Ben Freke Email & Phone Number

Brisbane City, Qld, Au

Clayfield, Queensland, Au

As the Engineering Manager, I am responsible for leading a team of 6, providing project management coordination to key business projects. As the senior leader within the Enterprise Applications team, I am responsible for improving ways of working and implementing processes to enable cross-team collaboration. ● Implement, run and iterate on agile practices and ceremonies● Liaise with application vendors on bugs, features and version upgrades● Create and iterate on ways of working● Provide regular individual coaching and feedback to team members to celebrate success, provide feedback, identify areas for improvement and career planning● Champion the use of Confluence as an internal wiki for all teams within Enterprise Applications● Champion the use of Azure DevOps as a project and task management tool● Ensure all projects are adequately resourced to meet deadlines

Milton, Qld, Au

As the Head of Technology for the Scout Talent and NetEngine businesses, I am responsible for leading the Development Team in the delivery of product features and client projects. I manage a team of 12 developers across 5 countries with a mix of contractors and full time employees. As the first person employed in this technical leadership role, I am creating the systems, processes and procedures needed for the team to be successful in delivering business requirements and objectives.● Improved performance by over 50% in under 6 months● Manage the upgrade from Rails 4 to 5, minimising risk and impact to customers● Provide technical expertise as a member of the Senior Management Team for the strategic direction of the company● Plan and set the scope for new features and refactors of existing features● Create and iterate on ways of working (Sprints, Kanban boards, release processes, etc) to improve productivity● Ensure capacity is available within the team to meet business goals● Promote and mentor technical leaders within the business● Provide regular individual coaching and feedback to team members to celebrate success, provide feedback, identify areas for improvement and career planning● Provide specialist technical advice to clients

Sydney, New South Wales, Au

As the Engineering Manager I was responsible for setting the technical direction for Squiz's flagship product, Squiz Matrix. This required close collaboration with the product manager to prioritise our roadmap to meet aggressive goals. I led a high-performing, geographically dispersed team of 9 engineers, ensuring they understood the product strategy and direction, customer expectations and feedback, and technical vision.● Creation of the Squiz Matrix Team Strategic Plan, Road Map and Key Deliverables● Managed the recruitment, selection and onboarding for all members of the team● Built and scaled the team into 2 squads and provide leadership to Squad Leads in coordination and allocation of task and responsibilities ● Provided regular individual coaching and feedback to celebrate success, provide feedback, identify areas for improvement and development planning● Member of the Squiz Engineering Leadership Group, regularly collaborating with Hosting, Cloud Services, Security and the other product teams within Squiz● Guided Squiz Best Practice in collaboration with other Engineering Managers and Capability Leads● Lead the creation of coding and professional standards for the team● Created and amended procedures to increase productivity● Organised and ran Agile Ceremonies● Supported successful transition from Kanban to Scrum● Maintained Scrum Boards to ensure they showed current Work In Progress● Demonstrated new product features to key customers and user groups, obtaining feedback on the product● Regularly provide key talks at Brisbane PHP and Laravel Meetups to build employer brand and for talent pipelining

As CTO I am responsible for providing the technical leadership to support SMG's strategic objectives by liaising with stakeholders, understanding the regulatory environment in which SMG products operate, providing feedback and timelines for strategic initiatives and setting the standards for technical excellence within the department.● Run all Scrum Framework ceremonies to ensure technical work is prioritised and estimated● Ensure ongoing regulatory compliance of SMG services and infrastructure● Work with Project Managers and Executives to estimate high level project timelines ● Organise monthly meetings with individual team members to celebrate success, identify areas for improvement and training requirements● Create and maintain reports detailing all ICT costs for SMG● Recruit, select and orient new team members● Architect new platform features● Manage risks associated with code deployments● Set coding and professional standards for the team● Create and amend procedures to increase productivity

Bowen Hills, Queensland, Au

As Development Manager I was responsible for preparing the Ladbrokes sites for a profitable Spring Carnival. Areas for improvement were identified by my team through analysis of New Relic and manual load testing. I then created, prioritised and assigned tasks to Team Members based on their business value. In addition to successfully handling the 50% increase in user numbers compared to 2016, site responsiveness was improved by 20% through caching endpoints, improving code quality and reducing the number of API calls that our mobile apps made● Worked with Product Owners, Senior Executives and Department Leads to interpret and document product feature requirements as User Stories and their associated Acceptance Criteria to ensure timely delivery of product iterations● Created, monitored, prioritised and assigned task and feature backlogs to ensure the team is consistently providing value to the business● Defined and implemented strategies to continuously improve code quality● Empowered teams to implement Scrum Framework methodologies to create Sprint goals, story tasks and Scrum ceremonies● Implemented monthly individual catch ups with team members to celebrate success, identify areas for improvement and training requirements● Ensured all code releases improve test coverage and have passed through code review and quality assurance steps ● Monitored metrics such as Google Analytics and New Relic to ensure site and app stability● Responsible for bulk recruitment drive of development roles post department restructure including liaising with Recruitment Agencies, Interviewing, Selection and Onboarding

