About
Bio
UI Developer with many years commercial experience producing progressive web applications. Passionate and highly adaptive, his front-end skills are bolstered with a unique background in development giving greater insight to the task. Most comfortable in an agile environment a great team player has provided talks and workshops to help others and strengthen the team.
Skills
Front-end: Over 9 years X[HTML], JavaScript and CSS. Given talks on HTML5 & promoting best practices, commercial UX/IA / wireframing experience, typography, grid layout and mobile-browser support. jQuery (plugins, oop), cross-browser design (ie6, webkit, chrome, ff), SEO analytics & campaign development for high-traffic sites, email templates (mailchimp). Photoshop, Illustrator.
Back-end: 7 years in development, Ruby (Rails), ASP.NET (ASPX, MVC), PHP (CodeIgniter), Python. MySQL, PostGres, Oracle and SQL Server. Linux management. Versioning (git, svn, hg, bazaar). Selenium testing. iPhone experience.
education
Anglia Ruskin University
Bachelor of Science with Honours, Information Systems Development ~ Anglia University [ Sept.1998 ]
Coursework: Interaction and Usability [HCI], Design Theory, Internet Systems, Systems Modelling, Computer Programming, Software Development, Network Design, Database Design & Implementation, Emerging Technologies, Presentation Skills. Award for end of year project.
experience
Redington Limited
{ jQuery, Selenium, .NET }Associate, London, UK [ Dec.2009 - Apr.2011 ]
Responsible for investment firm's front-end experience. From Redington itself to the FSA-accredited mallowstreet social network. Strict agile environment, peer-review, PO sign-off and management between external units. Duties involved wire-framing, UX, front-end (photoshop, css, OOP, jQuery, graceful degredation), MailChimp templating. Selenium scripting & libraries for nightly RC run. Presented new technologies to peers and workshop sessions for team.
Winner of Life & Pensions "Most Innovative Product" Award 2010
IO Global Limited
{ jQuery, JAVA }User Interface Developer, Ipswich, UK [ Jul.2009 - Nov.2009 ] Responsible for front-end experience of location-based social network PlotStar. Duties involved construction of jQuery, OBJX OO framework, best practice markup. Built with in-house MOJASEF template framework. RESTful services with documentation. Performed testing with Jetty & QUnit. Agile environment with peer-review.
KeepThinking Limited
{ jQuery, PHP, Ruby }Developer, London, UK [ Jan.2009 - Mar.2009 ] Contract role for small media agency in London. Working to spec developed Horniman Museum Intranet using PHP CodeIgniter. Created imaging tool for Wedgwood Collection (Ruby, WxRuby) and press campaign for National Galleries of Scotland's 'Artist Room' events using Google's mapping API.
Moveme.com
{ Prototype, .NET }User Interface Developer, London, UK [ Oct.2007 - Dec.2008 ]
With a small team of developers was responsible for front-end experience of this highly innovative web-based moving service. Notables include the MoveMe Calender and Moving Tools (Prototype, CSS, progressive markup with RESTful services) along with analytics from WebTrends & Zanox. White-labelling products for SKY, Yahoo and Microsoft. Developed CDN infrastructure and A-B testing. Agile environment, weighting, peer-review.
Winner of Yahoo Peoples Choice Award 2008, Best B2C Application BIMA Awards 2007,
Best Website BIMA Awards 2007, NMA Best New Business 2007
WSP Group PLC
{ JS, .NET, Python, SQL, Oracle }Lead Developer, London, UK [ Jun.2000 - Sep.2007 ] IS leader responsible for web team providing high quality services for internal and external clients. Notable achievements include constructing .NET CMS, online forums, corporate intranet and online event facilities for european offices. Created procurement application (PRIMO) for online purchasing and booking. Installed SAGE SalesLogix CRM into online directory. Installed Google Mini Appliance for search engine and developed XSLT filters improve results. Maintained WebTrends. Trained overseas staff. Promoted Agile and championed versioning with new projects. Daily duties include .NET Server & SQL Server maintenance, CMS management and client work.
Reuters Group PLC
{ .NET, SQL }Software Developer, London, UK [ Sep.1998 - May.2000 ] Contract role to assist in Y2K upgrade of warehouse asset management system. Notable achievements include self-documentating code profiler, data conversion filers, DLL libraries for printers, timers, calendars, SMTP and email scanner.
client work
Stanley Bragg Limited, UK [ 2010-11 ]{ jQuery, Rails, AWS } Designed, tested and shipped flagship website for Colchester based Architectural firm. Written in Rails, Paperclip for image processing, Haml & Sass, Cucumber for testing. Self-hosted on Fedora & Amazon AWS.
Big Rude Jake, Toronto [ 2011 ]{ jQuery, PHP, AWS } Re-developed website for Toronto-based musician, providing SEO and web experience to expand client's media channels. Self-hosted on Fedora.
The Working Group LLC, Toronto [ 2009 ]{ jQuery, Rails } Working with Toronto-based web studio assisting with social-networking applications and PostageApp service. Front-end & back-end role using Rails, Capistrano, jQuery, Haml & Sass.
