Alex Bowers Email & Phone Number

During the last 12 months my day-to-day tasks were moving towards managing the department and not writing as much code. I had outgrown the Lead Developer role. Blue Bay Travel were now able to invest in the team again, after the Coronavirus pandemic, and I was able to hire a new Lead Developer to take some responsibilities from me. Instead of trying to do multiple roles, I was now able to focus on managing.I developed a new recruitment process for the team, as we began working with… Show more During the last 12 months my day-to-day tasks were moving towards managing the department and not writing as much code. I had outgrown the Lead Developer role. Blue Bay Travel were now able to invest in the team again, after the Coronavirus pandemic, and I was able to hire a new Lead Developer to take some responsibilities from me. Instead of trying to do multiple roles, I was now able to focus on managing.I developed a new recruitment process for the team, as we began working with overseas and fully remote programmers. I also formalised processes within the department, to ensure that each team member was able to focus on learning and innovating. Show less

Blue Bay Travel wanted me to lead the whole department again. However, this time the job spec was updated. This was a split role with some Project Manager responsibilities. My aim was to improve communication with other departments and improve the visibility of the tasks we work on. I introduced sprints within a Scrum framework to organise the team, using ZenHub. The department was unsuccessful in previous attempts to introduce an agile methodology. I also had more influence in road mapping… Show more Blue Bay Travel wanted me to lead the whole department again. However, this time the job spec was updated. This was a split role with some Project Manager responsibilities. My aim was to improve communication with other departments and improve the visibility of the tasks we work on. I introduced sprints within a Scrum framework to organise the team, using ZenHub. The department was unsuccessful in previous attempts to introduce an agile methodology. I also had more influence in road mapping future projects.As of November 2020, I had to take on extra "Senior Developer" responsibilities as two experienced members of the team left, and we were unable to hire replacements with similar experience. Recruitment was becoming a larger part of my role. These responsibilities included talking to recruiters, interviewing candidates and negotiating contracts with potential team members. Show less

Stoke-On-Trent, United Kingdom

As part of a new recruitment plan to further expand the team, we split the Development department into two. I focused on the front-end architecture of all our projects and trained our developers. The team was split because the company struggled to find experienced full-stack developers in the local area. We decided to recruit developers with targeted skills who were willing to learn.

Stoke-On-Trent, United Kingdom

As the company and the department started expanding, I took the responsibility for interviewing and training new team members. I also lead all new projects on our custom CRM and our customer websites. Within this role there was a bigger focus on maintaining standards, reviewing the team's code, and taking control of the issue ticketing system.

Stoke-On-Trent, United Kingdom

I joined Blue Bay Travel, straight out of university, as the second developer in the Development team. Through helping to create all the internal applications and customer websites I developed my PHP, JavaScript, and MySQL skills.I helped to create a custom CRM to support the Sales and Customer Service departments. We created a pricing system that handled millions of travel packages every day. I introduced an online bookable journey to our new customer websites. I was also a part of a… Show more I joined Blue Bay Travel, straight out of university, as the second developer in the Development team. Through helping to create all the internal applications and customer websites I developed my PHP, JavaScript, and MySQL skills.I helped to create a custom CRM to support the Sales and Customer Service departments. We created a pricing system that handled millions of travel packages every day. I introduced an online bookable journey to our new customer websites. I was also a part of a project that created a white-label pricing system for clients such as Hard Rock Hotels.We initially used Node.js and Backbone.js for the CRM but then switch to a PHP framework when the Lead Developer discovered Laravel in 2014. I was then tasked with finding a front-end framework for the team to use in 2015. After testing multiple options, I selected Vue.js. Show less