Engineering lead and versatile programmer with 13 years of experience building stuff on the web. Read more…

History

2018 - 2023: Head of Engineering ← Technical Architect ← Backend Lead @ Wayhome (previously Unmortgage)
Wayhome aims to bridge the gap between renting and buying a home

  • Set up initial infrastructure, built core services, and set standards.
  • Hired, trained, and managed a large number engineers.
  • Oversaw and/or was directly involved in design and development of technical solutions to hundreds of business problems.
  • As Head of Engineering I was part of the executive team and I was responsible for the engineering, product and data teams.
  • Worked along side business leaders to translate business objectives into techincal and product related projects.
  • Negotiated and maintained external supplier contracts.

2015 - 2018: Senior Software Engineer ← Software Engineer @ Ingresso
Ingresso is a international aggregator for the primary ticketing market

  • Maintained and extended a large monolithic objective c web API.
  • Created numerous micro services in python and go for new functionality.
  • Refactored and rearchitected django B2C products.
  • Integrated with multiple third party APIs.
  • Heavily involved in the hiring and training of new staff.
  • Introduced testing and the benefits of CI to the team.
  • Production experience at scale of docker, kubernetes and google cloud.
  • Maintained open source libraries.

2014 - 2015: Junior Web developer @ Leto
Leto was a fast paced Django shop, building out prototype sites for startups

  • Built and/or maintained a number of django/js applications.
  • Involved in specification and estimation for new clients.
  • Set up automated deployments.
  • Production experience of AWS.

2010 - 2014: Digital director @ Stunjelly
Stunjelly was a digital publishing consultancy that specialised in complex ebook covertions and corrections

  • Created and corrected of large number of ebooks for London publishing houses.
  • Brought multiple children’s picture books to life with javascript and css animation.
  • Fabricated tools for in house teams.
  • Pitched and won work from multiple clients.

2009 - 2010: Web Development Assistant @ Random House
Random House is large book publisher that required a lot of micro sites and internal tools

Education

2007 - 2010: Three dimensional design @ Leeds College of Art
2005 - 2006: Design Scholar @ Bedales School

Skills

Building Internet stuff: I have shipped APIs, template based web sites, GUI tools, statically generated sites, serverless micro services, and realtime websocket based applications. I have worked on the frontend, backend, and infra side of the web, and seen applications running at scale and applications falling flat on their face at scale. I write good, simple, low-state code that is designed to be easily understood, easy to replace/refactor, and easy to test.

Programming Languages: I would describe myself as an exceptionally strong python developer and I have been working primarily in that language for the last decade or so. In addition to python, I’ve done work professionally in Golang, javascript, typescript, C, Obj-C *, shell, lua, PHP, ASP, and Perl. I’m a hobbiest clojure developer.

Kubernetes: I’ve used kubernetes extensively every day for the last 8 years. I’ve boostrapped and managed multiple production clusters, implemented auto scaling (in every direction), and handled years of maintenance and migrations.

Databases: I have a good working knowledge of PostreSQL, MySQL and Redis. I have worked with Mongodb a fair bit (just not recently), and have a passable understanding of Cassandra. I’m playing with some of the jamstack databases at the moment (I like fuanadb).

Teams: I have a fair amount of experience working as part of, leading, and managing small to medium sized teams. My ability to communicate concepts and designs is good, and I think I’m a good mentor to both technical and non technical team mates. I am well versed in XP, Scrum and Kanban (although I’m not really a fan of any of them).

Me

Date of Birth: 21/06/1988 (35)
Email: nicwest@mailbox.org
Github: github.com/nicwest
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/nic-west-57664225/
References: On request

updated 2023-11-28 16:13:50