Projects | Learning Journey | Makers Academy experience | Skills | Hobbies with benefits | Experience | Education

I am a full-stack software engineer with experience gained from the well renowned Makers Academy bootcamp, freelance and personal projects. Coming from a 7 year career in engineering education, I found great joy in applying knowledge to overcome problems, collaborating to develop meaningful projects and engaging with a diverse range of people. I have discovered the same satisfaction in software engineering with the added benefits that its digital nature enables and found my combined skills and experiences incredibly valuable.

Further detail including key challenges, screenshots and videos.

I recorded my my learning journey through Makers Academy on my way to becoming a Software Developer here

Strategies included:

• Review and reflection.
• Celebrating challenges.
• Identifying learning objectives and asking questions.
• Diagrams.
• Having good routines.

Diagram example exploring Asynchronicity in JavaScript

August to December 2022.
A highly selective 16 week intensive software development bootcamp.

• Front-end: Combining experience with front-end technologies with existing design expertise to produce user-friendly interfaces for non-technical users.
• Back-end: Developed projects using purpose built and external RESTful APIs, frequently including SQL based relational databases with both ORM and pure SQL.
• Programming principles: Developed projects with clean code following OOP principles and various design patterns.
• TDD: Building projects using a red, green, refactor test driven development process. Ensuring good code coverage and behaviour first unit and integration tests.
• Adaptability: Learning new Languages, ways of working and technologies in short periods of time.
• Agile: Followed Agile methodologies to iteratively build projects as part of a team. Utilising planning sessions, ticketing, standups, sprints, retros to continuously feedback on and improve development.
• Collaboration: Paired daily over challenging material with a diverse range of people. Created safe learning environments where feedback was freely exchanged and that prioritised wellbeing and shared learning.
• Learning how to better learn: Developed and refined learning strategies, recorded in my learning journey blog here.

Dedicated to learning

• I am passionate about learning and I enjoy approaching new challenges as opportunities for self development.
• I have always enjoyed finding out about things and how they work and applying this to creatively solve problems.
• I enjoy sharing my knowledge and strategies with others.
• I recorded some of my experiences in my Makers learning journey here.

Plays well with others

• I enjoy working with curious, intelligent and knowledgeable people to solve problems.
• Within a team I am equally happy working independently on a specific task or working closely with others to solve larger issues.
• In my previous role and during group projects I find I often naturally fall into a position of leadership, planning and decision making.
• As a senior Engineering technician I worked closely with a number of junior technicians, students and staff with a diverse range of ages, backgrounds and abilities.
• During group projects at Makers Academy I thoroughly enjoyed learning about and employing Agile methodologies. I found the iterative cycle of planning, implementation and reflection close to principles employed in engineering design and hugely beneficial to project development and enjoyment.

Management and organisation

• I value good planning, organisation and structure.
• I have led the design and planning of small and large projects, the largest being the £100k redesign of an entire engineering department of 3 workshops, a computing suite and 3 support rooms.
• Within a team or when working alone I enjoy creating diagrams and other supporting documents to help both in planning and as a communication aid. Planning diagrams: Bowling challenge.
• The TDD process and Object Oriented Programming fits right into my working ethos of systematic, clean and clear way of working through projects.

Problem solving and attention to detail

• Coming from an engineering background I am well practised with breaking a problem down to its core components and applying a wide and deep understanding to solve each problem in turn.
• As a software developer my problem solving ability has increased greatly through continuous self reflection and learning new techniques such as TDD.

I am a firm believer that while playing video games may seem like just having fun, they have helped me develop and fortify a range of skills, and not just the ability to click fast. My first and some of my best experiences of collaboration have been through video games. Working together to achieve a common goal over hours and days of planning, experimenting, building, testing and improving.

The fantastic challenges of building a spaceship in a game called Space Engineers;

• A spaceship has requirements and follows rules, how many engines will be needed, based on its weight?
• A spaceship is complex(potentially thousands of components), how will you break the problem down to solve smaller problems without losing sight of the end goal?
• Each component must be placed one by one, how will you plan ahead and constantly consider the bigger picture?
• Two or more people are working on this ship, how do you communicate your ideas and vision and collaborate so it all comes together? What happens when you disagree?
• There are always challenges to overcome, some expected and some surprises, how do you solve these with the given tools and components?
• How do you know what works? Being able to build parts in isolation, rapidly test and reconfigure leads to innovation and success.

In contrast to being absorbed by the world behind a screen, I very much love the natural world. I find it fascinating and could (and do) spend hours observing behaviours, noises, movement and appearance of plants and animals. I find it very meditative, great for my wellbeing and satisfies a deep curiosity for discovery.

• My Makers Academy experience key points.
• Highly selective 16 week intensive software development bootcamp.
• Learning how to become a software developer and effective team member through workshops, exercises, projects and group work.

• Collaborated with staff to develop a fantastic Engineering curriculum for a diverse group of students aged 11-18. Each year saw many graduates secure places in top Russell Group universities.
• Taught staff and students practical and theoretical Engineering skills.
• Maintained a safe work environment with high wellbeing and health and safety standards.
• Mentored and trained junior technicians to uphold the department's high standards
• Planned and developed projects and exercises with tight deadlines and specifications.
• Planned and supervised a £100,000 refurbishment of the Engineering department.

Kingston University, UK.