James Baker - Developer
Welcome, below I have listed my past experience as well as what I aim to achieve in the future. There are examples of my work on my Github profile
EducationIn progressCollapse
I am still in part-time education with the Open University where I have been studying for a Bachelor's degree in IT & Computing with a focus on software development since 2014.
Doing my degree has solidified my understanding of practices and also taught me some new IT & Computing skills such as:
- Developing mobile apps
- Writing reports for non-technical and technical audiences
- Planning and designing software solutions
- Algorithms and modelling real-world problems
- Using cloud technologies
- Self reflection
Stage 12014-2016Expand
Module | Year | Grade |
---|---|---|
My Digital Life | 2014 | Distinction |
Technologies in Practice | 2015 | Pass |
Discovering Mathetmatics | 2016 | Pass |
Stage 22016-2018Expand
Module | Year | Grade |
---|---|---|
Object Oriented Java Programming | 2016 | Distinction |
Software Development with Java | 2018 | Grade 3 Pass |
Algorithms, data structures and computability | 2018 | Grade 2 Pass |
Stage 32019-presentExpand
Module | Year | Grade |
---|---|---|
Web Technologies | 2019 | Grade 2 Pass |
Software Engineering | 2020 | Grade 2 Pass |
Web, Mobile and Cloud Technologies | 2021 | Distinction |
Grade ExplanationExpand
Grade | Scale |
---|---|
Distinction | 85-100% |
Grade 2 Pass | 70-84% |
Grade 3 Pass | 55-69% |
Junior Web Developer2007-2008CompleteExpand
After school I attained a job as a junior web developer for Specnet Ltd, a small web design company located in Earl Shilton. I joined a husband and wife team who had various local clients.
My main responsibilities were;
- Minor HTML changes on client request
- Developing new features
- Aiding the main developer with implementation
- Maintaining web hosting accounts
- Uploading websites to hosting
- Populating SEO meta data
This was a rewarding role where I really got to cut my teeth on real-world web development. My greatest achievements at the time were implementing a search feature for the Small Business Forum website and creating all the graphics for a local car garage website.
Trainee Game Developer2008-2009CompleteExpand
During the 2008 recession I took back to studying, this time looking to game development. I joined the Train2Game developer program which used a study from home model.
This program taught me a large amount about programming in C++, libraries, using graphics engines, spriting and a lot of lower level functionality that is usually abstracted from higher level development.
I was introduced to:
- Pathing algorithms (Dijkstra, A*)
- Graphics engines (DirectDraw)
- Game loops
- Bitwise operations
- Memory management
- Threading
This course bought a much deeper understanding of how programs work and my most-lasting takeaway was of Object Oriented programming (OOP).
FFD - Web Admin to Lead IT Technician2010-In progressCollapse
As the business grew, my responsibilities moved away from general admin and now I am the Lead IT Tech, advising the admin team and liasing with third party developers.
My main responsibilities:
- Maintenance of the Magento websites including security updates
- Designing and implementing internal tooling to aid in productivity
- Specifying tasks and liasing with third party web developers and vendors
- Researching and learning new software and solutions useful to the company
- Setting up new virtual machines on the company servers, installing the OS and required software
- Maintaining Windows and Linux servers
- Maintaining the ERP systems and integrating them with the websites
- Configuring access to websites for third parties
- Aiding the content manager and MD with implementing SEO friendly features
- Supporting the sales staff with any issues they may have with systems
- Maintaining the office hardware
- Ensuring security practices are best followed - in the office and externally
- Documenting systems and practices
- Overseeing and advising the junior IT staff
Working at FFD has been a good experience in dealing with teams. I work closely with the whole office but especially the web admin and content team. I am also responsible for training the junior IT staff with general IT and development best practices.
I have learned a lot about Magento, composer and web servers in general in this role.
Some of the languages, tools and frameworks used:
- Magento 1.6 - Magento 2.4
- Python
- Django
- pip
- gunicorn
- AlpineJS
- php5.6 - php8.1
- Composer
- Git cli/Github
- TailwindCSS
- HTML5
- JavaScript
- jQuery
- CSS3
- SASS/LESS
- NGINX
- Windows server
- Ubuntu
- CentOS
- MageStack
- Docker
- Java
- Zoho
- Deluge
- MySQL
- SQLite
- Wordpress
- WSL2
- VSCode
- Mobaxterm
- Filezilla
- vi/nano
- Apache