As Technology Lead, I oversee Travelopia's cloud team. We are actively working on the next generation of Travelopia's cloud platform, which is designed to have the speed and agility of the cloud, coupled with the enterprise-grade security and monitoring that has become necessary in today's technology world. As we move into a future where the cloud and data are converging, the focus on delivery and innovation has only increased. We are leading a push to adopt a multi-cloud approach to achieving business goals and operational efficiencies, providing flexibility and multi-service delivery of technology solutions.

Travelopia was split from TUI Group in November 2016, so this role is just a continuation of the previous role at TUI - see http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-tui-travelopia-sale-idUKKCN11R1S6I managed a large web hosting infrastructure consisting of a mix of a few dozen Linux and Windows servers, hosted mostly in the cloud. I also maintained a CDN solution (Cloudflare) which is primarily used for protecting against attacks but also reduces the load on the servers. I monitored the infrastructure using a mix of server and application monitoring tools (Zenoss, New Relic and StatusCake) and maintained most of the servers using a configuration management tool (Puppet).I worked closely with internal and external developers, as well as the appropriate contacts within each division and coordinated the deployment of version-controlled source code (GitHub) using a deployment tool (Jenkins) through an online ticketing system (JIRA).I documented the infrastructure (Visio, Word, Confluence) and maintained the disaster recovery and business continuance plans (Word). I worked closely with the relevant team members and liaised with the client regarding any issues they may encounter.

I've been deeply involved in modern tabletop games for over 15 years and have been writing fiction most of my life. In May 2018, I launched a blog to combine these interests. We publish two articles a week, along with videos and a bi-weekly podcast featuring board game artists. I handle all content creation, from writing to marketing, and frequently collaborate with industry professionals.I am a member of the Brainwaves podcast team and an associate writer for There Will Be Games. My reviews have been showcased in crowdfunding campaigns for games like Crumbs! The Sandwich Filler Game, Swatch, and more.My writing was featured in the UK Games Expo 2021 programme, and I served as a judge and coach for the Board Game Workshop Design Contest in 2019 and 2020. I also playtested games such as Empires of the Void II, Chai, and Coral Islands.I was a guest on podcasts like Die Spielträumers, Die Brettagogen, and We’re Not Wizards. Additionally, I made a cameo in a Semi Co-Op comic.Brainwaves podcast team: https://giantbrain.co.uk/tag/brainwaves/There Will Be Games: https://therewillbe.games/articles-main-menu/by-author/associates/articles-by-oliver-kinneUK Games Expo 2021: https://media.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/prod/documents/Magazine_2021_online_small_size_low_resolution_uN4f2aN.pdf#page=24Die Spielträumer episode 54: https://www.spieltraeumer.de/podcast/the-spieltraeumers-54-deckbuilding-deathmatch/Die Brettagogen episode 144: https://brettagoge.de/144-von-voegeln-und-hudern-teamteaching/We’re Not Wizards: https://www.werenotwizards.com/e/episode-320-oliver-kinne-tabletop-games-blog/Semi Co-Op comic: https://www.semicoop.com/comic/new-years-resolutions/

I provide a range of services, including English-German/German-English translations, audio transcription, and video closed captioning and subtitling.To date, I have translated rulebooks for the Mercurial - Challenger expansion by Hyperlixir, Empire Plateau by Frances Games, and Tri To Win by Atikin Games from English to German. I have also translated complete games such as We Can Play and Ecosera by Julibert, Earth Rising: Twenty Years to Transform Our World by Stop, Drop & Roll from English to German.Additionally, I have translated the game EPOS: A Gentes Game by Spielworxx from German to English.

I help consumers experience Asmodee's games first-hand in a board game store and get them to participate in the hobby and engage with the company's products. At exhibitions and other events, I teach the company's games to attendees as an excellent free activity for them to enjoy.

I am part of the team presenting the Brainwaves board game news podcast that comes out every two weeks. I am responsible for preparing some of the news stories featured on the cast, as well as reading out some of the new stories during the recording of an episode.

As an associate writer for There Will Be Games I regularly contribute articles about tabletop games, such as reviews and essays.

I was responsible for maintaining the website infrastructure supporting TUI's business websites and worked with the Drupal development team. I helped deploy and maintain an assortment of LAMP and IIS web servers. I was constantly striving to improve server infrastructure to increase efficiency and reduce cost. I ensured servers were secure, hardened and met security and compliance standards. I used various tools and software to manage servers, including Webistrano and Jenkins, Git for version control and deployment, Puppet for configuration management and Zenoss for server monitoring. I also used New Relic, Cloudflare, StatusCake and Pingdom for server performance analysis, Xen and VMWware for server virtualization and JIRA and confluence for ticket tracking and documentation.

I managed two members of staff to fulfill all internal design and print production requirements, and two IT support companies to maintain and look after our internal IT infrastructure.I controlled a budget of over £150,000 and dealt with all software, web and other developments. I oversaw the IT infrastructure of three offices in two time zones, looking after over 50 staff and freelancers, including software, hardware, networking, site-to-site connections, operating systems, cloud services, etc.Over the years I completely overhauled the company's single website and extended it into five sites, creating a new advertising revenue stream of over £20,000 annually.I programmed the sites in JScript (ASP) and PHP, and designed them to be device agnostic and search engine optimized. I implemented load performance improvements, such as lazy image loading and late script loading. I developed a number of different caching techniques to reduce the load on the server and recently implemented CDN on some sites to increase performance even further. I used JQuery for cross-platform compatibility and rapid development, and applied strict CSS and HTML separation for easy site maintenance.I also designed and implemented a number of SQL databases, as well as some internal MS Access databases and other simple systems to allow non-technical staff to update our websites and make staff more efficient and productive.I regularly used Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Acrobat, as well as Microsoft Access, Excel, Word and Outlook. I have migrated the company's Exchange infrastructure to Office 365 and set up Amazon EC2 for additional, shared data storage. I use GitHub for code maintenance and a combination of Confluence, Gliffy, Excel and Access to document our systems.

Mr. McNaught-Davis and I established a website design consultancy, alongside our full time employment.We had regular customer contact and designed and implemented a number of websites to help the client achieve their goals and create new business opportunities.

I project managed the conversion of a bespoke data analysis software system from VC++ 5 to version 6, and extending it with new functionality. The project increased the efficiency of the company's products and in turn allowed the company's clients to realize revenue more quickly.I worked in a team of three software engineers and communicated with a number of experts in chemistry to integrate their ideas into the system.

I maintained and developed many parts of a warehouse system programmed in C++ and running on BTree databases, which taught me to identify problems quickly and fix them efficiently and effectively in a high pressure, live environment.I regularly liaised with members of staff to discuss requirements for new developments and system improvements.The single biggest project I worked on was the ground-up design and implementation of a database engine for fast keyword searches on a compressed database of over one million book titles stored on CD-ROM. The software was used by bookstores throughout the UK.

I assisted in the decision making process for acquiring new hardware and software.I also developed small software tools, in the form of scripts in Lotus 1-2-3 and was also involved in developing the Bosch intranet pages.I had regular contact with colleagues as well as suppliers of software and hardware, and at the end of my placement I interviewed applicants to succeed me in my role.

I developed and maintained various bespoke database systems, built in dBase and MS Access.I programmed in Pascal, Clipper and MS Visual Basic and was fully responsible for the design, implementation and testing of every project. I had frequent and close customer contact and traveled through Germany to visit customers on-site.