I am responsible for developing a variety of engineering, design, geometry, mathematics and physics software applications in a highly analytical and numeric environment. This requires working on the full software life-cycle which includes: liaison with customers to gather requirements, test-cases and acceptance criteria, large-scale object oriented design, software development (primarily using Python, involving both GUI and back-end/algorithm development, utilising plug-in frameworks and maths/science add on packages/libraries), and production of documentation, support of delivery into service and customer support.Frequently serving as a technical lead/architect on various programs of work, the work includes strict adherence to software engineering best practice covering testing, documentation, coding standards and version control and projects typically run using Agile development processes applying SCRUM, to deliver in iterations to maintain customer involvement and feedback throughout the development process, and KANBAN methods.

I continued my previous role providing specialist engineering and scientific analysis services in support of the core company activities spanning civil and military aircraft and other defence platforms, but had increased responsibilities in project management, typically managing projects between the value of 50-500K, and project bid preparation. With an increasing interest in developing software for mining and visualizing large multi-parameter datasets, in October 2010 I moved from the Computation Engineering department to the Data and Information Processing Systems Department to focus more on this area, in addition to identifying new business opportunities around optimisation.I had technical responsibility for delivering software/application projects involving the use of data analysis techniques, particularly utilising data-driven parametric methods or parameter estimation methods in model driven analysis as well as the development and application of data mining and multi-parameter visualisation techniques supporting information capture and decision making. Much of this latter work centered around producing web tools to report on information extracted from large engineering databases requiring the use of Javascript, HTML5, WebGL and third party COTS tools in developing customer solutions.

In this role I was responsible for overseeing the ATC’s work in the area of multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO) both within BAE SYSTEMS and for external customers, with increased responsibility for architecting, developing, deploying and supporting software enabling the use of MDO and supporting data analysis/visualisation software, particularly exploiting parallel computing architectures. This included software development using both Java and Python, often interfacing internally developed tools to commercial of the shelf (COTS) solutions or customer third party solutions (through external process calls or via APIs depending on the situation), through to software documentation and supporting customers in the use of the software. Further responsibilities included managing a small team of people, sitting on technical steering committees for relevant company research programmes and serving as technical lead on large collaborative research programmes.I continued working on numerous MDO application projects for internal as well as external clients in the Aerospace and Formula One industries. On both software development and application projects, in addition to supporting design optimisation, an important aspect the work was in ensuring designs maintained an acceptable level of performance in the presence of uncontrollable factors through the use of robust design principles, including design for six-sigma, as a crucial aspect of the design process was in managing design uncertainties due, for example, to manufacturing tolerances, maintaining “off design” performance and so on.

This role involved a mixture of software development in Java, and building an internal company capability in the area of design optimisation, as well as providing design consultancy to internal customers through the use of internal and commercial off the shelf design optimisation tools applied to a number of design problems; these included aerodynamic design using computational fluid dynamics simulation, structural design utilising finite element analysis, electromagnetic design, supply chain optimisation, communications network design and multidisciplinary design.

On completion of my PhD, in my first role I was responsible for developing and implementing techniques supporting the design and analysis of computer experiments. The primary focus of this work was developing and implementing efficient algorithms for the optimisation of expensive computer simulations. The work involved developing and utilising statistical techniques such as factor screening, design of experiments, response surface modelling as well as machine learning algorithms and optimisation. The methods were demonstrated on both examples of structural mechanics and of computational fluid dynamics and the techniques implemented inside the Rolls-Royce in house turbo-machinery optimisation tool. The research led to several highly cited journal publications. One algorithm was the subject of a successful Rolls-Royce patent application.