James Howley Email & Phone Number

United Kingdom

Building bespoke websites and web solutionsDelivering web QA as a service

Oxford, United Kingdom

- Determining the ideal architecture, technology stack and best suited 3rd party solutions/services to support high volume, high availability web applications.- Onboarding 3rd parties and acting as primary technical contact- Building and helping manage a 1st class team of developers and QAs- Optimising the development and release process within an agile environment.- Defining and implementing a content migration plan from a legacy CMS(Wordpress) to a new, headless CMS(Contentful)Key technologies:- AWS- React/React Native- Node.JS- GraphQL- Cypress (QA)Created a bespoke cypress based QA framework supporting multiple pipeline environments, SSO, custom reports and integrated this into the CI/CD process.- Contentful (CMS)Planned and executed migration of existing content (from Wordpress).Devised a way of describing unstructured content within a JSON object. This was coupled with a custom plugin within Contentful with a drag-and-drop interface to help editors visualise their layouts. On the frontend custom react components created the markup and styling based on CSS grid. - Cloudinary (DAM and CDN)Created a design-to-asset pipeline which allowed developers to utilise raw/original media produced or sourced by designers programmatically and at scale via multiple custom transformations. This greatly reduced the time and effort required to get production/web ready assets from designers. - LaunchDarkly (feature flags)Defined and helped implement the projects use of feature flags within the development and release process. This allowed the separation of code merging and product releases which in turn supported Continuous Delivery (CD) while allowing for flexibility in releasing new features to end-users. The development team was able to work at much greater velocity, delivering multiple features concurrently.

Reading, United Kingdom

Bringing multiple websites and applications full cycle from conception through development, release and continued support.Key technologies:- Wordpress- WooCommerce- MODX- PHP

Newbury, United Kingdom

Building to specification a responsive mobile/tablet-first web-app using HTML5 and jQuery Mobile, targeted at iPhone and Android based devices. Also advising and implementing UI changes to fully embrace touch and HiDPI (retina) displays.

Guildford, United Kingdom

Contracted to ‘push to completion’ an existing project and ensure that all target goals were reached. Largely working with a legacy (X/HTML 4) LAMP system and updating to HTML5/CSS3 standards. Originally intended as a short-term (4-week) aid to the full-time development team, having met the initial project requirements my contract was extended to aid in the preparation of, and advise best practice, for a major platform update and framework migration.

Cardiff, United Kingdom

- Liaising with senior management to ensure projects and systems fulfilled functional requirements- Communicating and negotiating with external partners and customers in a global scope including projects based in Brazil and France- Working in a dynamic and fast paced development environment on bespoke web applications utilising PHP, MySQL, Unix and Windows based platforms- Leading the team in the Project Managers absence and acting as a point of contact for developers, UAT team and external customers- Negotiating with server hosts and assisting in configuration and setup (including cloud and load balanced instances)- Base installation and setup of primarily Linux (Red-Hat/CentOS) environments including compilation, configuration and installation of apache, PHP and MySQL- RDB(primarily MySQL) construction and design including extensive use of replication and partitioning allowing for forward thinking and scalable architecture. Optimisation (both query and database/table design)- Overseeing integration and use of sub-versioning systems into existing projects including controlling of merges and resolving of code conflicts through all phases of development

Ashford, Middlesex, United Kingdom

- Training and handling regulation and discipline of staff- Overseeing all aspects of a self-sufficient department including marketing, sales, customer service, renewals and customer retention, cancellations, complaints and accounts.- Aiding the migration of back-office systems- Assisting in the relocation of operating offices including networking and server infrastructure