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Summary of Expertise

• Currently working at a Tier 2 Search-Engine, Superpages.com, on “BidCenter”, a Java/Tomcat/Oracle system allowing Thousands of Users to Integrate Superpages Advertising with Google, Yahoo and Bing
• Maven Driven Backend Development With Automated JUnit Testing with Continuum Nightly Builds
• Nine years of experience in Java Development and Ten Years of Perl Development.
• Ten years of Managing Linux / Unix (including Solaris) experience.
• Ten years of using SQL with Oracle and Mysql, Six years of using Hibernate (HSQL) with Oracle
• Two and a half years of Python Development (with SOAP/XML).
• Three years of Web Designing
• Very good knowledge of PHP
• Ten years of using SQL with Oracle and Mysql.

Experience

July 2007 - ongoing, Senior Developer, Idearc. (Formerly a Verizon company)

In 2007 Verizon acquired Inceptor Inc’s assets to use the BidCenter product in-house to maximise Superpages.com’s customers’ exposure. Idearc was spun off in November 2006. More about the Acquistion, more about the Verizon / Idearc spin-off...

• Participating in Knowledge Exchange Seminars, employees present a short talk on various topics to educate others. Mine were:
  • Data Mining Oracle to Optimise Bidcenter Recommendations
  • Introduction to the Maven Based Build Process,
  • XML Databases, What are they and How Can We Use Them...?
• Developed an Internal system to store SOAP Conversations in a Berkeley XML DB. Uses PHP Joomla modules to search and display stored XML. The XML DB is queried using XQuery and is updated via a Java/Perl bridge
• Axis/SOAP integration with Google Adwords, Yahoo and Microsoft Bing APIs, including Axis internals hacking for malformed WSDLs.
• Responsible for converting a monolithic Ant-based build system to Maven. This has improved developer workflow by separating out the Build Process into functional blocks.
• SQL optimisations that reduced a 10-minute Development SQL script down to 3 minutes.
• Improving the effectiveness of BidCenter’s core bidding algorithm.
• Using Python to convert Geo-Data between Superpages.com, Google and Microsoft Geo-targets. This uses Yahoo WOEID’s (and other Yahoo Geo-location apis) to translate geo-locations between Google Adwords, Bing Adcenter and Superpages.
• Using Oracle 10g specific Aggregation Sql to enhance customer reporting.
• Automated systems/reporting on errors in the Superpages.com Production environment using Perl / Python and Bash Scripting.
• Assisting with a “Big Bang” rollout of BidCenter to 10,000+ users of Superpages.com.
• JUnit reporting and testing management with Continuum.
• PL/SQL Scripts for Customer Reporting.

August 2000 ⎯ July 2007, Developer, Inceptor

Inceptor was a Search-Marketing Company – I worked on systems that improved our clients’ rankings in Search-engines (eg Google) as well as part of the team developing our Flagship Product: BidCenter.

• JUnit testing suite manager – ensuring team code quality.
• Integrating with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo APIs. Languages: Perl, Java, PHP.
• Building web linguistics tools (keyword analysis, suggestions mining, etc).
• Data visualisation/analysis with Perl.
• “Extra Mile” company award.
• HTML scraping and analysis with Perl and Java API's. (Incl. WWW:Mechanize & JTidy)
• Click fraud analysis and prevention.
• Implementing reporting with custom JSP tags utilising database driven content and live application based data.
• Code optimisation for Java and SQL.
• Dynamic linear modelling techniques for Bid Optimisation.
• Building reporting tools for CVS/SVN to aid Development and Build Failure Troubleshooting.
• Automated Client Submission (Java)

October 1999 – August 2000 ⎯ Web Manager, HH Internet Ltd

• Monthly maintenance of 20 high traffic subscription based sites
• Administration of Apache/Netscape Web Servers on DEC/Solaris/Linux servers.
• Troubleshooting/crisis management.
• Analysis of traffic and resources.
• Writing and supporting existing Perl, Javascript and Java.
• Updating customer data in an Informix database via Perl & ISQL.
• Managing email newsletter lists and mailings.
• Updating HTML and adding new pages.

October 1998 – September 1999 ⎯ Web Developer, Chatham Printers

• Designing/developing websites in-house & for clients
• Copy-writing
• Graphics re-touching.

Detailed Skills List

• Languages: (in order of fluency) J2EE Java 1.5 (Axis, JAXB, JBDC, Jboss, Jakarta, Hibernate, Ibatis, Struts, Spring), Perl, Python, Bash/Shell, PHP, Javascript, Objective-C.
• Apache Tomcat 5/ 6, and Jetty Servlet Engine.
• SQL, real-time and embedded with Perl DBI, PHP, Java JDBC and Python.
• Subversion (SVN), CVS and Git.
• Maintain and troubleshoot: Windows, Mac OSX, Unix (Solaris, Redhat/Debian/Ubuntu Linux).
• Can write raw HTML, CSS2, AJAX, XML
• IDEs: Eclipse 3.x, Komodo, Emacs.
• Web Servers: install, configure & administer (Apache1/2) & email (Postfix/Sendmail).
• Joomla and Drupal CMS.
• Bug Tracking: Bugzilla (with WWW:Bugzilla) and Redmine
  

Previous Positions:

These are positions I held before I returned to university in September 1998 to study for my MSc IT.

• Brand Manager, Telecoms: SMi Conferences (May 1998 – September 1998),
• Manager, Conferences/IT (managing two employees) CommEd Ltd (April 1997 – May 1998)
• Marketing Executive: CommEd Ltd (January 1996 – April 1997)

Education

September 1998 - September 1999 ⎯ MSc IT, De Montfort University, Leicester

• Networking TCP/IP, Ethernet, ATM, ISDN, DBDQ (simulated in VB) (A)
• Distributed Multi-Process Systems Programming in C on Unix (A)
• Software Engineering/Object Orientated Programming with C++ (B)
• Advanced Database Systems, including Entity Relationship Modelling (B)
• Dissertation: Transparent Knowledge Management Interfaces: Java/XML (B)
• Advanced Interactive Systems (HTML/JavaScript/Java) (A)

September 1991 - May 1995 ⎯ Business Studies (BA Hons) : IIi, De Montfort University

• Thesis: "Japanese Market Entry".(IIi)
• Strategic Marketing (I)
• Business Decision Making (IIi)
• Buyer Behaviour (IIi)
• Retail Management (IIi)
• Market Research (IIii)

August 1993 - May 1994 ⎯ University of North Carolina at Wilmington, USA

As part of my degree course I studied at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. During this time I had an internship as a Researcher for the Small Business and Technology Development Center located there.

• International Marketing (B)
• General Psychology (B)
• International Management (B)
• Promotional Marketing (B)
• Entrepreneurship (C)
• International Politics (C)

September 1989 - May 1991 ⎯ BTEC National Diploma in Business and Finance, Amersham and Wycombe College

• IT (Distinction)
• Accounting (Distinction)
• Economics (Distinction)
• Advertising (Distinction)
• Marketing (Distinction)
• French (Merit)

September 1985 – May 1989 – Chesham Park School, Chesham, GCSE’s

• English (B)
• Maths (B)
• English Literature (C)
• French (C)
• Physics (C)
• Gen. Science (C)

Interests

Traveling ⎯ I enjoy travelling, having visited Europe, the Far East (inc Japan), and the US.
Socialising ⎯ I enjoy an active/stimulating social life and experiencing all that London offers