Running concurrently with my interest in Altmore IT Recruitment, in 2008 I set up Altsoft as a vehicle to contain R&D and product development for technology tools to empower and enable the recruitment space, and also to handle requests for IT services where the client needed more than the traditional "place and abandon" contract/temp model.Along with one entry level full timer initially as well as myself we developed software in modern web technologies including PHP, Smarty, MySQL, HTML/CSS, Javascript, Advantage Database Server, C#.net, ASP.net, SQL Server, Flash, Actionscript. Work continues on applications and products including a "game-changer" - a web-hosted jobs listing offering that will address the issues plaguing current jobsites (e.g. proliferation of fake job postings from agencies desperate to create or expand their CV database).We also have been able to leverage the talent bank available to us from our sibling recruitment business to provide clients with professional software development services.Recent consultancy work has included since October 2009, a partnership with Larsen & Toubro to provide Ab Initio and ETL work on some Custody reporting products for a global financial services customer.Around the same time preliminary work began with one of the local education boards. They are thought leaders in their sector in terms of using web applications to centralise and automate the collection of monitoring, auditing and curriculum information for schools. We began by providing web development services in ASP, SQL Server, VB Script, Javascript, HTML, CSS. The work has expanded now to the extent we have two senior people on site (including a senior technical authority/manager from Meridio) providing development expertise as well as database consultancy, and bringing in engineering best practice such as distributed version control, centralised project documentation, and Scrum-like techniques for managing project pipeline.

* From a standing start in 2004, grew the business to one of the top three IT Recruitment firms in NI (Northern Ireland) by 2006* Established a team delivering quality recruitment services to most of NI's IT sector and several players in the IT user base* Notable achievements include providing 80 hires (60 perm, 20 contract) to one of the world's largest financial services organisation and establishing the "spine" of a local development team for a hi-tech consultancy in the SOA (Service-Oriented Architectures) space.* Recruited and trained consultants from scratch, several of whom have gone on to become leading players in the NI IT recruitment space* Always promoted high standards and good practice and in 2008 have been instrumental in promoting a level playing field in the recruitment sector by working closely with the DELNI (Department of Employment and Learning, NI) to enforce the Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Conduct Regulations (NI) 2005

My area was IT contract jobs, London region, I was targeted on performance: Gross margin billed and Number of contractors running.At my peak I was bringing in over £300k p.a. Gross Margin for the company (on approx. £2m turnover p.a.), and running 32 contractors.Some jobs came from existing clients (PSD - Preferred Supplier Deal or volume discount deal in place). However the best jobs are “New Business” jobs because we can charge higher fees (not having signed a previous PSD), and there may be fewer other agencies working on them. A consultant needs to be proactive to find these - maintaining an ever growing list of clients that one is ever getting closer to. I spent a lot of time developing new clients along the sales cycle.I became particularly expert in devising ways of searching and contacting candidates on our own database - I created Skill Codes to summarize and help me quickly find the right person. I used mass emails to quickly contact appropriate candidates.

Working on Enterprise Vault, an enterprise solution for backup and fast retrieval of email itemsVisual C++ 5.0, MFC implementing property sheets and pages for an MMC-hosted Administration Application for Enterprise Vault. Did the initial analysis and user consultation for GUI specification for these UI elements.ATL to create the data objects (representing various management entities eg computer, service, mailbox) and manage client manipulation of them. Also created various UI wizards using MFC which provided the UI for creating new data objects.VB 5.0 to test the (dual) interfaces on the automation data objects.Troubleshooting various COM ref-counting and ATL component registration problems.Win32 & MFC to implement a multi-threaded dialog that imitates the “Add Users and Groups” dialog in NT’s explorer (Security Property Page). Use of Win32 security, NET and LSA API’s.

Working on NMS/10, a suite of management products for telecommunications networksDesign and prototyping a new front end to replace the 16bit UI.Visual C++4.1 & MFC & Crypkey SDK to produce the Licence Manager System -separate code inside the EXE’s and DLL’s to prevent unauthorised use, together with an MFC dialog-based application for authorising licences. Full SDLC. OMT analysis and design techniques used throughout.Visual C++ & ATL & Win32 SDK to produce a COM in-process component which implemented user-level security (based on NT security) for the NMS/10 suite of products.Borland C++ 4.5 to produce a 16-bit generic-thunking dll which made the security object available to 16bit apps.VB5 and MSAccess to produce database utilities for the NMS/10 databaseBorland C++ 4.5 & VB5 to enhance and bug fix the existing front-end. Included a lot of low-level Windows UI programming, serial communications, generic thunking.

Working on TRAX, a world-wide trade confirmation system* VisualC++4.2 & VB4 to produce the "Security/Counterparty Search" a web application, utilising: VB4"Webster" Internet Browser OCXdynamic HTMLHTTPIISCGI, later Microsoft's ISAPIRPC (discarded)MFC4/STLODBCSybase SQL Anywhere (data design, database tuning, administration utilities, stored procedures, triggers)NT system configuration (account admin, security, ODBC, services)* VisualC++4.2 & Win32 for a service (Volumepage) to wait for the arrival of ftp'ed files and translate them into web pages. Heavy use of Win32 file, service, and thread synchronisation APIs.* VB4 to produce "Client Administration" subsytem for configuring TRAX clients boxes. Accessed registries across the NT domain, and several of VB's standard controls eg grid.* Installing and Configuring TRAX on Compaq Proliant servers for data-migration and testing purposes. Bug-fixing.