Client Portfolio
I've worked with businesses of all sizes over the years, building the key software systems they rely on.
Clean Cooling Network / University of Birmingham / UNEP
I was initially tasked with mapping out an infrastructure plan to support The Clean Cooling Network - a nascent global programme funded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and managed by the University of Birmingham to address cooling and cold-chain needs in the global South.
The tricky part was that in the very early stages we had zero idea about traffic levels, app complexity or typical user devices, so the design had to be both cost effective yet immediately ready to scale. We also had to consider that the vast majority of users would likely be accessing the systems from older Android mobile phones connecting via patchy rural internet connections.
For the delivery, I assembled a small team and over an 18 month period we constructed a public website, a community network platform, a media library, a student applications management system, and integrated with the Moodle learning management system where students can now undertake accredited training courses developed by the Clean Cooling Network.
The platform has held up extremely well and coped with shifting priorities and new directions within the programme. We are currently planning to deliver additional systems over the coming months as the programme switches into its implementation stage.
Massage Me
Massage Me is a mobile massage company operating in the French Alps. They needed a back-office system to manage bookings but crucially to intelligently schedule the mobile therapists based on location, existing bookings, hours worked and various other criteria.
The back-office app was built with Symfony, with an emphasis on domain-driven design.
Secondly, I built them a VueJs application to allow clients to query treatments, availability and pricing before making a booking. Payments were handled with Stripe.
Alpine Essence
Alpine Essence is a property management company based in the French Alps. They needed a back-office property and booking management solution, plus a new public facing website.
Property listings also needed to be published to popular third-party booking sites such as VRBO and Booking.com.
I built them a custom Symfony application for the back-office work, and a public-facing website based on BoltCMS. I then created an integration with Beds24 to synchronise data with the third-party booking sites.
Chalet Agent
ChaletAgent was a service I built after my short foray into the world of running a chalet company.
Designed explicitly for small chalet operators with only a handful of properties, ChaletAgent aimed to centralise all operational data in a single location, providing huge productivity gains for overworked staff.
ChaletAgent served many happy customers over the years, who often steered the development direction with thoughtful feedback and feature requests.
The Mountain Rescue
The client approached me to build a website using Wordpress and to integrate a 3rd-party transfer booking system that allowed customers to book airport transfers, as well as to track, schedule and manage his fleet of minibuses.
Not a hugely complicated job in terms of technical requirements - Wordpress development is a mostly-solved problem, but the solution has been reliably backing business operations for almost a decade now.
Foster Grant
I was asked to get involved in the very early stages of Sightstation.com, which was later bought by Foster Grant. Together with Sightstation’s founder, we created a bespoke PHP e-commerce system to promote and sell their growing range of eyewear.
In addition to selling off-the-shelf reading glasses, we also struck a deal with a lens grinding lab with which I built a full programatic integration, allowing customers to enter their lens prescriptions, which we would then have fabricated and fitted into a range of optical frames.
BBC
After being an employee of the BBC for 5 years, I returned shortly afterwards to work on a research project for the Innovations Unit in Interactive Factual & Learning.
The job involved working with mesh wifi networks and using triangulated signal strength to provide location services inside buildings where GPS was unavailable.
I constructed a prototype system over a couple of months and then became a rather strange sight in the department as I wandered around, laptop in hand, trying to verify my actual position vs. the data being calculated.
Have a project in mind?
Tell me what you're trying to build, and I'll tell you honestly if I'm a good fit for your project.