John Collins :: Web Developer, Software Engineer

About Me

I am an experienced and ambitious web developer, a hard worker with broad experience of developing in Ruby on Rails and PHP for Unix/Linux platforms. I have a solid knowledge of the software development processes and web best practices.

My last role at JobReady, Sydney has allowed me to grow as a developer, moving from PHP into Ruby on Rails. I have found the opportunity to work on SAAS projects at JobReady really exciting, as well as working to the Agile software delivery best practices. I really enjoy the complexity of large applications, and the challenge of developing and improving them.

Previous to my time in Australia I worked for 4 years at UK agency Rapport Creative allowing me to work on large interesting digital projects for blue-chip clients across the UK.

Outside of work I enjoy sports particularly football and love to travel.

Ruby on Rails

A move to Australia in late 2011 returning in October 2014 has been a career changing one for me. After several years at agency, Rapport Creative in Chester, where one of the larger projects involved working with a blue chip company to provide their HR department with an internal employer learning portal, built using php based CMS Typo3. In Australia I was given the opportunity to join Sydney based JobReady who provide student management solutions for clients across Australia. The chance to continue working on large education systems was excellent, as too was the opportunity working at JobReady to learn Ruby on Rails.

As well as the fantastic training offered by JobReady through their internal training program the Ã¢ÂÂJobReady FoundationÃ¢ÂÂ. Sydney is a terrific place to learn Rails as the community is very strong. There are meetups and sessions available for all levels of developer to discuss and learn Rails. Most interesting and helpful were Re-interactiveÃ¢ÂÂs Ã¢ÂÂInstall FestÃ¢ÂÂ (http://www.meetup.com/Ruby-On-Rails-Oceania-Sydney/), and a group of developers at the Coder Factory who offer help and advice for junior developers on Rails (http://www.meetup.com/Sydney-on-Rails/).

My move to Australia has been synonymous with my move into Ruby on Rails, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to get involved in Rails. IÃ¢ÂÂm now looking to continue my career in this direction and build on the momentum I have gained working in Australia.

Curriculum vitae

Download CV here

Work History

Junior Ruby on Rails Developer / Support Engineer

Primary day to day role was as part of the devlopment team working through tickets on our product's kanban board
I also worked closely with the support team in assessing urgent tickets. Eveluating as to whether they requiored a straight forward fix in the application, a correction to the clients data, which I could look at as a priority. Or if it needed to be breifed into one of the senior developers for more extencive work.
Working experience of Ruby on Rails
Adgile working enviroment
Daily use of GIT software versioning tool
Work using ETL applications to migrate client data to the JobReady application
Responcible for support of the application's intergrations with outside systems primarly LMS systems
Writing instruction guides for clients

JobReady

01/02/2012 - 16/09/2014

Web developer / PHP

Working experience of PHP, MYSQL, XHTML, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery
Developing PHP based CMS, principally Typo3 and some WordPress
Proficient daily use of development/design applications, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Fireworks, and foundation knowledge of Flash
Writing CMS instruction guides for clients to learn from and refer to when updating their websites
Web support for clients, and general IT support for the rest of the Rapport Team
Wording on a large range of projects, from an intranet based learning portal to simple a HTML email campaign

Rapport Creative

2007 - 2011

Web Administratoir / Ebay / Online Seller

Maintenance and updates of the Gems EBay shop and the Gems website
Daily updates to php/html based website

Gems Discounts

Sep 2006 - Oct 2007

Sign Writer

Create vinyl based signs using FlexiSIGN for the Mac

CT Signs

2000 - 2006

Technical Skills

Programming

Ruby on Rails, PHP, JavaScript, JQuery, AJAX, HTML5, CSS, Bootstrap

Database

MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, Experiance of ETL based data migration projects

Agile

Experinace of working in an Aglie envrioment. Use of Kanban and Sprint boards ticket/project managment tools.

Clear code

Clear understaning of the importance of coding to conventions and styles with fucture development/developers sanity in mind

Writing

Comfortable and experienced writing in technical training documents, explaining issues to clients and colleages.

GIT

Use of GIT for software version managment. GIT Flow as the standard for software update work flow process.