David Neale

Chief Architect

Currently working as the Chief Architect for Admiral Money

Tech: Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services, Go, Terraform, Docker

Technical Lead

Joined as tech lead on a multidisciplinary team developing and supporting a dynamic form builder application to run online surveys.

I then joined a team comprised predominantly of technical architects to focus on the architectural design of the systems that ran the 2021 UK digital-first census. We were tasked with introducing Google Cloud Platform and guiding the service teams through a migration from AWS to GCP. We also designed a highly scalable performance testing solution that allowed us to simulate the predicated peak load of the census on the system.

Tech: Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, Python, Go, Terraform, ReactJS, Docker

Senior Developer

Initially contracted to work on numerous projects for Google through Potato. Due to the success of projects I worked on I accepted a permanent job and was promoted to senior developer. Selected projects:

• Worked with the Open Source team in Google to architect two web applications to run each of their flagship programmes - Summer of Code and Code-in. I was the technical lead on a team of up to 18 for the $2m project
• Worked with Google Partners team to design a system to support an incentivisation programme for Google Partners. This had a worldwide user base and had to support a complex set of regional features along with being used in 30 languages. Also created a bespoke fault-tolerant distributed transaction system to synchronize data between apps
• Worked with Google Ideas (now Jigsaw) as the technical lead for the backend API on a platform to allow users to collaboratively discover, curate, analyze and share YouTube videos. See promotional video. This was later sold to Storyful and open-sourced

General responsibilities:

• Overall responsibility for the success of all assigned projects
• Worked alongside clients to design and deliver software to meet their requirements
• Mentored developers and helped manage their career progression
• Provided and delivered feedback to developers
• Guided and assisted developers through technical problems and blockers
• Encouraged and guided developers through architectural choices
• Was an ambassador for the company through outreach in the tech community
• Tech hiring

Wrote a new backend coding test to enable candidates to demonstrate their abilities without having to invest too much of their time. The previous test would take most candidates at least a day.

Tech: Python, Javascript, Go, Google App Engine, Django, AngularJS, ReactJS, MySQL, Cordova

Senior Web Developer

Initially employed by The Number to continue development of their ASP.NET MVC website. I later became involved in a new project to co-architect a cloud-hosted global search API to be used across all parts of The Number’s international parent company, Knowledge Generation Bureau (kgb).

During this time I became heavily involved with Python, Django, MongoDB, RabbitMQ and Elastic Search whilst working in a Scrum team. This project involved working with teams across the world to ensure that client applications were developed to best harness the API.

I also wrote a durable, multi-threaded distribution system to keep the data reliable and correctly indexed from the SQL server reference databases to MongoDB and Elastic.

Tech: C#, Python, Javascript, ASP.NET MVC, Django, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MongoDB, MS SQL Server, ElasticSearch, RabbitMQ

Senior Web Developer

Employed by Zipporah as their senior developer in order to re-architect their suite of solutions in order to consolidate disparate functionality, add new features and uplift the core technologies. Guided a team of six developers in use of MVC, NHibernate, IoC, unit testing and other techniques to produce better-maintainable software. Liaised with technical director and directly with clients in order to gather and analyse business requirements. Ensured that software is fit for use using continuous integration to build, test, and deploy checked-in software. The software is still widely in use across local government organisations in UK and Australia. An example can be seen in Kent County Council.

Tech: C#, Javascript, ASP.NET MVC, MS SQL Server

Software Engineer