CV

Personal

I enjoy being hands-on with development and generally “getting things done” but also providing input into and helping to drive the strategic direction of the business. I have a particular interest in guiding, mentoring and advising the people and processes involved with development.

I am committed, hard-working and have demonstrated the ability to rapidly acquire and master new skills and technologies. I have experience with and enjoy all forms of customer contact and look to work in and build highly cohesive teams.

Experience

OpLabs

Staff Protocol Engineer

February 2023 - Present

Helping to build and run the Optimism rollup on top of Ethereum.

ConsenSys Protocols Group (PegaSys)

Senior Blockchain Engineer

April 2018 – January 2023

The ConsenSys protocols group build Ethereum technology for the public-chain and enterprises. I helped develop the new Ethereum execution client that became HyperLedger Besu and built a team to bring the Ethereum consensus client Teku from research into production. Also worked with other client teams and the Ethereum Foundation to refine and improve the beacon chain specification and continue to improve Ethereum as a whole.

LMAX

Team Lead & Senior Developer

Jan 2011 – March 2018

LMAX build and run a retail exchange offering FX and CFD trading, implementing both an execution venue and a broker. Aiming to be the fastest retail exchange in the world using commodity hardware, LMAX invented the Disruptor and regularly challenge assumptions about performance using scientific analysis and measurement.

Initially based in their London office I was asked to stay on board when moving back to Brisbane, Australia in 2012 and became their first remote developer
Development of high performance, low-latency Java code
Led development of custom market data viewer displaying markets in real time with JavaScript, HTML, SVG, d3 and WebSockets
Led modernisation of front-end toolchain to use Vue.js, Sass, Webpack and Vuetify
Strong focus on automated testing
- Led a sustained effort to resolve intermittent failures in test suites, changing the culture to expect green builds
- Built tools to efficiently distribute the 20,000+ acceptance tests across a pool of servers to minimise feedback time
Worked along-side system operations team to improve monitoring, performance and stability of production systems
As the only developer in Australia, worked with remote teams in London, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand
Technical team lead for “Partner Sales” stream
- Worked with sales team and business analysts to identify and scope required features
- Provided functional and technical vision to development team
- Drove technical process improvement
Hands on from analysis through implementation, testing, automated deployment and production support
Worked with the full stack from JavaScript UI, Java and .NET API clients, core business logic through to persistence using event journalling, snapshots and databases

Ephox Corporation

Chief Technology Officer

2002 – 2010

My role at Ephox encompassed a wide variety of roles, including lead engineer, pre-sales and CTO roles. This provided a unique insight into the business from many varied angles and required communication, understanding and coordination between all areas of the business. Being a small company, effective time management, prioritisation and delegation skills were required to balance these varied roles. I also had the opportunity to understand the risks and rewards involved in start-ups.

Technology Leadership

Extensive experience with JavaScript, HTML , CSS, Java and Swing
Developed world-class browser-based rich text editors (EditLive! and TinyMCE)
Worked with and developed for a wide range of enterprise collaboration and web content management systems, including IBM Lotus Quickr and WCM, EMC Documentum, Oracle/Stellent, Vignette and OpenText Web Solutions
Provided development and consulting for a wide range of server-side technologies including J2EE (especially WebSphere and Tomcat), PHP, Perl, .NET and Ruby on Rails
Designed user interfaces that provide a simple, intuitive editing experience
Assisted planning of future product and company direction
Rapidly developed prototypes and proof of concepts
Translated client problems and feedback into actionable product features and ideas
Mentored and trained both junior and senior developers
Established and led continuous process improvement including the adoption of XP and test driven development
Worked with remote employees and clients, including internationally
Lead development of both green field projects and large, legacy codebases
Balanced business objectives and timelines with the need to incrementally improve the maintainability and reliability of the product

Technical Specialist for EMEA

Assisted sales team with sales strategies and processes
Analysed customer needs and presented custom demos of Ephox solutions
Provided pre and post sales technical support
On-site and off-site consulting for Ephox clients, including development, configuration and guidance on best practices
Rapidly learnt new technology used or required by clients as part of sales and consulting cycles

Set up UK subsidiary and office

Full view of the business, including administration, legal and compliance
Hired and assisted in training new sales team
Liaised with UK Government and trade representatives
Maintained a diverse array of IT systems including source control, build systems and continuous integration servers, wiki and collaboration services, email, websites and VoIP systems
Established documentation and management of company systems to ensure reliability, compliance and maintainability

Software Quality Institute

Software Engineer

December 2000 – 2002

Developed a software design tool to assist with the practical application of Genetic Software Engineering which was being researched
Managed rapidly changing and incomplete requirements
Combined and interpreted PhD research on software design approaches into practical applications