# jamie (@jamie.ideasasylum.com)

Profile: https://sifa.id/p/jamie.ideasasylum.com
Headline: Consultant, Startup CTO, and Rails developer

## About

I'm an experienced developer (currently using Ruby on Rails) but unlike other developers, I'm focused on the business outcomes not just pretty code.

I help non-technical founders, like you, start their business, build their product, get their first customers, and grow their technical team. I act as an "Interim CTO" guiding your technical architecture and product development, handing off as you bring on your full team.

## Experience

- **Senior Researcher at Broadcom Eireann Research** (1999 – 2001)
  I worked on several European research projects in the area of agent-based systems. My role was primarily in porting the platform to mobile devices, developing simulations and participating in quarterly meetings and reports. I was heavily involved in the successful proposal for a 5th Framework EU project and was given responsibility for one of the work packages.
  
  I also consulted on a telecoms management project by a major equipment management manufacturer, principally by helping their employees get up-to-speed with Java technologies.
  
  I was the company representative to the FIPA standards organisation for interoperability between agent-based systems (with a focus on mobile).
- **Software Engineer at Bluewatch** (1998 – 1999)
  I developed financial data-feed and calculation software for large investment banks in C++. I also undertook the on-site installation of these systems.
- **Chief Technology Officer at Podia** (2019 – present)
- **CTO at WorkCompass** (2014 – 2015)
  The Chief Technology Officer’s role is to assure the successful execution of the company’s business mission through development and deployment of technical solutions. This requires engaging with customers to understand their needs, envisioning the company’s service offerings as a web-based business, leading implementation of web applications, and planning for risk and growth.
  
  WorkCompass is a small company focused on the pain and inefficiencies in that dreaded "annual performance review". We help business owners express their vision and break it down into goals; we help managers write simple plans for their team and evaluate their performance; and we help employees by providing them with clear goals, reminders and an easy way to note their progress.
- **Software Engineer at IBM Tivoli Software** (2007 – 2012)
  I've held 4 positions within IBM, working on large telecoms and business management applications (the in-joke is that IBM stands for "I've Been Moved"):  Software Engineer (1yr): Java client-server application using Swing and Oracle. Participated in every aspect of the system, from designing the database schema to developing the user interface and reducing a large defect backlog.
  
  L3 Support Engineer (3mths): fixing customer defects and providing support in a time-sensitive manner when our frontline support engineers couldn't resolve the customer issues.
  
  Test Engineer (1.5yrs): installing builds, testing new features, filing defects and retesting the fixes -- mostly on Linux, Solaris and UNIX. Worked remotely with the U.S.-based test team and managers via instant messaging, screen-sharing and conference calls. I subsequently trained-up two local members of the test team. In addition to my general test duties, I was the UI Automation expert for two products, developing our UI Automation framework and providing support to the test team. The framework was based upon Selenium, XPath and SQLite.
  
  UI Engineer (2.5yrs): responsible for porting an existing product from old web technologies (HTML frames and plain Javascript) to a modern Dojo stack. This role has presented significant challenges in understanding the legacy code (particularly after the loss of the original developers), learning the new technologies and delivering the product to an aggressive deadline within a new Agile process. I spent that last two months of the release working on and coordinating the internationalisation defects raised by our external test team.
  
  In the next release, I led the implementation of OSLC (that's a linked-data RESTful interface) for our product using JAX-RS and Jena for parsing RDF.
- **Consultant and Rails Developer at Ideas Asylum** (2012 – present)
  I help non-technical founders start their business, build their product, get their first customers, and grow their technical team   I’m your interim CTO   I help non-technical founders, like you, build businesses by translating their vision into working software. I’ll work with you to define your market, your business, your product scope & roadmap, and prioritise the product’s features. I’ll layout the system architecture, make choices about the appropriate technology to use, and design how the user should experience your product. I’m a do-er not just a talker: I’m a full-stack web developer and I’ve worked on every component from backend systems, databases, user experience. Here are some of the technologies that I currently work with:  Ruby on Rails Postgresql, MySQL HTML (Bootstrap) CSS (LESS & SASS) Javascript, JQuery, CoffeeScript RSpec, Capybara Ubuntu, Unicorn, nginx, Capistrano, Puppet, Ansible  Don’t know what any of those words mean? That’s ok, that’s my job!
- **Research Fellow at Media Lab Europe** (2001 – 2003)
  As part of the research projects, I ported a Java-based agent platform to an embedded Java board. As the main software engineer in the group (the others being artists), I also aided the creation of demo applications and visualisations in Java.

## Education

- **University of Southampton** — PhD (unfinished) (2004 – 2006)
- **University of Sheffield** — BSc (Hons), Computer Science (1995 – 1998)

## Skills

- C#
- C
- Linked Data
- Intelligent Agents
- Agent-based Modeling
- Test Automation
- Programming
- Agile Methodologies
- RDF
- Software Development
- Photography
- Agile
- Java
- JavaScript
- Ruby on Rails
- Ruby
- Git
- HTML
- CSS
- JQuery
- Coffeescript
- Node.js
- REST
- Scrum
- Regular Expressions
- Linux
- Subversion
- XPath
- Python
- Eclipse
- XML
- MySQL
- SQL

## Projects

- **Cognito HRM** — http://cognitohrm.com
  [Client project]

## Other profiles

- linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamielawrence