The .NET Core Podcast

I produce, record, and host two podcasts (and co-host a third) covering several topics. This requires me to plan topics, schedule time to record them, arrange for interviews and guests, and produce and maintain several web applications for them.

The .NET Core podcast (https://dotnetcore.show) covers a wide range of topics related to the "core" technologies, interview prominent community members and reached an engaged audience in the tens of thousands - see https://dotnetcore.show/press-kit/ for the latest audience statistics.

Tabs & Spaces is a podcast which presents a "pub chat"-like conversation. The three hosts (Zac Braddy, James Studdart, and myself) talk about the aspects of software development that aren't as technology-specific. Previous topics have been: interviewing, office politics, the lies that we tell to ourselves and others, whether you should learn the latest technologies, etc.

The Waffling Taylors podcast is a podcast about video gaming, the industry around it, and some of the developers who are changing how we experience video games (and related entertainment) daily. It has been a long-held belief for mine that video game development can be one of the most challenging arenas for developers to work in, and my interviews for this show prove it as they get to the details of what it is like to be a games developer in the 21st century.

Producer and Host

Williams F1

I was engaged by Williams Racing to work solo on a project which had encountered a number of serious challenges in relation to both code quality and release cadence. The code base for this project was first written almost half a decade prior to my working on it, and had no test coverage; this meant that the long change history was done with almost no assurance that changes wouldn't cause regressions or failures in other areas.

At the start of my time working alongside Williams Racing, I was tasked with getting to grips with the code base - one that very few engineers in the business knew much about. I spent some time documenting how the code worked, adding integration tests for known good inputs and expected outputs, and adding metrics and logging to the project. The metrics and logging were almost as important as the tests and documentation, as there was almost no visibility into which areas of the code base were being used.

"Code which isn't exercised should be exorcised." - Chris Zimmerman of Sucker Punch.

.NET Development Expert

Servita

I was engaged by Servita to augment their existing team on a project which had encountered a number of serious challenges in relation to both code-quality and release cadence. The code base for this project was purchased from a previous supplier, and required reviewing and getting into a running state before any other work could be completed.

At the start of my time working alongside Servita on this project, the code base was not in a running state, and I was the only engineer on the project. I was required to get to grips with a large, complex code base (around 50,000 lines), provide a review of the quality, and get it in a running state within days - which I achieved.

After getting the code base in a running state, my aim was to build a stable DevOps pipeline for the project. This would allow for greatly increase velocity for delivering new features as they were added.

I was also tasked with double-checking the quality of the code that other engineers were providing. This required careful, considerate communication with the other engineers, providing constructive feedback as I went.

Consultant

Packt publishing

I was one of the technical reviewers for Modern Distributed Tracing in .NET, a book which focusses on Open Telemetry and modern .NET, published by Packt.

My work as a technical reviewer has required me to read through chapters of each book and provide feedback on:

- Clarity of the topic being discussed
- Correctness of code samples
- Correctness of technical points raised
- What the reader will learn
- Whether there are points which are not covered in the text

This is a demanding, yet very rewarding position to be in. It requires my communications skills to be at their best, and for me to focus on the correctness and clarity of the technical content.

Although there was one other technical reviewer, I was in charge of reviewing the content in chapters 7 through to 15 - the second half of the book.

Technical Reviewership

I was one of the technical reviewers for the book "Event-driven Microservices Architecture in .NET 7", published by Packt.

My work as a technical reviewer has required me to read through chapters of each book and provide feedback on:

- Clarity of the topic being discussed
- Correctness of code samples
- Correctness of technical points raised
- What the reader will learn
- Whether there are points which are not covered in the text

This is a demanding, yet very rewarding position to be in. It requires my communications skills to be at their best, and for me to focus on the correctness and clarity of the technical content.

Although there was one other technical reviewer, I was in charge of reviewing the content in chapters 5 through to 13 - the majority of the middle of the book.

Odondo

I was engaged by Odondo to join a small team of contractors whose focus was on building onto and maintaining an agency-built Python and React-based application suite.

The application suite required some new features to be added before an in-house team could take over its development and maintenance. This required me to build out several new Web API features (using Python), work with Postgres databases, and build out React-based components (using Atomic design patterns).

The additions to and maintainance of the code base that I worked on where built entirely using Domain-driven Design (requiring a deep understanding on the domain problem that each feature would solve), and Test-driven Development. This ensured that the features I shipped could be relied upon when it was released into the wild.

Logtrade

LogTrade engaged my services to aid in building and maintaining their Internet of Logistics project as I have a proven background in shipping .NET-based solutions and my ability to quickly get a detailed understanding of a project.

