Skills | Education | Experience | Hobbies and interests
I am a junior full stack developer and recent graduate of Makers Academy, with a Bachelor's degree in Maths and experience as a database administrator. The Makers Academy bootcamp was an amazing opportunity to immerse myself in learning the skills, technologies and best practices of software development - a genuinely life-changing experience which has fuelled my enthusiasm for learning, and for creating elegantly-crafted software.
For the past 5 years I have been working for a Homeless charity, first as part of a two person team in a dynamic new project, the Recovery College, and then as a database administrator. In the latter role, I worked closely with the in-house developer and was able to explore the deep satisfaction I derive from understanding and constructing complex and elegant logical systems.
| Name | Description | Technologies | Testing |
|---|---|---|---|
| EMU | My final project - syntax and a transpiler for a new language, written for the browser in JavaScript. Built in 9 days. | JavaScript, JQuery, HTML, CSS | Jasmine, Karma |
| chillJam | A twitter bot for entering competitions through interaction with the Twitter API. Built in week 9 of the course. | Node.js, Express | Mocha, Chai, Zombie.js |
| Lintstagram | A clone of a certain well known image sharing platform built in a single weekend. | Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Devise | RSpec, Capybara |
| Airport Challenge | My first project at Makers Academy. Have a look to see how far I have come... | Ruby | Rspec |
| Knowledgizer | My current side project - learning React from the ground up. | ReactJS, Express, Node.js, Axios | Jest Supertest |
In my previous role, I received high praise from all levels of the organisation for over a hundred pages of in-depth technical guidance, which I wrote and published for users of the database. I also delivered bespoke monthly training for users and worked closely with other technical staff to solve cross-platform issues as they arose.
My communication skills allow me to maintain strong and positive working relationships with all my colleagues which makes collaboration a pleasure. To quote feedback from a former colleague submitted as part of my appraisal:
"Matt has got to be one of the kindest and friendliest people I have ever worked with."
At Makers Academy I was the go-to person in my cohort when other students were stuck, even if I was not working on the same project or technology. While creating a new language for our final project, I intuited solutions to a number of problems the team faced when working at a high level of abstraction, for example using recursion to process the abstract syntax tree, despite not having encountered these techniques before.
I am currently teaching myself React via the side project linked above. I began this project while still attending Makers Academy because I am enthusiastic about learning new technologies, and through building it I have improved my understanding of a number of coding concepts including async. In addition, I have previously successfully taught myself a variety of complex skills, including Salesforce, Adobe InDesign, SQL reporting and an array of sophisticated music production software.
I joined the Recovery College early on. At that time, we were a team of two implementing a paradigm never before seen in the sector. I created systems and processes for much of the service, from producing the prospectus, to collecting, recording and analysing data, to managing student wellbeing. This challenge was an amazing opportunity to learn about building something from scratch while maintaining a focus on the people we were supporting. During my time there, we developed the College from a fledgling service into one receiving international praise and attention as we hosted visitors from the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Australia.
A 16-week intensive development bootcamp, focusing on :
- Ruby, Rails, Sinatra, JavaScript, Express, jQuery, Git, HTML, CSS
- Agile methodologies
- Object-oriented design
- Test driven development and behaviour driven development
- Pair programming
- XP values
- BSc Mathematics (Class 2.1)
- Specialised in analysis and number theory
St Mungo's (Mar 2016 - Jan 2018) Client Data System Administrator
St Mungo's (Nov 2013 - Mar 2016) Recovery College Administrator
The Three Stags, Kennington (Sep 2011 - Sep 2013) Duty Manager
- Composing, producing and discovering music
- Exploring the natural environment, both physically and intellectually
- Chess
- Long-form articles about society, science and technology
- Social justice and equality
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent