Edward Knowles, 2012

I look a lot older than this now, but I like the photo!

I am a web developer living in London and gloriously unemployed! I’m taking a break following a long spell as Head of Engineering at Wayhome. I’m spending my time learning to play chess and guitar, and I’m working on some side projects.

I’ve spent the last 10 years or so working at either startups or scaleups across a number of sectors (most recently property and ticketing). I’ve been at companies that ran out of money, and companies that exited.

From 2010 through 2014 I ran Stunjelly with Edward Knowles. Stunjelly was a eBook and digital publishing consultancy that specialised in fixing broken books and producing exciting interactive texts. We won the Best Ebook in the Children’s category at the Digital Book World Conference with ‘A Dinosaur that Pooped Christmas’.

I’m a heavy Vim user and enjoy writing Vim script. I believe you can tell a lot about a developer by looking at their config files, so here are mine: github.com/nicwest/dotstow.

Technically I’m a furniture designer (I have a degree in three dimensional design). I made an decent table once and it was pretty much downhill from there. Now I dream about making guitars and longboards in a shed somewhere. I don’t own a shed or the tools to do those things yet, but I’m working on it.

Occasionally I’m not using a computer. Sadly I’m fairly stereotypical. I like reading (literally only fantasy and historical fiction), cooking, video games, running (when not injured), playing guitar (badly) and watching the NFL.

Contact me: nicwest@mailbox.org