Jun 2021 – Apr 2023 · 1 yr 10 mos · Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Jun 2020 – Jun 2021 · 1 yr · Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

• In the role of Engineering Development Manager I am responsible for all people aspects of Compono’s engineering department. This includes; recruitment, role design, change management, performance reviews, onboarding, policy creation and coaching in ways of working.
• Achievements
• Expansion of engineering from 7 full-stack developers to 35 from various disciplines (e.g. Full-stack, QA and DevOps).
• Redefined engineering’s hiring process to be panel-led, leading to improved organisational fit and all new hires passing probation.
• Created a 360 style performance review process by incorporating peer reviews.
• In partnership with CTO successfully merged two engineering teams following a company acquisition resulting in strong retention and assimilation of employees.
• From scratch implementation and socialisation of a new 3 level afterhours on-call support system, related to engineering tech support for 3 applications.
• Adoption of standard team topology across all delivery teams to aid capacity planning and career development.
• Oversaw the move of QA from product into engineering as part of a strategy to increase QA automation.
• Modernised QA’s involvement in projects via processes inspired by Shift-left.
• Consolidation of project management tooling to Jira and Confluence - including training on best practices.
• Documented ways of working to enable teams to understand the purpose behind agile processes.
• Coached 2 teams on the successful adoption of Kanban.
• Collaborated with developers to create meaningful personal development plans.
• Created a business case and budget for learning and development expenditure for engineering.
• Created job descriptions for all roles within engineering as part of a career development framework.
• Drove the adoption of policy and procedure documentation to help align product and engineering with an aim to empower teams to be self sufficient.

Jun 2019 – Apr 2020 · 10 mos · Sydney, Australia

• As a Delivery Manager at Deputy I managed two teams with 10 direct reports from a wide range of disciplines; QA, iOS/Swift, Android/Kotlin, Backend and Front-end. As a manager I actively led my team through career coaching, goal setting, performance management and conflict resolution as well as technical advice and mentoring. In January the role was expanded to support four newly established teams with an emphasis on coaching in agile ways of working.
• Achievements
• Established team roadmaps to provide transparency of upcoming work. This created clear shared goals for the team and a greater insight into strategy for senior management.
• Optimised the agile delivery process through removing bottlenecks, coaching on best practice and the pragmatic implementation of Agile frameworks.
• Created a Deputy agile handbook to offer guidance to teams transitioning to agile ways of working
• Adapted agile handbook into short videos, presentations and training sessions which led to increased embedding of agile practices (such as improved sprint goals and greater shared understanding of work).
• Assisted VP of Engineering with cost reduction strategies for engineering leading to over $3,000 in monthly cost savings.
• Embedded the quality practice of “shift left” within the teams I led which improved the quality of software delivered.
• Established a set of concise reporting guidelines based on Red Amber Green statuses, adopted by all product development teams.
• Created dashboards and automated reports for monitoring key metrics for teams.
• Augmented Jira with Google Sheets to provide a variety of additional features for teams e.g RICE score of initiatives to help prioritisation
• Established quarterly team health checks and weekly pulse checks to monitor team well being

Apr 2018 – May 2019 · 1 yr 1 mo · Sydney, Australia

• I was responsible for one third (11 developers) of the technology team that looks after the customer experience for Scentre Group (owners and operators of Westfield in Australia and New Zealand). The team is cross functional with a mix of technologies including JavaScript, NodeJS, GraphQL, Ruby, HTML and CSS.
• Achievements
• Oversaw the transition of launching the new westfield.com.au to daily operation.
• Drove the adoption of automated regression testing to reduce production roll-backs to 0.
• Coached the team in adopting a more disciplined approach to Scrum to help improve delivery.
• Worked closely with the technology leadership team to successfully adopt a Spotify like working model.
• Helped pave the way for Junior developers to be promoted into the next level.
• Improved Git workflow to reduce the uncertainty of releasing code to production.
• Improved onboarding of new developers so they can become active contributors to the team within 5 days.
• Assisted with vendor assessments for a variety of projects including the set up of an offshore team.
• Key organiser of several company wide initiatives including the first hackday in 4 years and a monthly innovation forum.

