Sam Hirst Email & Phone Number

Manchester Area, United Kingdom

As a qualified RFL match official, I referee junior rugby league games in the Yorkshire region. I also have a role as a touch judge in open age matches of the National Conference League.I am currently working to build up my fitness and experience so that I can progress onto professional games.

Manchester Area, United Kingdom

I was hired at UA92 on a temporary basis to teach a back-end web development module to first-year students studying Computer Science and Cyber Security. In line with UA92's unique teaching format, this involved delivering four four-hour classes per week for six weeks.Delivering these classes took lots of careful preparation to ensure that they achieved all of the course's intended learning outcomes, but did not become lost in all of the new concepts they were being taught. I ensured that these classes contained lots of interactive elements so that nobody lost focus over the four-hour period.A notable change I made when delivering this module was to make use of AWS EC2 instances when creating web servers. Students had previously used XAMPP, but I felt that using AWS would give the students valuable experience that they could discuss in interviews for graduate roles. I also took the time to teach the students how to use Git and Linux.Throughout the teaching period, I made sure to regularly review my students' progress and offer them formative feedback which they could then apply to their coursework.After the teaching period ended, I was unexpectedly appointed as the module leader in the absence of another member of staff. I was therefore tasked with marking all coursework submissions for the entire cohort. This required a high level of concentration and diligence to ensure that students achieved the marks that they deserved. Following the marking process, I was also responsible for reporting academic malpractice, going through the moderation process, and submitting the marks to students and the administration team.

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

I was based at Arm's Manchester office throughout my internship.I originally joined in July 2022 as a summer intern. I worked for three months in a DevOps team where I contributed to the team's MacOS code signing and notarisation project. I continued to work in this team for one day per month while I completed the 2022/23 academic year.I then returned to Arm for my industrial placement year in July 2023. I joined the same team once again for the first three months, where I worked on a project to detect vulnerabilities in the team's Docker images.I then spent a further three months working in an application engineering team, where I made substantial performance improvements to one of the team's internal tools. I also wrote a knowledge base article that is now available on the Arm Developer website.The final four months of my placement was spent working in a User Experience team. Within this period, I ran three usability tests with Arm customers to assess the usability of the Keil Extensions for VS Code. I also interviewed three university academics who teach Arm technologies as part of a research project.

Manchester, Uk

In March 2023, I was appointed as the first Delivery Engineer at Imago: The University of Manchester's Student Software Company.In this role, I was tasked with maintaining projects which had been completed by other Imago teams. This primarily involved patching security vulnerabilities, and using my DevOps experience to create CI/CD pipelines to ensure that high quality code could be delivered to customers with ease.

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

I supported young people at Manchester's Digital Independent Specialist College (DISC), provided by Digital Advantage, by developing and delivering curriculums for anyone interesting in learning programming, web development or software engineering skills.Sessions ranged from programming-based tasks in TypeScript and Python, using frameworks such as React.js and Flask respectively, to sessions using website building platforms such as WordPress. I also taught industry-level project management skills - such as the use of version control platforms and task tracking systems.I also provided additional technical support to DISC, giving advice on topics such as web hosting and computer networks.

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

I worked on Hive's DigiClub programme, which aims to deliver code clubs to schools and colleges across Greater Manchester.I supported the pilot sessions by visiting the participating schools and evaluating what works well and what could be improved. I was keen to see the programme succeed and worked with the team to develop engaging sessions that hope to inspire young people across the region to pursue a career in programming.

I have founded my own company and work on a variety of small projects for paying clients. Such projects are generally web applications. I pride myself in keeping my clients involved with regular meetings and updates in order to get things just right for them.

Starting at B&Q at 16 years old, I've gradually moved from my starting point in the Trade department, to Kitchens and Bathrooms, Checkouts and finally Administration. My management team put a lot of faith in me by tasking me with cashing up in store - a role which required a high level of independence and trust. I also took on various additional miscellaneous tasks such as audit compliance, fire safety and completing staff rotas.

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

I returned to the University of Manchester's Student Software Company for a second time to work on a project called FLAG-Me. This project aimed to make accessing medication in community pharmacies safer for people with visual impairments by making modifications to pharmacy software.I was originally sought out to carry out some feasibility investigations which would allow the project to apply for funding. Once this had been completed, I worked in a team of six to create a prototype of the new pharmacy system which could be used to gain feedback from pharmacists, visually impaired patients and other key stakeholders.

Manchester Area, United Kingdom

I worked on Hive's Digital People programme, which aimed to give tech skills to young people in the Greater Manchester area - especially those from underrepresented backgrounds. I originally started as a Student Helper, and played a supporting role by giving 1:1 support to those who needed the most help.In the latter stages, I worked as a Course Facilitator and began to lead some of the sessions in the programme. The opportunity to pass on my programming knowledge to others was extremely rewarding and I'm proud to have been involved.

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

I joined the University of Manchester's Student Software Company to work on a project called Cohere. This was a project designed to be used in a course unit at the University, which would detect posts made by students on social media and show how their activities can be things that they've learned (for example, a post about playing tennis could be linked to projectile motion in a physics course).