Adam Straughan, BEng

Profile

Experienced software development team lead with a solid history of delivering valuable, robust software solutions to clients. A leadership approach that enables teams to deliver together. A development approach to allow continuous delivery of value.

Key Skills

  • Team Lead, provide space and direction to enable teams to succeed.
  • Architecture and Design, a wide range of experience from embedded C, Windows device drivers, traditional web sites through to distributed services and event based systems.
  • Agile Practitioner, initially a certified scrum master, now through many and varied experiences learning the path to agile software delivery. Still learning.
  • Communication, Dealing with people is easily as important as dealing with technology.

Development Philosophy

Aim for simple solutions, both to consume and maintain. Prefer testing behaviour rather than implementation. Understand your system through deliberate observation. Treat operations as first class stake-holders. Enjoy your work.

This approach, developed and improved upon over my career, has delivered key outcomes for clients.

  • Early incremental releases
  • Clear operational monitoring
  • Proportional cost of change

Current Technologies

Originally developing using C/C++ for Windows, then with evolving web technologies since 1999 and adopting .Net from beta 2 onward. Today comfortable with C#, javascript and go. Equally as important, am enjoying the various cloud enabling tools such as Terraform, Docker, bash etc.

  • Programming (go, C# dotnet core, javascript)
  • Diagramming (C4, UML, B&L)
  • Cloud (GCP, Azure, AWS)
  • Database (SQL, Document)
  • Events (GCP pubsub, AWS SQS/SNS)

Recently exploring ideas around Testing behaviours not implementation and Does OTEL supersede structured logging for better observability?

Career History

  • 2023: Boston Consulting Group, Solution Architect (6 months)
    • Architecture reviews as part of Cloud Platform Enablement, Architecture Centre of Excellence
    • Helping teams move applications to the public cloud, share best practices, especially with respect to Event Driven Architecture and Observability
  • 2021-2023: John Lewis, Solution Architect (1yr 1 month)
    • Assist Customer Journey group with inter-team and 3rd party integration architecture
    • Input to discovery initiatives for future work
    • Member of the Digital Design Authority
  • 2021-2022: Flink, Technical Lead (1yr 2 months)
    • Design, implement and deliver checkout and payment services.
    • Technologies: go, gcp, commercetools
  • 2021-current: Equal Experts, Principal Consultant
    • Joined Equal Experts full time
  • 2020-2021: Mapal Software, Technical Lead (9 months)
    • Design, implement and deliver an exemplar backend service.
    • Technologies: C#, Angular, SQL
  • 2020: Bunzl plc, Technical Lead (4 week inception)
    • Primary task expose the organization to an agile delivery experience.
    • Design, implement and deliver an exemplar backend service.
    • Technologies: .net, Azure, Cosmos DB, Blob storage
  • 2019-2020: Tesco plc, developer consultant (1 year)
    • Design, implement, maintain backend services.
    • Technologies: .net core, java, aws lambda (node js/type script)
  • 2018-2019: Spektrix Ltd developer/agile consultant (6 months)
    • Help migrate .net application to Azure Cloud services
  • 2018: Curve ltd, developer/agile consultant (6 months)
    • Designed and implemented several key components of new micro-services to prepare the company for significant growth.
    • Mentored team members in both go and agile practices.
    • Technologies: go, Docker, MongoDB, Postgress, AWS
  • 2015-2018: Tesco plc, developer/technical lead
    • Tech Lead, Designed and implemented new Points API covering Clubcard and other digital discount point schemes
    • Tech Lead, Designed and implemented Marketing Eligibility API to aggregate a true position based on several legacy data sources
    • Interim agile lead for Profile team
    • Technologies: C#, MongoDB, Couchbase, Tibco EMS, AWS, ansible, terraform, go, java
  • 2014-2015: Compare the Market, developer/technical lead
    • Tech Lead, Complete re-design and architecture for Home Insurance component to reduce the on going cost of change, simplify development and increased data handling quality. This approach was later taken as the basis for upgrades to the other products.
    • Technical Lead, design and implement real time migration from legacy system to newer site. Reduced overall work required, increased confidence in customer data validity
    • Developer, Feature development for Home Insurance component
    • Technologies: C#, MongoDB, Rabbit MQ, javascript, Angular
  • 2013-2014: Tesco plc, developer/architect
    • Implement Customer Profile API within in-house framework
    • Technologies: C#, SQL, Tibco EMS
  • 2013-2021: Equal Experts, Associate
  • 2012-2013: easyJet, Contract developer
    • Develop various features on the main web site
    • Technologies: C#, SQL, javascript
  • 2012-2021: Nearly Unique Ltd, Managing Director
  • 2011-2012: Thermo Fisher Scientific, Software Development Manager
    • Managed team of 6 developers
    • Introduced agile principles to technical and product colleagues
    • Designed and implemented USB driver (in C#) for custom hardware to enable scientists to automate equipment with python
    • Technologies: C#, XAML, Python
  • 2007-2011: Cambridge Assessment, .Net Development Lead
    • Managed team of 15-20 developers
    • Set up team, introduced agile practices and behaviours
    • Oversaw development of core products, OCR Interchange website and Electronic Marking System
    • Enterprise wide system analysis, as it related to .Net team
    • Technologies: C#, SQL
  • 2004-2007: Leica Microsystems Cambridge, Senior Software Engineer
    • Designed and developed microscope control components
    • Technologies: C#, SQL
  • 1999-2004: Beacon Computer Technology, developer/project lead
    • Bespoke software house, various projects
    • Technologies: C, C++, C#, VB.net, SQL, javascript
  • 1997–1999: MDSI, Software Developer
    • Taxi dispatch system
    • Technologies: C, C++, Oracle PL/SQL
  • 1995-1997: DDL, Software Developer
    • Bespoke software
      • Camera drivers
      • Frame grabbers
      • Windows desktop applications for scientists
    • Technologies: C, C++

Qualifications

  • 1990-1993: BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering, Nottingham University
  • 1991-1993: A Level Maths, Physics & Design, Peter Symonds College, Winchester

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