Work and study

Current status – Self Employed

My wife Ollie and I started our own company in 2009. We are now both working on this full time, so I get to spend my days sat at home or in cafes coding Ruby on Rails.

2006-2009: Life in Work – Software Development

After university, I worked as a software developer for a few years before deciding to go it alone. In Norway, I worked as a Java developer for Viz, an IT consultancy in Oslo that specializes in risk management solutions for the energy markets, as well as for Rubberduck Media Lab, developing Mobile TV solutions.
Previous to moving to Norway, I worked as a software/web developer for a publishing company called NewsQuest, based in Watford, UK. All nice open source technologies – PHP, MySQL and Apache.

2003-2006: Life in New Zealand – University

In June 2006 I graduated from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, where I had an excellent time, learnt lots and managed to completed a BSc double major in Computer Science and Geography, specialising in software development and GIS (Geographic Information Systems).

2000-2003: Life before University – AutoCAD

Before the move to New Zealand, I worked in Norway with computer aided design for a few years. I was responsible for the production and organization of plans, sections, facades, 3D models and maps using various flavours of AutoCAD for a number of architects offices in and around Oslo. Enjoyed this very much, but felt that there was alot more to computing than just drawing stuff, hence the decision to go back to school for a few years. (This is not to knock drawing stuff of course – its just that as a CAD specialist you get told what to draw by much cleverer architects, whereas I wanted to _be_ the much cleverer (software) architect and have a say myself in how things were being built).

1997-2000: Life in Asia – SCUBA Instruction

Going further back in time.. I worked for a few years as a SCUBA diving instructor in South East Asia, which of course sounds very exotic and exciting (and it was). Apart from the beautiful diving, relaxed lifestyle, and being able to go to work in a sarong and flip-flops, working as a SCUBA instructor made me realise that I loved teaching – this is something I hope to incorporate into my IT career sometime in the future. It was also during this time, when meeting and talking with students who worked in IT, that I first considered the idea of being a software developer. I started teaching myself to program, and made plans of a move back to Europe.

< 1997: Life before Asia

My plans before moving to Asia were to move to Asia, so I spent a few years working in order to save up the money to go abroad. Not a great deal else to say about this time, except that I’m sure there are far worse places to work than the UK passport agency – good people can make even a really dull job quite ok.

And the rest..

Of course I went to school and did the usual GCSEs and A-Levels. I also studied for a Certificate of Higher Education in Applied Biology at Coventry University, have completed NVQ levels 2&3 in AutoCAD r14/2000, am a Microsoft Certified Professional in Visual Basic 6, and am a certified PADI Open Water SCUBA Instructor.