Code Coach

Coaching Software Developers on how to do great Software Development.

Xero

Senior Developer

Safe365

Chief Technology Officer

Fidelity Life Assurance Company Limited

Practice Lead Developer

Genesis

Through my mentoring activities within the Energy Services innovation development team, I had been identified as a key person to extend mentoring and general upskilling of developers across all of Genesis Energy software development. 

I was offered the role of Practice Lead Developer which I accepted. In this capacity I am mentoring developers across the organisation in agile practices, how to architect software projects and how to to write clean, maintainable code.

>>Responsibilities & Achievements:
* Initiator and driving force to create a more cohesive and effective software development practice at Genesis Energy.
* Establish common values to drive the behaviour for Genesis Energy development.
* Develop principles and strategies consistent with the chosen operating values.
* Educating and mentoring software developers within all of Genesis Energy.
* Experiment with processes to increase productivity and effectiveness of the Energy Services backend team.
* Advising and deciding on technology options.
* Making architectural and design decisions for the Energy Services backend API. 
* Ensuring that the team understood and followed the set out architecture.
* Developing core components. Reusability and ease of use for the feature developers was a central objective.
* Learning React at work and in my own time.

>> Experience gained:
* Building high-performing teams
* Technical Leadership
* Agile Practices
* Systems Thinking & Continuous Improvement
* Mentoring (At Scale)
* Architecture & Design
* Software Craftsmanship
* ReactJS

>> Technical Team Lead for the Distributed Energy project:
* Intense mentoring of developers in how to write simple, maintainable, modular software (Pair programming sessions, Test Driven-Development (TDD) & Refactoring workshops, Daily programming tips, Q & A sessions, Reviewing submitted software designs & code)
* Establish the practice of creating standard procedures for repeatable work. Move processes along the continuum from Bespoke to Barely-Repeatable to Easily-Repeatable to Automated. (Eg. CI/CD)
* Make technology decisions. Tools and frameworks.
* Architect and lead developer for the Ecosystem API (ASP.NET WebApi 2) using TDD/BDD methodology.
* Took on managerial functions (eg. monthly One-On-One meetings with each of the developers)

>> Practice leadership across all software development at Genesis Energy:
* Initiator and driving force to create a more cohesive and effective software development practice at Genesis Energy.
* Establish common values (or virtues) to drive the behaviour for Genesis Energy development.
* Develop principles and strategies consistent with the chosen operating values.
* Educating and mentoring the wider software developers at Genesis Energy.

Development Team Lead

Tailor

Tech Lead

CoachSeek

- Responsible for all aspects of technology within the company.
- Assessed the original MVP prototype product. Found it to be wanting in basic functionality and maintainability. It had been written as a monolithic ASP.NET MVC web application with virtually no automated tests.
- In charge of technical team of one frontend web developer and one mobile developer.
- I redesigned the architecture and we split the system into an API and frontend apps (AngularJS SPA web application and hybrid mobile app).
- I wrote the API in ASP.NET WebApi 2.
- Mentored the junior developer on good programming practices and on how to create modular systems.
- Implemented high degree of automated testing (unit and functional tests) for API. Convinced other developers that automated testing is good idea.  
- Interviewing and hiring off all new developers.
- Involved and contributed to wider company strategy like marketing strategy, feature roadmap, raising capital.

Unleashed Software

- Started at Unleashed as Lead Developer for API.
- Promoted to Architect role in November 2013, setting the technical direction for the entire team of 12 developers.
- We implemented Continuous Integration and have a plan for Continuous Deployment under my leadership.
- Gave presentations on how to create better code to the development team. Also sent out regular emails to the dev team on how to improve our code and product quality.
- Created a plan for the system architecture that puts the focus on the Unleashed API in order to drive the business forward on a high-growth trajectory.
- Pushed for automated testing, unit, functional and integration tests. Unit test coverage has increased from 2% to 39%. We have now got a Quality Assurance team and they are starting to produce automated functional tests.
- Involved in interviewing and hiring off all new developers.
- Created common and reusable code for the project.
- Instrumental in leading cultural change amongst the Development Team and the wider business.
- Heavily involved in decision making process to move off private cloud onto IaaS and then PaaS.

Software Architect

Integration Team Lead

Woosh Wireless

Software Developer

Fuji Xerox

"Most things don't matter much but a few things do matter and they matter a tremendous amount."
- Richard Koch, Author of the '80/20 Principle'

I am a passionate software craftsman and engineer. I love to show developers how to create maintainable, modular software. I've worked in software development for over 25 years. I am very familiar with the pitfalls of our industry. I have experience as developer, architect, analyst, development manager, consultant and CTO. 

Are you a junior developer and you want to get better fast? Join hundreds of developers and sign up to my Daily Programming Tips at codecoach.co.nz. 

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