Development Portfolio

@ Freestyle Interactive

At Freestyle I'm the Senior Lead Developer responsible for the delivery and code quality across all of our client code bases as well as having ownership of the delivery of two key client projects (Alstom and LTSBCF) as well as Partners - Freestyle's DAM platform - which is used in several large enterprises including Volvo.

As a result of patterns and practises that I've recommended we've:

• Dramatically reduce the time spent on bugs - the quantity and severity of bugs has fallen considerably.  When I joined Freestyle over 50% of development time was bug fixing, now most bug fixes are done by a single person (in manhours) across all our projects
• Improved the maintainability and flexibility of our solutions. Most amend/variance work can be completed by more junior developers with minimal assistence from senior developers.
• Introduced a consistent development style and coding standards which promotes best practise and can be easily automatically policed (we use FxCop)
• Developed reusable libraries to manage common tasks and features which can be simply added into our websites
• Implemented a continuous integration environment (using CruiseControl.Net - previously TFS)
• Introduced project specific developer VM's to minimise cross-project contamination and corruption.  If a VM is corrupted it only takes a few minutes to provision a new development ready environment.  Previously, this could take over 2 days of developer time to the developers local machine
• Introduced scripted regression tests (ran through manually with every release) as well as automated integration tests for critical functionality.  As most of our builds are integration pieces and have a high depency on content it's not maintainable to write unit tests around this functionality
• Introduced a firm release cycle with soft deadlines for project work/bug fixes to allow ample time for regression testing

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Alstom Corporate Website

Technology Used:
.Net 3.5 (ASP.Net, Windows Services), WCF, MSMQ, Ektron 8.02 (Page Builder and eSync)

Summary

www.alstom.com

This project includes several key Alstom websites, including their main corporate
site and leverages the Ektron platforms Authoring environment (workarea) as well
as the multi-environment content sync process (eSync).

This delivers 7 TLD websites which are administered by over 40 content editors global
with each website supporting multiple languages and configurations. The template
and website code is completely white label and allows the deployment of entirely
new websites with a unique look and feel to be configured and released without a
code deployment.

Key Project Features

www.foundation.alstom.com

• White label– each TLD website can be individually customised to provide a unique
  look and feel. This includes distinct authors, languages and publishing workflows
  
• Multi brand – each website can have an arbitrary number of (nested) sub brands to
  provide organisational departments with their own distinct area within a larger
  site
• Multilingual – each website can support multiple languages and have different governance
  policies applied depending on the business requirements
• Flexible Templates – the content structure of each page is extremely flexible and
  a common set of templates is shared across all of the delivered sites. The content
  editor experience is consistent across all of the sites
• Security – with secure and semi-secure (shared password) membership areas and configurable
  SSL requirements the project supports a range of security choices to suite the business
  
• SEO by default – Alstom has an automated, multilingual sitemap.xml which is automatically
  generated as well as other key SEO features such as multilingual content aliases,
  canonical links and control of the robots meta data on a per site/brand/page and
  language basis
• Accessibility – the entire website degrades gracefully when JS isn’t available and
  advanced UI mechanics (such as paging and filtering of results) are handled using
  the post->redirect method to ensure that every page can be deep linked
• Syndication – every list page can be converted to an RSS feed by simply appending
  .rss to the end of the page url to provide easy integration in other platforms

My Role in Delivering the Alstom Website

www.cleanpower.alstom.com

As lead developer for the Alstom project, my responsibilities within the team were:

• Designing and implementing the content model to support the various known content
  types and to allow flexible layouts
• Designing the architecture and mechanisms to provide the key features leverage the
  Ektron platform as appropriate
• Designing WCF services to provide easy access content migration paths used to migrate
  content into the new platform and to integrate into 3rd Party content sources as
  well as to allow content exports
• Help to gather and translate client requirements to technical requirements
• Assist in the design and configuration of the hosting environment
• Documenting delivery requirements and breaking down features into tasks to be implemented
  by other developers within the team of varying skills
• Ensuring that the quality of the work was consistent with Freestyle best practises
  and with the spirit of the client requirements. Where necessary, I provided mentoring
  and support to encourage developers to improve
• Communicating progress and problems with project managers (and the client where
  necessary)
• Communicating and facilitating the diagnoses of issues with the underlying Ektron
  platform with their support teams
• Communicating and communicating tasks and requirements with other teams working
  on the Alstom project such as UI, IA, Testing and SEO specialists to ensure that
  requirements are met and standards followed

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Lloyds TSB - Commercial Finance

Technology Used:
.Net 3.5, WCF, MSMQ, Ektron 7.66 (eSync)

Summary

www.ltsbcf.co.uk

This project is a collection branded microsites site whose primary aim is to generate leads for the financial products via an instant quote form. As this site is hosted by the client there are advanced security and infrastructure requirements that needed to be met to ensure ITEC compliance.

