Portfolio of Andrew MacLeod

I currently work as a senior programmer and team lead for a medium sized software company in Nottingham.

I manage a team of developers using an agile-based process, building a single page web application across the full development stack.

The role involves working as part of a multi-discipline team including analyst, designer, tester and product owner. I manage all aspects of the development process - including the release and branching strategies - to release a fully functional, tested product every two weeks.

The work covers a wide range of technologies and frameworks and includes writing unit tests for both client and server side code. In 14 months of development the solution has been covered by over 12,000 unit tests.

A large part of my current role has involved the coding and architecture of an extensive development framework and API for third-party developers to code against. This has drawn upon my experience of writing a CMS and customisable features for software products, to ensure that a robust and flexible solution has been created. The customer feedback on this is testament to the solution that has been produced.

At FACE Recording & Measurement Systems I worked as a Senior Software Engineer, producing an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) management system called Care Partner.

The role entailed working on a single page web application across the full development stack, in a small team with one other senior developer and two juniors.

My inclusion in the project was to speed the creation of a releasable software product, to help facilitate improved relationships with existing customers and expunge earlier unfinished products.

The main part of the system I was responsible for was the customisable Care Pathways feature. This allowed definition of any number of customisable paths through a service user's journey. The feature provided a decision-based evidence trail through a service user's involvement with Social Services or their visit to an NHS trust.

The latter part of my time at FACE Recording & Measurement Systems involved writing an application to migrate data from existing systems to the new solution.
This was a task which had previously relied on custom database scripts on a per-installation basis. I wrote an application which cleaned up and migrated data with a configurable level of customisation for each installation.

At EIBS I worked as a programmer for one of the leading Content Management System (CMS) providers in the UK.

Much of my time was spent writing new features in the product for clients such as Great Ormond Street Hospital, Children's International Student Villages (CISV), East Riding of Yorkshire Council, The Federation of Master Builders (FMB), The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), The Welding Institute (TWI) and many others.

My role involved working with a large C#.Net code-base and SQL database, using Object Orientated Programming (OOP), to create new features to meet customer requirements and support existing customer systems.

Day-to-day my role involved writing user controls, stored-procedures and debugging an application containing more than two million lines of code. In addition to this I frequently wrote new user interfaces using jQuery and JavaScript. I was often called upon to create bespoke applications for customers and help out with assisting non-technical staff to design product features.

I became specialised in migrating legacy systems to the CMS product and the development of new user-interfaces and frameworks to facilitate pluggable features.

I offer a freelance website design and development service.

Over the years I have designed and developed sites for a wide range of clients and companies, including Arkwright Dry Cleaners, Orrsum Designer Socks, Croma Properties, Gallery Kitchens, Tracy Redington (Actress), Trident Accountancy, Recroute Recruitment and Music at Home.

Arkwright Dry Cleaners

A well-established local business needed to migrate their existing website away from an existing provider, so they contacted me to improve their situation. I wrote a responsive site for them which quickly began to answer their customer enquiries online, reducing the time involved in responding to customers. I continue to work with Arkwright Dry Cleaners to improve their responsive site and help with their online marketing solution.

Orrsum Designer Socks

I was commissioned to build a site for Orrsum Designer Socks, an established sock and underwear supplier providing products for M&S, Tesco, Thomas Pink and Harvey Nichols.

Croma Properties

Croma needed a site to help establish their brand presence for clients such as Sainsbury's, B&Q, NG2 and a variety of retail parks. I worked closely with the client to design and build a site which closely matched their business needs.

Gallery Kitchens

I worked with The Gallery Kitchens for a number of years, helping to interpret the company's requirements and build a selection of sites using an Umbraco-powered CMS solution.

Tracy Redington

Tracy is an actress who has played roles in productions such as The Fifth Element, A Quantum of Solace and Midsomer Murders. I built a promotional site for her to demonstrate her versatility as an actress, which was very well received.

Trident Accountancy Limited

I worked with Trident Accountancy for a number of years, producing sites powered by Umbraco including PHP and JavaScript-based tax calculators.

Recroute Recruitment

I was commissioned to build a site for Recroute recruitment as part of their brand start-up. The site was built in .Net and involved a rather snazzy Flash intro.

Music at Home

A local music teacher contracted me to build a site advertising his services, including tuition in guitar, bass and brass.

I worked for Raleigh Bikes as a website designer and developer.

My role involved single-handedly creating a modern online presence for Raleigh, including an online shop and sites for brands such as Diamondback, CycleLife and Univega. This required the creation of a new site for each brand on an annual basis, with creation of promotional microsites including the Raleigh Chopper, Raleigh Burner and working with brands such as Ben Sherman and BoxFresh.

To facilitate the maintenance and consistency of product information across all of the sites I also created an intranet-based application for non-technical staff. Fundamentally a CMS, it was written in .Net and backed by a SQL Server database which integrated with the company's core database system and synchronised data using a Windows Service.
As the company's only web technology resource, I also maintained and developed new features for an industry-leading B2B site in Java, backed by an IBM AS/400 database. This introduced me to Object Orientated programming and working with technologies such as Apache Tomcat.

Eventually I moved into a team-leader role, recruiting and helping an assistant website designer to learn programming and website design. When I had a free minute I would help out the graphic design team with Photoshop or Quark for the Raleigh catalogue!

After leaving London I worked for a shop in Nottingham - The Adult Gift Shop.
I created a Flash fruit machine game and re-designed the shop's website, developing a new online shop using "traditional" ASP.

My first ASP.Net websites were written for AGS, where I created a number of sites including several online shops, promotional microsites and a "white label" profile matching site which could be customised to any brand.

I graduated from university in London in the late 1990s and my first job was as a graphic designer for a financial company - Pershing Limited. Initially, I was tasked with acting as a technical creative resource to the company, so helped out wherever I was needed. This involved a wide range of duties, from creating designs for anyone in the company who needed them, to technical support and managing I.T. projects!

Soon, I began to write intranet sites for a variety of departments in the company, helping to share information and improve processes for over 700 staff. As my experience grew, so did the range of tasks which required my skills. Almost anything you might think of, including creation of intranet-based management reports, project status update applications, training sites, procedure management systems and training other staff in web design.

While at Pershing I worked on the corporate brand identity, creating a new website as part of a full corporate rebrand. After a successful launch of the new corporate identity I was tasked with designing and developing a site for the company's new public-facing brand, Pershing Broker Services. I wrote a fully interactive Flash website as part of the brand's successful launch.

It's been varied, but fun :).