About
- Name:
- Martin Edwards
- Email Address:
I am an enthusiastic Director / JavaScript developer with strong communication skills who enjoys working in and leading teams. I favour pair programming with mid / senior developers and code reviews with junior developers, so they have a chance to plan out solutions themselves.
I guest host and tutor at the local codebar event (designed for people underrepresented in the tech industry). I work towards innovative market-leading solutions and I have a keen focus technical strategy, helping to identify and implement the best systems for a company's needs.
Skills
Alongside leading many agile development projects / teams, I have technical procifiency in HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, React, Angular, node.js, nginx, Web Accessibility Standards, CMS template integration (Drupal, .NET, MOdx, Ez, Plone), Apache and IIS web server administration, JavaScript unit testing, XSLT, SQL and MySQL. I am proficient in all operating systems (Mac - OS X, Windows, Linux).
Employment
Spin Up (October 2018 - Present) - Co-founder and CTO
After 15 years in full time employment, and with a greater understanding of where my skills are best utilised (understanding business / product requirements and building working examples), I've decided it's time to create my own limited company.
At Spin Up we help bring company's product ideas to life by building interactive digital prototypes.
Pragmatic (January 2018 - September 2018) - Technical Director
Pragmatic is Europe's leading WordPress agency. I lead the team of 20+ developers, helping improve technical processes and efficiencies across company. I also introduced the team to node.js and other JavaScript technologies, showing how they can be used alongside WordPress.
Edelman (November 2016 - December 2017) - Deputy Technical Director
At Edelman I manage the Brighton development team. We deliver a variety of projects that we either win ourselves or collaborate on with one of our 60 global offices. I have lead the team to successfully launch projects for Shell, Microsoft, Xbox, Geneva Association, amongst other smaller client and internal projects.
We work on a variety of projects ranging from website builds, strategic consultancy, big data, physical spaces, to internal projects and products that help the global team do their jobs better.
Brilliant Noise (November 2012 - October 2016) - Senior Technical Consultant
At Brilliant Noise I lead and line manage the development team for all client builds, working with a range of clients such as Heathrow, adidas, Porsche, Picturehouse Cinemas and Jaguar Land Rover.
I also lead the development team for all internal projects. Most of these projects come about from conversations with employees who are carrying out repetitive tasks instead of using their expertise. These conversations started our technical strategy "automate everything".
Moving Brands (November 2011 - November 2012) - Technical Lead
I was initially hired to work as the Technical Lead on one 6 month project (ongoing) for a large Swiss broadcasting company, but during this time period have also helped:
- win work in client pitches.
- develop and deliver multiple internal projects.
- improve their technical infrastructure (version control, back up, servers, audits, etc).
- Worked on 3D chocolate printing!
My contract has recently been extended for another year.
Cogapp (September 2006 - November 2011) - Senior Front End Web Developer
After university I returned to Cogapp as their front end web developer and web accessibility advisor, working on numerous Museum and Charity websites. We then hired a junior to work alongside me and we started a front end development team, where we successfully delivered the projects in the portfolio section below.
Boxharry (July - September 2006) - Junior Web Developer
I briefly worked at a company called boxharry, but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go in. I was working on old ASP classic websites, with table based layouts and access databases. I stayed until I saw that a front end developer job became available at Cogapp
Cogapp (September 2004 – June 2006)
I worked my university placement year at Cognitive Applications, a successful Brighton-based company that focuses on web, iphone, ipad and kiosk development. I started off mainly administering web servers, but later got involved in the programming side of things, where my interest grew for front end development.
Experience
Shell - Emotion tracking. Big data
I lead the planning and build for our biggest project at Edelman Brighton. Running campaigns across 10 countries around the world. We tracked 300 participant's emotions for each campaign using wearable technology. The data we received was collated and stored with information about the journey, GPS points, weather and biometrics. This data has been analysed and produced successful insights and reports into how participants emotions can affect their driving, and ways of improving driver safety.
