After taking part in the Codecademy Year of Code I decided to leave my career in Academia take the knowledge I had gained from Codecademy and apply it to Web Development. I rented a hotdesking space at Edinburgh TechCube to focus on learning Ruby on Rails and to meet Startups located in the building who were using Rails to prototype and build their services. This led me to meeting the co-founders of Float who gave me an opportunity to pair with them, allowing me to put the skills I had taught myself into practice, and for them to see if I was a good fit for the company.
Currently I work at Searchthesales and try to mentor those in the community that are learning web-development (previously this included an ex-lawyer.) I also volunteer with CodeFirst:Girls as the Edinburgh Lead Instructor.
Current Employment
Searchthesales - Chief Technical Officer
November 2014 - October 2015
I joined Search The Sales and immediately began migrating the site away from PHP and towards a variety of Node/Ruby backend services that communicate with an AngularJS frontend. I built an iOS app in Swift that was recently approved by the Apple store team and is currently in open beta testing (link).
Main tasks (planned and completed):
- Re-architecting the app on a data/api level
- Adding angular for a dynamic one page experience with lots of interactivity
- Re-design of the applications look and feel
- Custom analytics dashboard
Previous Employment
Float - Developer
2013 - 2014
Float gave me the opportunity to apply myself to a wide range of roles, learn how to run a business and grow a customer base.
Some of the projects I was involved in/lead include:
- Complete re-design of the Frontend
- Replacing the payment system with Stripe
- Developing the Partner program
- Creating a Web Development Bootcamp to train new employees
- Building the Support, Marketing and Blog sites
University of Amsterdam - Theoretical Chemistry/Physics Research Assistant
2011 - 2013
I worked on the discovery of new flexible porous crystalline materials such as Metal-Organic Frameworks with the potential for high capacity gas storage.
- Quantum calculations were used to determine the stability of potential structures
- Statistical methods were employed to probe structures for cavities and adsorption surfaces
Explore Learning - Tutor
2010 - 2011
Assisted children between the ages 4-17 as they worked through self study computer based lessons in Math and English.
- Trained to work with children of all abilities
- Developed seasonal materials and activities
- Led a creative writing course
Education
Heriot-Watt University - Master of Chemistry in Chemistry
2006 - 2011
Studied core chemistry modules and learned advanced laboratory techniques. My thesis was a computational study of Catalytic-Isoquinoline-Synthesis. I also participated heavily in student-staff relations.
Electives included:
- Physics
- Arabic
- Forensic Science
- Color Chemistry
- Economics