James Wilson Email & Phone Number

Stockton-On-Tees, England, United Kingdom

Skelton, England, United Kingdom

Developing full stack PHP / MySQL applications using the Laravel framework

Stockton-On-Tees, Stockton-On-Tees, United Kingdom

My main responsibility at Colewood is to act as a technical lead on a number of technical projects. This includes aiding in the planning of projects and creating specifications for clients and fellow developers. One of my main roles is also to mentor and advise junior developers on the team. Since starting at Colewood I have implemented a number of development processes. Upon my arrival I was quick to establish the need for code repositories, and now all applications are stored within Git repositories. This included the setup of a continuos integration server (TeamCity) which ensures that all of our code is documented, a similar style and standard and that no syntax errors or code which may fail unit tests is deployed onto the server. This reduces the risk of erroneous code or errors being deployed into a production environment.Recently my focus has been developing internal tools for various parts of the company to increase productivity and reduce the amount of time being used to do menial tasks hence speed up processes within the company.

After several months in my senior developer role at Visualsoft UK, I was promoted to being a technical team leader and managed a team of 4 – 5 developers.In this role I regularly communicated with clients on support issues, as well as creating specifications and quoting for new development they may require. I also helped to mentor junior developers and advise them on the best ways to develop new features and/or fix bugs.I also reported directly to the technical director on an almost daily basis, and would prepare a weekly report for all directors outlining what I felt were technical issues regarding the e-commerce platform and staff issues we may have. Part of my role was also to regularly review my teams performance both on an individual level and as a whole.

Visualsoft UK is one of the largest e-commerce providers in the UK. Their custom e-commerce platform is developed on the PHP and MySQL and at this time powered around 600 websites. My role involved me developing features, and fixing bugs on this platform.My role was to be a senior developer as part of one of two development teams of around 10 developers. My duties included:- Developing new features on Visualsoft’s bespoke e-commerce platform.- Fixing bugs on Visualsoft’s bespoke e-commerce platform.- Helping and mentoring junior developers.In this role I learned the Kohana PHP framework, and gained valuable experience working in a large team of developers. I also learned a lot about version control systems and development processes.

My role at House of Type involved me working in small agile team of web developers and designers working with a wide range of clients, from small businesses to large organisations. It also required me to identify my client’s requirements and deliver new or updated web applications which meets those requirements. In this role, I developed and customised applications using the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack. This ranges from deploying and customising e-commerce websites based on the popular open-source system called Magento, and developing websites and blogs based on WordPress, to developing bespoke back-office and public facing systems. This role involved me managing several different projects simultaneously, juggling client’s needs and timescales along with mine. In this role I learned how to effectively communicate and deal with clients, and assess their needs and requirements.

In my position at Visualsoft my duties included:- Developing transactional websites and web-based applications using PHP / MYSQL- Researching and developing search engine optimisation techniques, and implementing them.- Integration of existing back-office systems with websites (e.g. stock control systems).- Analysing website statistics to improve traffic flow and increase the number of users performing actions on the website.In my position at Visualsoft I was able to increase my experience of PHP and MySQL and have gained experience in quoting and pricing projects.

My primary role at Exaura ltd was as a PHP developer, however rather than developing websites my main role was developing PHP based web services. - Developing PHP websites which communicated to .NET based web services- Researching and developing web service security methods- Integration of Sage financial applications to PHP based web applications- Assisted in the project planning processAt Exaura I was able to improve my project planning skills, as well my ability to deal with clients and “sell” ideas and solutions to them. This allowed me to take the first steps of learning to communicate to clients and learn to plan projects.

At Visualsoft UK I worked as part of a team of web developers creating e-commerce websites using a custom-built e-commerce platform developed within the company. My work involved writing PHP, HTML and CSS to develop new features or make functionality, or design changes which clients required.

At Hyder Business Services I was employed within the communications unit of Middlesbrough Council. This unit was responsible for the PR and Corporate Communications for Middlesbrough council. - Add, Edit and Delete content from the Middlesbrough Council Website- Part of the website planning team which was directly responsible for planning organisational and procedural changes in the way that the website was updated and managed- Liaising with other departments to plan and manage updates to their areas of the website.- Served in a minor support-role to assist other departments use the Content Management System.As part of the website planning team I had a greater responsibility in updating areas of the website to aid the corporate communications strategy and update press releases on the website. However, I also served in a support role to colleagues within other departments who may have been experiencing problems, or were unfamiliar or in- experienced in using a content management system.

Bsc (Hons), Computer Studies

Hnd, Multimedia