computing experience
with Notes and Domino. Certainly the low code side is a lift, improve, put in a browser from the heady days of
citizen development with Notes and Domino.
It brings together the best of all worlds of business process improvement and standardisation, low code but equally
pro code when needed, in the cloud and most importantly everything your business will need in one place.
You can view my Salesforce qualification progress here on Trailhead.
Data Engineering
I am used to designing, using, performing ETL across many different data structures and backends. I have installed and
used platforms to handle data which includes products from Informatica, IBM and open source platforms such as Hadoop (including Cloudera, Databricks, Big Data Management).
As part of software engineering projects, integration requirements, consultancy etc I have done a lot of work with
Databases and SQL. I'm no master DBA but have worked on creating data models, schemas, databases, tables, views, reports
on DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite, HBase and nosql. I can write SQL as required and understand how to use
within code or applying direct for maintenance purposes. Deeper, more complex SQL queries you will catch me on Google
learning and finding out the best query to use for that requirement.
Cloud
I spent many years working for IBM SmartCloud. This involved writing software for and supporting cloud-based software.
I also spent time managing the support of and advocating for a huge start-up that operated in the IBM cloud using Hadoop
and DB2.
More recently I have been working with and learning AWS and Azure and understand/use EC2, S3, Amplify, Beanstalk, cloud
native application development and deploying environments and software in those clouds (including Hadoop based
environments and serverless applications).
I am currently studying for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.
eDiscovery
Part of my Consultancy role at IBM was around a product StoredIQ (eDiscovery). I installed and configured this product (linux containerised appliance) at various organisations and then designed data capture and analysis (regex mainly) using the product in order to assess the data landscape for GDPR purposes, data retention, mergers and aquisitions data discovery.
In addition to StoredIQ I also worked extensively with a product StoredIQ For Legal (they do connect but otherwise are completely different). I can install, configure, develop on and integrate this product in the enterprise. I can therefore write BPMN as a workflow developer and know the consult and data model required to use this product as a Legal Hold management system.
Data Governance
As well as GDPR projects using StoredIQ, I have also worked on Master Data Management (MDM) projects as part of a data governance strategy. I can install and configure IBM Websphere and Information Server together with MDM components. I can also consult on the data strategy and write extensions to the main product in Java. As an extension to this I can also work with IBM MQ and IBM BPM and setup the DB2 or Oracle databases.
I have also worked on metadata catalog projects, curating a master catalog of metadata and data resources across the enterprise to provide insight into where data is, what type, what is the quality and what does the lineage look like.
Other stuff
As part of enterprise projects I have worked on I am experienced in Linux, SSO, email, Databases - Oracle, DB2, SQlite, MySQL, SQL Server, NoSQL, PostGreSQL (i'm no DBA but I know what I need to get by), networking both at a TCP level and the actual cabling, server hardware building, Microsoft Exchange
