Tony Marklove

Phone: 07775077680

Objective: To improve myself by working with talented people. To make a real impact by working in well managed and sustainable projects.

Knowledge & Skills

I am a full-stack developer, with a range of skills from low to high level.

I have ended up something of a language nerd, having learned a bit about everything from LISP and Smalltalk to Erlang and D. I enjoy learning as much as possible about a wide range of algorithms, designs and techniques and getting the chance to solve real problems.

Highly skilled:
Ruby(+Rails), JavaScript, React, SQL, HTML, CSS+SASS, C/C++, Git.

Competent in:
C#, Haskell, Scala, Clojure, Angular, DevOps, image manipulation.

I'm also a fan of the core principles of an agile process. Small-A agile, you might say. Quick turn-around times. Timely feedback. And the ability to correct course as you go. I received agile training in the past, and when working well it is the smoothest I have seen projects run.

I have been interested in a functional style of programming for some time, and more recently the idea of reactive systems, while trying not to fall into the next-big-thing hype. I recently enjoyed completing an online course on Reactive programming in Scala taught by Martin Odersky.

I enjoy teaching others and am currently a co-organiser for Rails Girls London. I have also taken part as a coach at CodeBar and other training days on numerous occasions.

Employment History

Steelscout.com [Freelance - Fluxbit Ltd.] (May 2017-May 2018)

for Tata Steel and Boston Consulting Group Digital Ventures

  • Greenfield venture project.
  • Lean startup approach worked to deliver a fast-to-market product, which was improved upon with real customer need and feedback taken into account.
  • Rapid iteration through proof-of-concept, MVP, and venture board approval.
  • Rails-driven API + React.js frontend for user facing site.
  • Rails+Administrate backend system contributed to rapid deployment for the internal team's lean approach and changing requirements.
  • Initially built upon a Docker, Kubernetes, Concourse CI stack. Later converted to Circle CI and Heroku for simplicity.

Not On The High Street [Freelance - Fluxbit Ltd.] (May 2016-May 2017)

  • Working primarily as part of the Payments Team, including monitoring and support of live payment transactions.
  • Design and introduction of APIs to support Apple Pay checkouts on iOS.
  • Contributed to a successful Black Friday period, with massively increased traffic and no down time. This included up-front performance review and optimisation work.
  • Working closely, cross-team, with the Marketing department to improve CRM.
  • Front-end-heavy work to improve registration and checkout flow.
  • Deployment on an AWS-based stack using Docker, Marathon, and Jenkins for CI.

Freelance [Fluxbit Ltd.] (September 2015-Present)

  • Worked with The ODI to bring some of their projects up-to-date and simplify the codebase.
  • Worked with Potato on high-profile Google projects, with an eye on performance and simplicity.
  • Provided a Ruby-powered Sketchup plugin for visualising town planning. Aids calculation of office/residential space in a given town masterplan. Interesting as a completely non-web project.
  • Worked for Brojure to add new features to their Angular-powered dynamic brochure builder.

New Bamboo (July 2012-September 2015)

  • Building maintainable front- and back-end code, with Ruby on Rails and JavaScript, at a highly regarded London agency.
  • Built core infrastructure for Red Bull TV: API powering over 20 client devices. Built AppleTV client backend and JavaScript. And www.redbull.tv website.
  • REST API serving millions of unique visitors a day. 12 factor app designed for ease of scaling. Including Heroku for cloud deployment and Akamai as CDN provider.
  • Strong testing culture. Including fast and reliable API testing.
  • Strong agile experience, promoting client interaction, pair programming, and good team work.
  • Pull requests and code review. (https://www.new-bamboo.co.uk/blog/2013/04/23/code-review-for-remote-teams)
  • Worked on transitioning Holiday Extras to single page app. With A/B testing and iterative, data-driven updates.
  • Experience with JS frameworks: Backbone, React, Angular.

Azexis Web Design (Early 2008-June 2012)

  • Designed and built core, reusable LAMP stack e-commerce and online platform for the company.
  • Promoted to team lead after a single year.
  • Diverted technical direction for whole company away from what I saw as a dangerous second-system effect.
  • Re-laid foundation of the codebase. Adding MVC integration and automated SQL-parsing database engine.
  • Large productivity improvements: build tools, single button deployment, automated testing, workflow and merging strategy.
  • Database replication and scaling, including memcache.
  • Consultancy on 3rd party database systems for clients. Plus integration with some such systems.
  • Integration with a variety of payment gateway APIs.
  • Hosting infrastructure and server management. (incl. PCI tested hosting)

Earlier Experience

Details of prior employment history available on request.