Lego - Xmas present chatbot
I lead the technical architecture of Lego's Facebook chatbot Ralph. Ralph asks parents a selection of questions and recommends products for their kids based on their answers. Facebook stated it was the best use of a Messenger bot they seen so far.
metmuseum.org
I was the lead front end developer and design / accessibility consultant that built 80 templates and integrated them within the .NET SiteCore system. Due to their bespoke requirements I created an endless AJAX slideshow jQuery plugin which has allowed them a large degree of customisation.
london2012.com
I was in charge of creating the London 2012 website templates. Taking the designers fantastic efforts (given the psychedelic branding guidelines) and created the HTML / CSS / JavaScript. I used jQuery along with suitable plug-ins to create various site enhancement, including the London Travel Hotspots map.
The templates were then handed over to a larger company for integration. Due to the profile of the site we had some accessibility consultancy with AbilityNet, which proved very useful.
Porsche
I worked with Porsche to deliver an innovative owners platform. A mobile web application built on the KnockoutJS framework. Upon user registration the app could automatically detect which cars they owned and pull in any insurance, tax, contact information and nearest Porsche centres in case of an emergency or breakdown.
Picturehouse Cinemas
We had only two weeks to put a team together and deliver an MVP website before their old website was being decommissioned. We have stayed on as their lead development agency and continued to build and improve on the existing MVP.
Good To Go Parking
Good To Go is a Heathrow parking website. I lead a small team to build the front end and implemented with one of Heathrow's technical partner.
Piirus
Piirus is a website that connects academic researchers who are looking for people with particular skills, similar mechanism to a dating website. I built and implemented the front end alongside a back end technical partner.
moma.org/collection
Working with our back end development team I created and integrated the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) collection templates. The main MoMA website's JavaScript was based on Mootools, so this gave me a good reason to extend my knowledge in that particular JavaScript library. I used Mootools for the collection's advanced search filter and modified a version of MooFlow for the slideshow functionality.
npg.org.uk
I built and integrated the National Portrait Gallery website templates. This was my first introduction into Mootools, being the JavaScript library integrated with the CMS we used (ModX).
paradata.org.uk
The ParaData Airborne Assault website was where I began learning about Drupal template integration. I also used jQuery to dynamically rework elements of the site when it was viewed in the museum on a touch screen kiosk.
Dorling Kindersley Paris Travel iPad App
I was responsible for the front end build of this iPad application, utilising jQuery to create functionality which was going to prove tricky coding in Objective C.
Charity
Some of the most rewarding work I've done has been working on charity websites.
sentebale.org was founded by Prince Harry and helps orphans and vulnerable children around the African country of Lesotho. I worked alongside an employee of the charity to get this site up and running in 2 weeks.
I took over the development of letsema.org (which is closely linked with Sentebale) to add a Google mapping interface pinpointing the location of important amenities and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). It's great to know this is being used and updated regularly.
Education
I studied on a Computer Science sandwich course at the University of Brighton and receved a 2:1. My dissertation was on the technical implementation of Web Accessibility and my final year project was a user generated information website based around sampled and covered music, this hooked into the MusicBrainz API. I received a first for both of these projects.
Hazelwick College (1999 – 2001)
A-Levels: Computing (C), Mathematics (C)
AS-Level: Psychology (C)
Awards
Kidney Patient Guide - Freshest Not For Profit Award (Gold)
An illustrator and myself redesigned and recoded the KPG website. It's a small charity website aimed at people suffering with kidney diseases, it also has a very active forum and has been an immensely rewarding site to work on.
British Museum - DiMA:S User Experience Award
I was involved in the British Museum project from the wireframing phase up to the delivery of the templates to a larger company for integration.
Interests
- I've always had a keen interest in computers from an early age, where I learnt to build, break and repair them.
- Music is an important part of my life, I used to play the piano but moved on to the electric guitar a few years back. I love going to festivals and seeing live music. After 4 fun and successful years my band, Tyrannosaurus Dead, have parted ways.
- I used to be a ten-pin bowler and compete in tournaments around the country, until my parent's began playing...
- I enjoy keeping fit, whether at the gym, swimming or going on bike rides.
References
References available upon request.