Returning to a previous team of colleagues and former "software baby", as CTO of ConnectNow I resume my responisbilities leading the development of the product whilst engaging directly with our customers for training, support, and most importantly; their needs. To meet these ever-growing needs, a significant role I play is to explore new cutting-edge technologies to assess their efficacy and production readiness, and whether we can implement them to enrich our product offering. This expands beyond the product itself in to our every day activities; is the technology we're using fit for purpose, is it cost effective, is there a better way?Alongside continued development of the platform, I am responsible for the overall architecture, maintenance, and delivery of the product, whilst working closely alongside our project management team to plan our roadmap and future. In addition, I manage our on-prem infrastructure, cloud services, and digital security.

In this role, I greatly enjoyed expanding my horizons and learning a myriad of new skills alongside talented colleagues with much to teach. Focussing primarily on a multi national service with an AWS-based backend and React Native front end was a fresh challenge to my previous tech stacks that mostly entailed "traditional" on-prem servers and databases, with a web based front end. This new ecosystem provided a fantastic learning experience and has massively expanded my toolkit and impacted my tech stack choices for future projects. Building trust and rapport with our clients was a key area in this role where my previous experience in support was of use; working closely with key members on high-impact asides as well as BAU support activities. In addition I held several development related responisbilities. These include bug identification and resolution, system maintenance and updates, and taking end-to-end ownership of a requirement from customer specification a working, delivered solution.

As IT Director I manage all of our infrastructure and services, ensuring our staff have working tech. As Lead Developer, I am the main driving force in all of our projects whilst being responsible for leading and supporting our development team whilst exploring new technologies to add to our portfolio.We focus on bespoke solutions for enterprises, therefore I have experience with a number of technologies, delivering products ranging from completely custom Angular/Firebase solutions, to .NET, EntityFramework, OData, SharePoint, and WordPress.There is standout project during my employment at TwoHouses that I am particularly proud of and excited for. ConnectNow is a fully featured, service-oriented web chat solution geared towards enterprise service desks. It remains to this day in constant development, with an exciting roadmap that has a lot of life left in it. ConnectNow is a labor of love that has provided me with more experience than any other project in my career thus far, and when I step back and see the size and feature set, I feel a sense of accomplishment. Above and beyond my formal role, I engage directly with our clients, as I find I quickly build a rapport which enables more effective communication and builds a degree of trust, without having the disconnect of the client never talking to the developer.I am also responsible for producing marketing materials such as flyers and business cards, as well as logos, icons, and imagery for our projects. I have experience with software such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop along with open source alternatives like GIMP as a lifelong hobby, which we regularly rely on to keep as much in-house as possible.

In this role I develop rich software solutions ranging from stand alone compiled applications in VB.NET and C#, to web-based suites. I am skilled with ASP.NET (VB and C#) and SQL Server which enables me to create complex and resilient back-ends. I also enjoy utilizing jQuery, CSS, HTML, and AJAX to create attractive and functional front ends - resulting in full package. I helped create and own 3 production systems within my role:A fully bespoke online chat tool that boasts features most market competitors lack.A WYSIWYG survey designer and publishing tool that we use to canvas our colleagues for feedback.Comms suite that broadcasts critical information to staff.Since I am involved from specification to delivery, I take ownership of many stages of the project ranging from conception, specifications and business engagement, right through to development, delivery, and maintenance.Part of this position also stems out to the set up and maintenance of the underlying infrastructure, such as ensuring that our IIS and SQL servers are maintained including production, dev, UAT, and DR.

In this role I offer second level support to both end users and other areas of the bank which also includes "shift left" 3rd level tasks (access permitting) enabling me to resolve more issues at FPoC on systems such as Exchange and AD. I take full ownership of issues that are difficult to resolve and provide a single point of contact and continued support for a wide range of platforms. This ranges from Windows NT & Novell Netware, up to Windows 7 and MAC OS X across multiple estates and domains. This includes both Incident Management and Problem Management; identifying and in-depth troubleshooting of root causes and implementing preventative measures.I am involved in various projects with the goal of further improving the Group's processes and customer service. I recently created the toolset for Assistive Technology requests to be keyed, progressed, and tracked now that we have brought the entire end-to-end process in-house. On the back of this I am lead support analyst of a small, specially trained team that handles all technical faults concerning all of the AT users throughout the Group. These tasks commonly involve JAWS, Dragon, MAGic, and Texthelp Read and Write and require a different mindset and sense of perspective.In addition to this, I play a large role in the scripting team, creating tools for the Service desk to complete common, long winded tasks quickly and easily. These scripts adhere to a strict change control process that I maintain. Primarily these are Batch or VB utilities for internally used quick wins, which scale up to more complex PHP and SQL utilities for robust logging and reporting. With a VB back end, some of these utilities allow our customers to fix their own technical faults via web based utilities rather than calling the Service Desk.

In this position, I have acquired high quality communication skills, which play a vital role in my responsibilities and are essential in order to effectively talk to customers. In addition, I have gained an ever-increasing technical knowledge, which enables me to solve even the most obscure problem. Part of my technical knowledge includes Infrastructure administration (AD / DNS / DHCP,) advanced Desktop administration, Network administration, and an extensive knowledge of Office applications and several bespoke software packages - all of which call for adept troubleshooting. Above and beyond my official role, I have performed as an acting Team Leader; managing my team whilst adjusting our processes to compensate for any unusual situations throughout the working day. This responsibility extends to personally handling and taking ownership of complaints and liaising with other business areas to reach a resolution - often for Executive members of the Group. I regularly coach my colleagues to obtain the best performance and meet KPIs set by the business, whilst taking it upon myself to ensure they have no concerns; be they of a business or personal nature. In addition, I have headed various projects to streamline processes and attain an excellent level of service for my customers. Recently, I have personally developed training programmes for new technology, and delivered the training to the entire Service Desk. Due to the intense pressure at RBS, I am able to function at my best even under an immense workload with deadlines looming. I don’t lose my cool, I quickly take on new information, and I always aim to be calm and collected in order to reach an efficient resolution.

CompTIA A+CompTIA N+Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) Windows 7 Desktop Support TechnicianLevel 3 Diploma in ICT Systems and PrinciplesLevel 3 Diploma in Professional CompetenceLevel 2 Key Skills in CommunicationLevel 2 Key Skills in Application of NumberLevel 2 Award in Employability and Professional Development