Bowen Hills, Queensland, Au

As Team Lead, I was responsible for setting the direction for the architects. A key achievement was the creation of a business case to explain why an upgrade to PHP7 was required. This project was greenlighted and resulted in significant performance improvements during the Spring Carnival.● Mentor, develop and coach a team of Product Architects to deliver solutions and improvements to product features in a timely manner● Provide technical leadership and specifications to product development teams to increase speed of delivery of features● Ensure all solutions are executed in as efficient manner as possible● Review and create processes to enhance development workflows to build and create a continuous improvement culture● Provide guidance to key stakeholders on new features and their potential challenges and benefits● Project manage architectural improvements to the Ladbrokes betting platform, including resourcing requirements and provide timeframes to key stakeholders● Recruit, select and orient new Product Architects and other team members as required● Meet with key stakeholders to explain technical constraints as needed

Bowen Hills, Queensland, Au

A feature my team was tasked with creating was Odds Boost. This unique product required extensive changes within multiple code bases and a co-ordinated release. It remains the key marketing device used by Ladbrokes Australia to differentiate itself within the industry and was awarded the "Innovation of the Year" at the 2017 EGR Awards● Lead and mentor a cross functional agile team in the creation of new features and maintenance of existing features● Lead the development of the OddsBoost product, an award winning industry first product● Interview and evaluate potential candidates for recruitment● Helped create a new release strategy and trained team members in its effective use● Diagnose and fix performance bottlenecks in the Ladbrokes betting platform● Provide estimates for new features so work can be scheduled accordingly● Ensure all new features released by the company meet internal standards of work

Bowen Hills, Queensland, Au

● Implemented a new, ReactJS based betslip● Analyse and fix bugs● Created compile script for front end assets

Create templates for WordPress and MettroMagic sites to match provided PSDs. Create responsive websites using the Bootstrap framework. Investigate and implement frameworks for non CMS solutions. Provide technical expertise for strategy documents. Provide quotes for tasks to be completed. Assist in training of junior staff.● Creation of a load balancing website to handle traffic spikes for The Ninth Watch by the creation of an AWS Elastic Beanstalk based custom framework● Reduced in-house web development time by the creation of a WordPress template repository using Grunt, Less and Vagrant● Allowed Primary Connections to create, manage and distribute Interactive Teaching Resources through the creation of a Laravel based CMS

Fortitude Valley, Qld, Au

Create templates for WordPress and SnappCMS to match provided PSDs. Ensure sites are compatible with modern browsers. Extend existing site functionality for client installs of SnappCMS, Pimcore and Magento.● Displayed client products on the Westfield storefront by the creation of a product export tool to generate the product XML from SnappCMS● Web Developer for the team who won a Web Management Award Development with the creation of an award winning consultancy site● Refreshed and rebranded the Hogs Breath Cafe website by the collaborative development of a responsive Wordpress website

Creation of a Joomla! intranet. Formalise requirements. Liaise with stakeholders. Custom extensions to meet requirements. Document procedures for maintenance of site, article creation and disaster recovery.● Custom branding for all areas of the university through custom Artisteer templates for their Joomla! CMS● Ensured all site requirements were met through the creation of custom plugins to extend existing extension functionality

Create bespoke Magento websites. Ensure shipping and tax rules are correct. Create email templates to match site design. Installation of SEO plugins to OSCommerce. ● Automated the link building process through the creation of a SOAP based web service● Ensured Magento store sites met customer needs by gathering and compiling website requirements● Improved site SEO with zero downtime by installing SEO plugins without affecting existing plugins

Provide first level support to clients. Enhance custom ZenCart - Joomla bridging software. Provide PHP support where needed.● Made a forum searchable from the Joomla! site search by the development of a custom extension for the default Joomla! search● Reduced support tickets by the creation of jargon-free documentation for all clients● Improved SEO of clients site by using Javascript to update page metadata on the refresh of an iframe

Provide second level support for TeamSite users. Provide instruction on metadata creation to government standards. Maintain the units corporate presence. Train staff in the use of the TeamSite CMS.● Allowed schools to maintain a modern and easily updated CMS by training remote and regional users in the use of Joomla!● Ensured all corporate content adhered to government policy by proof checking the content of sites for spelling, grammar, and policy violations on approximately 50 page changes / day