Canbridge Management Ltd, UK [ Mar.2009 - Apr.2009 ]{ jQuery, Python, Ruby }
Contract role in property sector to provide management software for billing (Ruby, PDF reporting) and develop website. Provided training and technical support.
DatesWithMates, UK [ 2007-11 ]{ jQuery, Rails, AWS } Working with founders ported dating network from .NET / SQL to Rails / PostGreSQL. Wireframed and implemented new functionality, Google API for distance calculations. Self-hosted on Heroku & Amazon AWS.
PackPay LLC, Tokyo [ 2007 ]{ Rails } Short-term project tele-conferencing with teams in the US and Tokyo. Creating proof-of-concept social network. Provided wireframes, data models, logic and market research.
MisoVision LLC, USA [ 2007 ]{ Ruby } Short-term project tele-conferencing with developers overseas to create Ruby filters for YouTube and MetaCafe, processing and dispatching required results via.
Canbridge Management Limited, UK [ 1998 ]{ PHP, VS, SQL } Contract role for property management firm. Duties included support, technical design and R&D work. Developed asset management system to manage tenants, with billing and reporting.
A & W Gowers Limited, UK [ 1996 ]{ dBase } Contract role for timber yard to create stock estimation tool. Written in dBase provided admin, re-ordering and job tracking. From mock design to sign-off and roll-out with training and support.
BroIntermed Lines Limited, UK [ 1995 ]{ dBase } Contract role for European shipping firm to help improve existing dBase software used to track assets. Re-engineering, documentation, code refactor and testing.
publications
- 8 Faces
- Magazine editing { about }
- Air Canada
- In-flight magazine photography
- Anglia University
- Thesis on 'User Interface Design'
- jQuery
- Open-source libraries { download }
- Packt Publishing
- Book reviews
- Daily Mail, Telegraph
- Published photography
- PhotoSomething
- Studio photography { about }
references
John was a key member of the mallowstreet delivery team. He is one of those individuals you can throw a technical problem at and he will rise to the challenge, delivering time and time again. John has a great insight to social media space through his active participation in both off and online networks. John is a really likeable, honest and committed guy. He would be a valuable additional to any development team.
Stuart Dillon, Technical Director - Redington Limited
During his time at IO Global John has proven to be a very talented & insightful UI developer. Through his passion and willingness to help others he has shown himself to be a valued member of our team and a highly dependable and hard working individual. Highly recommended.
Mat Ryer, Product Architect - iome
In his position as UI developer at moveme.com, John was employed in our office from September 2007 to December 2008. John was an asset to our organisation during his employment here, and has excellent written and verbal communication skills, is extremely organised, can work independently and in close collaboration and is able to follow through to ensure that the job gets done.
During his tenure with moveme.com, John was responsible for developing the user interface part of the website using Javascript/Ajax, and was instrumental in the development of our multi-award winning Move Planner. He is a very capable Javascript developer indeed, and has mentored other developers within the organisation to assist them in their learning.
Andy Skipper, Chief Technical Officer ~ MoveMe.com
John is a highly motivated, structured senior developer. I worked with John for over 5 years and relied on him as my technical expert in delivering solutions to WSP and their clients. With strong technical and problem solving skills I would highly recommend John in a senior technical architect position. On a personal side John is a top guy and works very well in a team environment. Set him loose and lap up the rewards!
Lynn Smyth, Project Manager ~ WSP Group PLC
During his time with Reuters I was greatly impressed with his dedication to each task, should a technical problem arise John would dedicate his work and home time to solving the problem. He is a resourceful and very capable individual who has developed his skills through self- learning and enquiry.
John Withers, Software Development Manager ~ Reuters Group PLC
John Griffiths began working with DatesWithMates in July 2007 as our Web Developer and has been responsible for a complete overhaul and redesign of our website in Ruby. Throughout this time John has been a pleasure to work with. He is a highly skilled developer and brings an organised approach to his work which has consistently been on time, to plan and far surpassing our expectations in terms of quality. His solutions have worked very smoothly furthermore, John has a great deal of initiative and enthusiasm for his work and has made several suggestions and recommendations which have informed and improved the functional design of the website. In the time that we have worked with John he has had an extremely positive influence on our business.
Edward Leifer, Director ~ DatesWithMates Limited
conferences & seminars
- New Adventures in Web Design, Nottingham 2011
- dConstruct, Brighton, 2010
- BarCampLondon, 2007-10
- Future of Web Design, London, 2007 & 2010
- Apple iPhone Tech Tour, London, 2009
- Ruby Manor, London, 2009
- Future of Web Apps, London, 2006-07
- Google CodeJam, 2006
Interests & achievements
- Skydiving for NSPCC, 2011
- Bloomberg Square Mile Relay, 2010
- JP Morgan Challenge for Help a London Child, 2010
- Rob Roy Challenge 55k race for NSPCC, 2010
- Director of Claremont Heights Association, 2007-10
- Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, SQL Server 2005
- Microsoft Certified Professional, SQL Server 2000
Fluent English. Enjoys running, cycling. theatre, film, olympics and ice hockey.