a full stack React and Node developer, based in Birmingham, UK. I'm an accessibility and impact driven developer with over 15 years of experience and a love for FOSS. I write maintainable web apps and sites that scale, with a focus on clean and agile code to support sustainable growth and stability.
Prototyped in Penpot, brought to life with 11ty! My portfolio is WCAG AA compliant, scores 100 on Google PageSpeed insights and weighs under 90kb.
A FOSS, local, subscription-free CMS for 11ty, powered by React & Electron! It's been featured on THE 11ty Meetup and has 100+ Mastodon followers. Open beta soon...
Mastodon is a FOSS social network. I contributed a fix for the broken emoji picker, which got merged into the code base, benefiting over 1 million users.
Consultancy prepared me for developing dependable, production-ready solutions with multidisciplinary teams. It taught me about working with established code bases, and collaborating with developers from a range of backgrounds and skill levels. With my most recent clients I've:
Cut request response times by over 10% by refactoring their Node.js backend
Created and maintained their CI/CD pipeline using SonarQube and Github Actions, enabling us to catch bugs before they reached production, reducing deployment downtime by over 80%
Patched 3 critical CVEs found in their legacy API by commercial penetration tests. Afterwards developing unit tests using Vitest to avoid future vulnerabilities.
Created their base Express RESTful API, enabling them to transition away from Firebase, reducing costs by 20%
Supported their Cyber Essentials Plus certification by advising on and writing internal guidance on opsec, allowing us to pass Cyber Essentials Plus certification
From consulting on security, infrastructure and dev ops, to pair programming and contributing my own code to mission critical projects... I've lead development, collaborated with lead developers, and delivered products with other team members that customers can depend on.
In my teaching practice, I developed and delivered a comprehensive full-stack web development training program for my tutees. It covered a range of languages, including technologies such as: React, Node, and Laravel. I'm proud to have helped my students start and progress their careers in software engineering. In my tutoring practice I:
Taught over 1000 hours with students across the world from varying experience levels and backgrounds
Taught juniors how to code in full-stack JavaScript, HTML + CSS, PHP and MySQL via pair programming
Taught system administration skills: deploying Linux VPSs, setting up web servers and securing their infrastructure
Taught cyber security by demonstrating vulnerabilities and their fixes to my tutees
These experiences have enriched my communication and mentorship skills, especially in articulating complex technical concepts and problem solving strategies- all skills crucial for collaborative teamwork and mentorship of colleagues. I deeply enjoy teaching and seeing people progress as what I'm teaching "clicks", and I look forward to more opportunities for teaching in future!
Developing 11tyCMS has taught me so much about the impact of agile code on productivity. In early alpha, the code was inconsistent and difficult to follow. There were many quirks, all causing frequent bugs, slowing down debugging and draining my energy. It was starting to put me off working on it.