I was tasked with the following goals:

- Replace an inefficiently implemented API test framework, written in Python using Robot Framework
- Build an MVP product which would allow their IoL system to create and manage smart contracts, using the latest in .NET technologies
 -Implement an entirely new React application which would be added to an existing suite of React applications

I also consulted on the start of a project which would use GraphQL to allow their clients and customers to utilise their APIs with much more ease. During my time working alongside LogTrade, it was decided that the GraphQL project would be temporarily shelved.

Disruptive Global Logistics Project

SAGE

SAGE Publishing engaged me on a contract to build an MVP for a data-mining application for their entire corpus of published literature.

The project consisted of working alongside a React developer and a data scientist to build a WebAPI project (using .NET Core 3.0). This Web API was hosted within a multi-application docker compose based application network with both the React application and a Python execution engine.

Working with the React developer, we created a system which allowed the user to drag and drop components which represented data science operations to build up a script to run on a sub-set of the SAGE Publising literary corpora.

Disruptive Social Sciences Project

Full stack development in a range of technologies

Tech Lead, Full Stack Engineer

Fiinu Limited

As a Senior DevOps and Cloud Engineer at a pioneering fintech start-up bank, I functioned as a self-employed consultant, joining the company during its mobilisation phase to construct the production environment. I successfully created a multi-tier cloud environment leveraging Account Factory and Landing Zones, laying the foundation for the company's unique fintech solutions. I built a robust infrastructure to support the mobile app, utilising AWS, Terraform, and Jenkins to fully automate processes, resulting in improved operational efficiency and scalability.

Senior DevOps and Cloud engineer

DevOps and Cloud Consultant

Java Services

Applause

- Developing new product features for the high-volume single page application applying knowledge of Java 11, Node.js and Angular.
- Improved web application performance and UX with migrating 90% of the codebase from Angular.js to Angular 11 and leveraging its optimization potential.
- Reduced web application tech debt by moving deprecated midtier backend calls to dedicated app BFF and upgrading codebase to Typescript.
- Optimized web development lifecycle by migrating two web applications from their own repositories to central web-app monorepo.
- Increased chat application unit test coverage from 21% to 78%.
- Moved platform application queue traffic from AWS SQS to RabbitMQ resulting over 30% cost reduction spent on external queue service.

Full Stack Developer

EY GDS

- Developing new and customization of the existing features for the multi purpose web application using Java and Angular 7. Focused on document automation module.
- Improved developer and end user experience migrating UI from Thymeleaf to Angular.
- Integrating with third-party services and external APIs as a part of implementation of the critical backend component providing authentication feature with SAML2 protocol.
- Participating in peer code reviews for the mission-critical online service maintaining code and design consistency across different team members.

BDSolutions

- Design and implementation of Godly mobile application with strict cooperation with the UX and graphics department.
- Setup the processes of releasing and distributing the application to the Google Play store.

Mobile Developer

X-Trade Brokers

- Initiative and implementation of an application for managing client content and application translations, which resulted in the possibility of changing application translations at any time and synchronization between environments.
- Modernized key web application for customers by updating web technologies from jQuery / Velocity to Angular.js resulting in increase in user retention.
- Introduced two-way communication using Websockets to a critical web application, which allowed the client to be informed about the status of his operations in real time.
- Increasing the productivity of Java programmers by introducing the JRebel tool to reload the code without restarting the application.
- Design and implementation of new cross-system functionalities in cooperation with other project teams.
- Performing the role of the technical leader of the team during the last months of work.
- Monitoring, troubleshooting, debugging and bug fixing of the applications.
- Integration with several online payment providers, providing customers with additional channels for card payments or using banking systems, which translated into an increase in the amount of deposits in transaction accounts and the company’s profit.
- Integrating with internal services and APIs (i.e. CRM or trading system) as a part of
implementation of the mission-critical backend application for processing client account related operations resulting in shortening the time of creating an account by over 90%.
- Developing and maintaining internal libraries and API clients.
- Introduced a system of calculating commissions on deposits made, which allowed to reduce the cost of servicing payment systems.
- Performance tuning of the business-critical application database for asynchronous
processing using Hibernate improving query execution time by 30-60% and overall system response time.
- Design, implementation and deployment of a central client database, which allowed to reduce data duplication among the internal systems.
- Creating internal tools for monitoring the activity of logged in users with the use of JMX.
- Experimenting with front-end frameworks for business-critical accounting application that helped to boost project development efficiency.
- Using tools for static code analysis and elimination of blocker, critical, and major issues from critical business application.
- Mentoring and couching newly hired team members and juniors resulting in over 50% of onboarding time decrease.

Software Developer

Xentivo

- Preparation of the MVP application for submitting electronic applications for funding under the European Entrepreneurship Development Program.
- Developing new and customization of the existing features for the document management application based on open source NuxeoDM and commercial Documentum platforms.
- Coordinated with engineering and product teams in the identification of customer requirements for the document management application.
- Conducting training on the use of the application for end users.
- Preparation and implementation of a demo application for potential clients.

Expert, freelance Kubernetes engineers