In addition to public facing websites there are a set of extranet websites which make various reference resources available to key customers of the client.

Key Project Features

www.recruitmentfinance.co.uk

• Secure - Minimal Ektron deployment to the load-balanced presentation servers (eSync only)
  
• Integration - Provides web services for 3rd Party affiliate sites to query and submit quote requests as well as integration into the client provided internal services
  
• Reliable Messaging - Load-balanced message queue (using MSMQ and WCF) based communications to internal systems to guarantee prospect delivery without permanently storing user details (ITEC requirement)
  
• Syndication - Integration with 3rd Party content provider to import news articles directly into the approval workflow of the CMS
  
• Brand Aware - Strong UI branding and supporting IA throughout to ensure compliance with the clients brand guidelines
  
• White label– each TLD website can be individually customised to provide a unique look and feel
  
• SEO by default – Alstom has an automated, multilingual sitemap.xml which is automatically generated as well as other key SEO features such as multilingual content aliases, canonical links and control of the robots meta data on a per site/brand/page and language basis
  
• Accessibility – the entire website degrades gracefully when JS isn’t available and advanced UI mechanics (such as paging and filtering of results) are handled using the post->redirect method to ensure that every page can be deep linked
  

www.artofnurture.co.uk

My Role in Delivering the LTSBCF Website

As lead developer for the LTSBCF project from inception, my responsibilities within the team were:

• Designing and implementing the content model to support the various known content types and to allow flexible layouts
  
• Designing the architecture and mechanisms to provide the key features leverage the Ektron platform as appropriate
  
• Designing WCF services to provide easy access content migration paths used to migrate content into the new platform and to integrate into 3rd Party content sources as well as to allow content exports
  
• Help to gather and translate client requirements to technical requirements
  
• Assist in the design and configuration of the hosting environment
  
• Documenting delivery requirements and breaking down features into tasks to be implemented by other developers within the team of varying skills
  
• Ensuring that the quality of the work was consistent with Freestyle best practises and with the spirit of the client requirements. Where necessary, I provided mentoring and support to encourage developers to improve
  
• Communicating progress and problems with project managers (and the client where necessary)
  
• Communicating and facilitating the diagnoses of issues with the underlying Ektron platform with their support teams
  
• Communicating and coordinating tasks and requirements with other teams working on the LTSBCF project such as UI, IA, Testing and SEO specialists to ensure that requirements are met and standards followed
  
• Providing on-going support (on and off site) to the client with regards to deployment, hosting and infrastructure
  

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@ MCJ Development (Freelance)

Like most good developers, my job is also my hobby and I've delivered some interesting websites for friends and family.  Unlike my 'day-job' website builds, I've typically handled all aspects of delivering the website to ensure that it meets expectatation, price and deadlines.

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www.astronomyshow.co.uk

Astronomy Show

Technology Used:
.Net 3.5, N2CMS, Google Checkout

Summary

This is the website for an annual astronomy event in Coventry which is used to promote the event and allow people to book tickets via Google Checkout.

This was designed and delivered over 1 week of 'spare time' development and includes several modules integrated into the N2CMS framework.

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www.vwt2oc.co.uk

VWT2OC

Technology Used:
.Net 3.5, PayPal Express Checkout, NoChex Payment Gateway

Summary

This website is a very basic CMS driven community website with an intricate paid membership system as defined by the VWT2OC.  The UI is delibrately basic as ownership of the site design and content was taken by the club themselves so I only provided a very simple themse (based on the Club Starter Site style).

This was designed and delivered over three weeks of 'spare time' development.  Given the amount of bespoke code required to support the membership functionality, the CMS and community elements are bespoke as well.