{"version":3,"sources":["webpack:///./src/pages/about.tsx"],"names":["IndexPage","title","className","href","target"],"mappings":"6FAAA,gGAKe,SAASA,IACpB,OACI,kBAAC,IAAD,KACI,kBAAC,IAAD,CAAKC,MAAM,UAEX,6BAASC,UAAU,WACf,qKAKA,mCAEA,+WAImD,IAC/C,uBAAGC,KAAK,+CAAR,WALJ,KAQA,4aAQA,qaAOA,4kBASA,qTAMA,+MAKA,2DAEA,qQAMA,yFAEA,4BACI,sFAC4D,IACxD,uBAAGA,KAAK,sBAAsBC,OAAO,UAArC,YAKJ,sEAEA,gDAEA,2CAEA,gIAKJ,kVAOA,6QAMA,+FACsE,IAClE,uBAAGD,KAAK,4CAAR,qBAFJ,gPAQA,6dAQA,4YAOA,6CAEA,8GACqF,IACjF,uBAAGA,KAAK,iCAAR,WAFJ,MAE2D,IACvD,uBAAGA,KAAK,oDAAR,YAHJ","file":"component---src-pages-about-tsx-177ec55262fc662d900d.js","sourcesContent":["import React from \"react\"\n\nimport Layout from \"../components/layout\"\nimport { SEO } from \"../components/seo\"\n\nexport default function IndexPage() {\n return (\n \n \n\n
\n

\n I'm a 28 year old software developer from London, sticking my fingers into the pies of web\n development, native mobile apps and devops.\n

\n\n

Bio

\n\n

\n I graduated from the University of Plymouth with a BA in Digital Art & Technology (Interaction\n Design), where we were encouraged to blog about our projects; so you will find that many of the\n earlier posts revolve around this. Prior to that I had already gotten my feet wet building websites\n for local businesses whilst I was saving for a{\" \"}\n gap yah.\n

\n\n

\n After university I dove right into the deep-end, starting as a freelancer and getting involved in\n projects for the likes of Virgin Holidays, Virgin Atlantic & Trend Microsystems (amongst others).\n Whilst I was primarily working as an Android developer, I was often involved in implementing the\n backend systems for these apps, which led into my passionate affair with Laravel and all things\n backend.\n

\n\n

\n Towards the end of 2017 I was getting weary of the stream of one-off projects, feeling like I never\n had the time to nurture them. I wanted something that I could treat as my baby, something that was\n constantly evolving and improving. Around the same time, a friend from school approached with a\n proposition. He wanted to build on a project we had delivered for a customer a few years prior.\n

\n\n

\n The project (then known as Project Clive) was an add-on to a piece of legacy software used in the\n Social Care industry, and provided a cloud-based visit verification system that tied into to an\n on-premise database application. The project had been live for a couple of years and had been\n massively successful, the home care provider we delivered the project for had managed to streamline\n much of their workflow, cut the costs of printing paper rotas, and most importantly were secure in\n the knowledge that their vulnerable service users were being attended.\n

\n\n

\n We started CareLineLive as a product that would bring the rest of a home care agency's workflow\n online and into the \"cloud\". In the last two (and a bit) years we've secured private equity funding,\n turned the project into a product and grown the company from a team of 2 to 15.\n

\n\n

\n I'm always reminded about a making a comment somewhere along the lines of \"I don't want to work in\n the healthcare industry, it's boring\", but I couldn't have been more wrong.\n

\n\n

Technologies & Philosophies

\n\n

\n Whilst I would consider my bread & butter to be database-driven backends, I'm very much involved\n in all aspects of the product lifecycle. I'm used to working solo, and with CareLineLive we've still\n kept the development team small.\n

\n\n

My current day-to-day contains a mixture of the following:

\n\n
    \n
  • \n Backend - mainly PHP & Postgres, including heavy use of{\" \"}\n \n Laravel\n \n
    • \n\n
  • Frontend - Angular, Sass, & Typescript
    • \n\n
  • Android - Kotlin
    • \n\n
  • iOS - Swift
    • \n\n
  • \n Devops - Kubernetes, Elastic Beanstalk, AWS, Google Cloud, and using Terraform for provisioning\n
    • \n
\n\n

\n Many of the above I've aren't things I'd had experience of before CareLineLive. I was already\n frequently building backends, frontends, Android apps, and hosting them with Elastic Beanstalk; and\n while I've learnt a lot applying those skills to CareLineLive, iOS and Kubernetes weren't on my\n radar previously.\n

\n\n

\n The need to pick up the CareLineLive iOS development came about after a bad experience with\n contractors. We had a deadline that couldn't be moved and they failed to deliver. This led to me\n picking up the pieces and owning it from then on.\n

\n\n

\n As we were getting started we would host customer environments on{\" \"}\n Elastic Beanstalk. Each customer would get\n their own web & database servers. This was fine whilst we had a handful of customers, but knew it\n wouldn't be manageable in the long-run. Deployments involved manually uploading a ZIP file for each\n environment.\n

\n\n

\n I made the decision to explore Kubernetes, which would allow us to simplify the management of each\n customer's environment whilst maintaining sandboxing and resource compartmentalisation. Terraform\n was a natural choice, allowing us to spin up additional identical clusters in different countries or\n when nearing capacity. Deployments are as simple as changing a container tag now. It's also allowed\n us to cut the cost per environment by about 70%.\n

\n\n

\n My take on learning new technologies is always the same; dive in head first, fail, fix, and repeat.\n Reading & academia can only get you so far, you should spend your time tackling problems\n head-on. There's nothing more motivating than solving a problem you're invested in. Keep an open\n mind, don't be afraid of tools you haven't used before, and throw the towel in.\n

\n\n

Contacting me

\n\n

\n Whilst I wouldn't claim to have much of an internet presence, you can find me on{\" \"}\n Twitter or{\" \"}\n LinkedIn.\n

\n
\n \n )\n}\n"],"sourceRoot":""}