Jan 2018 – Mar 2018 · 2 mos

• My role as Team Lead saw me manage two development teams that helped contribute over 50% of finder’s revenue. The teams consisted of front-end, back-end and QA engineers located on three continents.
• Toward the end of my time at finder I supported three Team Leads who were responsible for the core technology.
• Achievements
• Oversaw several key projects to automate daily tasks including browser testing, content creation and team operations.
• Overhauled how training of developers is managed. This has made it easier to access training budgets, improved how in-house classes are organised, promoted the use of online classes and ensuring 5% of the team’s time is spent on training.
• Successfully implemented Kanban, which improved the number of tasks completed by 20% and allowed the business more flexibility in the direction of projects.
• Implemented a programme of developer empathy to improve satisfaction of in-house projects delivered, refine requirements gathering and reduce wasted effort on projects.
• Adjusted traditional Agile processes to better suit distributed teams. This has led to the teams providing round the clock support for its stakeholders and ensuring that all team members are equally engaged with their peers and projects.
• Helped promote the next generation of mid and senior developers from existing team members.
• Provided a key role in the successful delivery of many company-wide communication initiatives such as showcases, town hall meetings and the first finder Summit.

Apr 2016 – Jan 2018 · 1 yr 9 mos

Jul 2014 – Apr 2016 · 1 yr 9 mos

Apr 2014 – Jul 2014 · 3 mos · Sydney, Australia

Aug 2013 – Present · 12 yrs 9 mos · Sydney, Australia

• SydCSS runs every other month and is one of Sydney's most popular tech meetups regularly attracting over 100 people to each event.

Jan 2013 – Nov 2022 · 9 yrs 10 mos

• 2023 - Code Leaders '22 speaker "The 2,000 Year Old Engineering Manager"
• 2019 - Code Leader '19 speaker "Being the nice guy with the bad news"
• 2019 - Scentre Group's "Tell me more" series host
• 2017 - Finder Summit MC
• 2014 - Respond '14 speaker "Responsive Navigation"

Dec 2012 – Mar 2014 · 1 yr 3 mos · Sydney

• As a Senior Front-end Developer I have been successful in taking an unreliable and fragile series of websites and turning them into an environment that other developers can contribute to with confidence.
• To provide developers with this confidence I've used a wide range of technologies on top of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, such as NodeJS, Grunt, Sass, JSHint, Jasmine, Selenium, and BBC's Wraith.
• I have applied this experience to overhaul the internal CSS framework to include automatically generated documentation, 3 levels of testing, and Sass/Compass support.
• In addition to my development role I've also transformed the regular technology meet up hosted at Bigcommerce (Sydney Web Apps Group) turning it into an event with over 600 members providing opportunities to meet the best engineers in Sydney and to give Bigcommerce engineers an opportunity to present in public.

Apr 2012 – Dec 2012 · 8 mos

• Working exclusively on iOS apps built using Adobe PhoneGap, I've lead the successful development of 5 apps in the first 5 months of working at Creative Licence Digital.
• My role has helped Creative Licence develop a new workflow which places the control of the design in the hands of the designer, rather than let it be interpreted by a developer. This has allowed us to reduce the QA time normally associated with the software development lifecycle and produce better software as a result.
• To achieve this I have invested a considerable amount of time in fully understanding Backbone, Underscore, Require JS, LESS, Zepto. I've also driven the training of designers to make best use of CSS3 and Webkit specific CSS.

Feb 2008 – Apr 2012 · 4 yrs 2 mos · Sydney, Australia

• In this role I help define the network standards for HTML, CSS and JavaScript and directly manage 5 developers in the news.com.au Creative Team.
• Achievements
• Winner of the 2011 PANPA Award for innovation. following an increase in HTML based interactives on news.com.au
• Finalist of the 2011 News Award for Innovation following the work on the "before and after".
• Winner of the 2009 PANPA Award for best news website following the transition from Vignette to Fatwire.
• Finalist of the 2008 Aimia Awards following a redesign that included drag and drop customisation.
• News.com.au's page performance is always in the monthly top 3 for NDM controlled websites.
• Successful oversight of the implementation of the new homepage and story page across news.com.au. The project was delivered on time and with no backend changes required.
• Project managed the overhaul of workflow for front-end development to allow for more efficient team work and improved code quality.
• Defined standards for writing both CSS and JavaScript across the NDM network.
• In 2008 ensured the adoption of jQuery through endorsement and training to give more developers JavaScript skills.
• Oversight of the front-end migration of News.com.au from Vignette to Fatwire within 9 months.
• Designed the restructure of the front-end team to have a achieve a hierachy which allows senior developers to mentor junior developers.
• My role includes
• Research and development of new technology for news.com.au
• Line management of 5 front-end developers including training, performance, and career development.
• Delivering accurate time estimates on large scale projects.
• Documentation of projects to ensure easy hand over and better team work.
• Resonsible for the efficient use of task management software (JIRA).

