I am a web developer in the United Kingdom.
Employment
parkatmyhouse.com, London, UK Lead Developer October 2009–
parkatmyhouse.com is the leading online marketplace for parking spaces within the UK. Tasked with the total rebuild and redesign of the site, I am currently responsible for moving the site from an unmaintainable PHP codebase to a modern, Python-powered solution using such technologies as Django and SQLAlchemy.
Blue Lava Technologies, Honolulu, HI Web Developer January 2008–June 2009
Blue Lava Technologies is an internet start-up based in Honolulu, Hawaii, building iLovePhotos, a Python/Django-based photo sharing platform that integrates facial detection and granular, private sharing. At Blue Lava, I was part of a three-person team, responsible for the design and implementation of the web platform. Notable achievements included:
- Implementing a site-wide message queue system for background tasks with RabbitMQ
- Designing and building the site's "Channels" feature, which automatically broadcasts photos matching specified criteria to digital photo frames, iPods & iPhones, and Apple TV devices
- Building the site's "Mission Control" functionality, including detailed user statistics
- Designing many of the models, including a private, granular sharing system and an efficient news feed currently operating across thousands of user accounts
- Working with many site components that rely heavily on Amazon Web Services (S3 and EC2)
- Building a database migration and deployment toolkit, which is used to automatically and reliably deploy new versions of the site across many servers with no downtime
- Co-designing and implementing the iLovePhotos visual identity
- Rapidly iterating on site features, using Scrum
SchoolRack, Los Angeles, CA Web Developer February 2008–November 2008
I worked as a contractor for SchoolRack, a site for teachers, students and parents to communicate outside the classroom. I designed and implemented the billing, premium subscription, user messaging, email notification and discussion board components. These are currently in use on tens of thousands of accounts.
Welbeck Tiles Ltd. Designer / Developer July 2009–August 2009
I worked with Welbeck Tiles, Britain's leading handmade tile company to completely redesign and rebuild their website and identity. The new identity is now used across both the website (built with Python/Django and launched August 2009) and all printed materials.
Skills
- Django, Python
- SQL, SQLALchemy (and Django integration)
- AMQP, RabbitMQ
- Objective-C, Cocoa, Cocoa Touch (iPhone)
- XMPP, Jabber
- Memcached, Squid
- Amazon Web Services (S3, EC2, SQS)
- Git, Subversion, Mercurial, Bazaar
- OpenID, Facebook Connect
- Web services integration
- API design and development, OAuth
- JavaScript, (X)HTML, XML, CSS, AJAX
- Linux administration (Ubuntu/Debian), Shell
- Apache, nginx, FastCGI
- MySQL, PostgreSQL, PostGIS
- Agile development practices (Scrum)
- Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
- Unit, functional and regression testing
Contact details
The best way to get in touch is usually by email to oliver@obeattie.com, or by phone on +44 (0)7515 357718.