Hi there 👋

I'm Andy, a dedicated technical lead with over 10 years of experience in software engineering, specialising in creating maintainable, accessible, testable, and performant web applications.

I love quality, and loathe the throwaway culture. I believe you should "build it once, build it right"; if you build it right the first time, you don't need to keep on revisiting and rebuilding.

Crucially, this means #useThePlatform. When you build with native tools, rather than libraries, you build for the long term. You build to last.

• 🔭 I’m currently learning Golang, and absolutely loving it.

• 🌱 I’m starting to write down thoughts, ideas, and experiences. You can find them on my DEV.to page here.

  • Creating a Smart Second Brain: Leveraging Cloudflare Workers, Vectorize, and OpenAI
  • OKRs: A Framework for Avoiding Micromanagement and Unlocking Creativity
  • Drastically Cut CI Time in an Nx Monorepo with Remote Task Caching: A Step-by-Step Guide
  • Reducing Time Spent in CI to Almost Nothing, with Nx Cloud
  • Writing Integration Tests that Run Inside a Unit-testing Framework like Jest

• 👯 I'm interested in tooling, infrastructure, productivity, and of course...AI.

• Some tools I'm currently into:

  

• And some that I want to get more into over the coming months and years:

  

• 💬 Get in touch if you want to discuss any of my projects or interests.

Education

BEng Electronic Engineering (1st Class Honours), University of Leeds, UK
1999-2003 Dissertation: Implementation of a Cryptographic Algorithm Utilising the Fast Fourier Transform

MSc Nanoscale Science and Technology, University of Sheffield, UK 2003-2004

Experience

Cloudflare, Senior Systems Engineer

May 2024 - Present

Orange Logic (Remote), Technical Lead

December 2023 - April 2024 (5m)

• Led technical planning and execution for the core web components design system, enhancing developer productivity and reducing technical debt organisation-wide.
• Architected the CI/CI pipeline in Azure.
• Leveraged knowledge in: Web Components, Lit, React, TypeScript, Azure Pipelines, Bun, Playwright, Nx.

Glassnode (Remote)

January 2022 - November 2023 (2y)

- Technical Lead

• Successfully Led the Query Platform project, an essential strategic initiative for the company transitioning from B2C to B2B.
• Collaborated on creating RFCs for front-end architecture, facilitating modular E2E testing and maintaining high developer productivity.
• Leveraged knowledge in: React, TypeScript, GitLab Pipelines, Playwright, Cypress, Vite, Nx, accessibility and best practices.

- Senior Front-end Developer

• Modernised build and test tooling and implemented transition to a monorepo, reducing CI times by 30%.
• Designed and implemented a runtime feature flag system to allow for continuous deployment of new features, reducing deployment time by 1 hour.
• Implemented performance optimisations leading to 25% faster page loads and a 5% reduction in monthly customer churn.
• Leveraged knowledge in: React, TypeScript, Webpack, Vite, Cypress, Nx, CSSModules, Styled-components.

Chess.com (Remote), Senior Front-end Developer

August 2015 - December 2021 (6y)

• Led architectural and performance revamp for the v2 to v3 transition of the platform.
• Architectural planning and execution of the modernised Vue/Vuex app.
• Led a team of 4 developers to build a modular chessboard framework, supporting over 10 billion games played in the last 4 years.
• Leveraged knowledge in: Web Components, Vue, Svelte, TypeScript, Webpack, Cypress, CSS, Node.js.

Freelance Web Developer

May 2009 - August 2015 (6y)

• Designed and built a modern intranet for Mercedes-Benz South-West, UK, enhancing internal communications and operational efficiency.
• Provided ongoing maintenance, updates, and security enhancements for a portfolio of client websites, ensuring high availability and compliance with the latest web standards and practices.
• Actively collaborated with clients to identify their digital needs, develop project briefs, and deliver solutions that exceeded their expectations.
• Leveraged knowledge in: HTML/CSS, AngularJS, accessibility and best practices.

Prior experience was in the field of Electronics Research and Development so has been omitted.

Projects

• Pivot: A front-end framework designed for performance, maintainability, and longevity.
• Cachier: A remote caching solution for Nx monorepos, enhancing build efficiency.
• Rust Terminal Chatbot: A terminal-based chatbot, built with Rust.
• Notes AI: A "second brain" server, built with Cloudflare Workers

Articles

• Building a Basic HTTP Server in Go: A Step-by-step Tutorial
• Starting Out with Go: Understanding Concurrency Basics
• Building a Terminal-based Chatbot in Rust from Scratch
• # Building a Basic HTTP Server in Go: A Step-by-Step Tutorial
• Writing Integration Tests that Run inside a Unit-testing Framework Like Jest
• Building an AI-powered Second Brain in a Cloudflare Worker, with Cloudflare Vectorize and OpenAI
• Drastically Cut CI Time in an Nx Monorepo with Remote Task Caching: A Step-by-Step Guide

Skills

• Programming Languages: JavaScript, TypeScript, Golang
• HTML/CSS: Accessibility and Best Practices
• Frameworks & Libraries: React, Vue, Svelte, Lit, Web Components
• Runtime Environments: Node.js, Bun, Deno
• AI Services: OpenAI, LangChain, Cloudflare AI/Vectorize
• Styling: CSS, SCSS, Styled-Components, CSS Modules
• Testing Tools: Cypress, Playwright, Puppeteer
• Deployment: Vercel, Cloudflare Workers, Netlify
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions, GitLab Pipelines, Azure Pipelines
• Code Management: Nx, Turborepo
• Build Tools: Webpack, Vite, Parcel