Sep 2007 – Jan 2008 · 4 mos · Sydney

• As a contracted front-end web developer for Hot House I worked with 4 other front-end developers to produce HTML, CSS and JavaScript for a wide range of clients, including Toyota, MYOB, HCF, and Fiji Telecom.
• Achievements
• Defined a new workflow based on modular HTML to allow for better integration with back-end systems.
• Produced an advanced software prototype, called Page Craft to enforce the new workflow.
• Pre-empted integration problems with ASP.NET to avoid bottlenecks in workflow.
• My role included
• Production of HTML, CSS and JavaScript for a wide range of clients.
• Integration of HTML into ASP.NET based content management systems.
• Troubleshooting of HTML, CSS and JavaScript across pre-existing websites.

Feb 2007 – Jun 2007 · 4 mos · Sydney

• As a contracted Front-end developer for NetX I worked alongside 2 other front-end developers, liaising with many areas of the company to ensure the HTML, CSS and JavaScript requirements of the company were met. As a digital agency, NetX gave me experience in working with many high profile companies such as Westpac, Proctor and Gamble, Hoyts, Virgin Atlantic, and Zuji.
• Achievements
• Developing a means to style form elements that can not normally be styled, this was built as a jQuery plug-in which could be easily reused across other projects.
• Successful introduction of JavaScript to developers who had no previous experience of this technology.
• Delivered consistently standards-compliant HTML for clients with very strict coding requirements, such as Westpac.
• My role included
• Producing standards based HTML.
• Use of DOM scripting techniques to unobtrusively include behaviour and interactivity within websites.
• Liaise with producers, account managers and clients to ensure projects were delivered on time and to specification.
• Prioritisation of work from many areas of the company to ensure client satisfaction.

Oct 2006 – Jan 2007 · 3 mos · Sydney

• As a contracted Senior Web Developer for Austereo I worked alongside a Producer, Web Designer and Web Developer to ensure the on time delivery of the new Today Network stable of websites (2dayfm.com.au, foxfm.com.au, 929.com.au, safm.com.au, and b105.com.au).
• Achievements
• Project delivered on time, the project went live on 17th January 2007
• 300% increase in page impressions within 1 week of going live with the new website
• My role included
• Integration the Cast Metrix pod casting application into the CMS using XML
• Delivery of dynamic page elements (such as tabbed navigation, accordion interface, and the On Air Now functionality) using JSON, CSS, HTML and JavaScript
• Development of software to retrieve, save and redistribute news and photographs syndicated from a third party news source (AAP). Using PHP and XML
• Development of an application to allow users to vote for their favourite songs on the Hot30. The application also included a drag and drop administration interface and integration into the CMS. Using PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Production of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript across the entire network
• Trouble shooting cross browser compatibility issues with CSS and JavaScript
• Scoping requirements for additional software for the on time delivery of the Today Network

Sep 2002 – Jun 2006 · 3 yrs 9 mos · Sydney

• My role as Senior Web Developer on Vogue.com.au went well beyond the responsibilities of a traditional developer. Along with the Marketing Director and Online Project Manager I was required to direct the ongoing strategy of the site.
• Working for Vogue also gave me many opportunities to work closely with premium brands such as; Armani, Sony, Estee Lauder, Revlon, Rimmel, and L'Oreal; to deliver effective advertising campaigns that exceeded their expectations.
• Achievements
• Implemented Vogue.com.au's new CMS in under 7 weeks with a team of 3 people.
• Rebuilt the competitions management software to increase entries. Once completed, competition entries on Vogue.com.au increased by 400%.
• Following search engine optimisation, Vogue.com.au was No1 Australian magazine website in terms of page impressions, user duration and user frequency (source: Nielsen//Netratings March 2006).
• Winner of the 2005 Gold Ozzies Award for best site design.
• Overhaul of the Vogue forum lead to Vogue.com.au being the 2005 No1 Australian Fashion website (source: HitWise).
• My role included
• Training of team members on large scale projects, such as the implementation of a new CMS
• Providing technical solutions for Vogue.com.au and its clients, including Estee Lauder
• Design of Vogue.com.au's over all look and feel to keep inline with Conde Nast's international requirements.
• Liaising with the IT department on hardware and software requirements
• Delivering accurate time estimates for project delivery
• Ensuring that pages on Vogue.com.au receive as much exposure as possible via search engines using modern Search Engine Optimisation techniques.

Apr 2001 – Sep 2002 · 1 yr 5 mos

Jan 2000 – Apr 2001 · 1 yr 3 mos

Dec 1999 – Apr 2018 · 18 yrs 4 mos · Sydney, Australia

• Originally built as a Flash game in 2001. Sheep Game is now available as a local multiplayer game on PC and Xbox.

Jan 1999 – Dec 1999 · 11 mos