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John Waller BSc(Hons) MBCS

E-Mail :

Nationality :

British

Address :

Coventry, West Midlands

Driving Licence :

Full, clean

(Full personal details are available on request.)


Summary

I am a Senior Software Developer with over 20 years' commercial experience producing solutions in a wide range of environments. My responsibilities have encompassed the full project lifecycle including bid support, functional and technical design, application development, solution delivery and support. For the past 12 years I have focused on Microsoft technologies, delivering to major clients in both the public and private sectors.

I am a well respected senior member of my team but can also work effectively on my own initiative. When required, I can pick up new skills or programming languages quickly. I am familiar with both Object Oriented design as well as and more traditional design approaches. I have experience of solving complex problems and pushing difficult projects through to a successful conclusion within tight deadlines.

My immediate aspirations are to continue to concentrate on developing solutions based on the Microsoft .NET Framework using languages such as C#, while implementing current best practices.

Key Skills

Education and Professional Qualifications

I have First class honours degree in Computing from the Open University and I also studied Engineering Electronics at the University of Warwick. I have three A-Levels and nine O-Levels.

I am a member of the The Chartered Institute for IT

Previous Employment

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors May 2006 - Present Lead Developer

RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) is the leading source of land, property, construction and related environmental knowledge. They support 140 000 members worldwide, promote best practice, represent consumers' interests and provide impartial advice to society, businesses, governments and global organisations.

Serco Solutions July 2001 - May 2006 Senior Developer

Serco Solutions is the IT solutions and outsourcing division of Serco which delivers innovative IT and application services, business process services and e-business solutions to large customers in both the public and the private sectors. Serco Solutions is a "Microsoft Gold Partner".

While working at Serco Solutions I have been involved in a wide range of projects including:

Web Based Time Clocking System
For this project I was the technical lead on a mainframe replacement solution implemented with Visual Studio 2005 using C#, ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server. The system included integration with a barcode scanner and the Windows' scheduler. It also made use of new .NET 2.0 features such as strongly typed datasets & the new table adapter functionality as well as including other new technologies such as AJAX.
Online Payslips System & Multi Application Single Sign On

In order to reduce internal running costs for ITNET, I developed an online payslips system. This system is based on C#, ASP.NET and SQL Server with appropriate regard to the sensitivity and security of the data being presented to the user. In addition to this I developed a multi application single sign on system to provide common authentication across the new payslips system and various other existing applications.

Publications Management System

This project was needed to allow Transport for London to meet their legal obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. I produced an intranet based system using C#, ASP.NET and SQL Server to manage all their publications.

Secure Middleware Solution

In order to allow London Underground to securely share data regarding the movements of underground trains, I developed an application using C#, ASP.NET, Web Services and client certificates. This application allows controlled access to a subset of this data by authorised third parties and information based on this subset is then passed on to the public. The results of this can be viewed at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/travelinfo/eta/

Risk Assessment Management System

Working on a Risk Assessment Management System for London Underground Limited, I was the lead developer and also produced the main technical design. This application, which helps protect the safety of the underground network, was developed to be available to staff throughout London and was delivered using ASP, VB Script, Visual Basic and SQL Server.

Corporate Health Benefits System

For this project I produced the technical design and was the lead developer of a Visual Basic & Oracle bespoke application to manage claims and invoices for QBE, a large multinational insurance company. The new application replaced the previous Access based solution and successfully addressed serious performance and scalability issues. I designed sections of this project specifically for reuse and then successfully reused them in later projects.

Following the successful implementation of the application, the client's European IT Director was quoted saying "this was the best implementation by a supplier in 25 years in the industry", and such timely high praise contributed to the discussions with QBE to extend their mainframe and legacy application contract for a further two years.

Customer Service Desk Solution

This project involved development of an intranet based system for Tesco using C#, ASP.NET and SQL Server. While working in a team of four developers as technical lead, I developed several key components within the solution and was also responsible for integrating the system with other existing applications. The application was delivered on time within a very aggressive timescale in order to coincide with the opening of a new store.

Technosys Limited April 1998 - June 2001 Software Developer

Technosys was a "Microsoft Gold Partner" company and also held "Microsoft Regional Director" status. Technosys delivered application development and infrastructure projects to a wide variety of customers.

While working at Technosys I was involved in a range of projects including:

Internet Mailing List Solution

I developed an internet mailing list system for a large membership organisation based on the Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 platform. The system is written in ASP and integrates with the customer's main membership database to ensure that it is up to date.

Customer and Assessor Management & Diary System

For this project I took over leadership of the project team and turned around a failing project to provide a successful delivery of the system. My duties involved reorganising the control and management of change requests, bug fixes and software delivery. I also integrated the system with Microsoft Word and a third party reporting toolkit as well as adding numerous enhancements to the system. This system was developed using Visual Basic and Oracle.

Bluesoft Limited May 1995 - April 1998 Software Analyst Consultant

Bluesoft is a small bespoke software development and consultancy company. While working at Bluesoft I was involved with a range of projects which were characterised by a need to fit in to new environments quickly and then to develop systems on time and on budget. These projects included:

User Account Management System using Active Server Pages

Working for the Internet services division of a major PC manufacturer, my task was to internationalise and enhance the web pages for managing users' accounts. These pages allowed members of the public to view the current status of their Internet access accounts, set up their email addresses, set up their personal and payment details and purchase additional Internet services. I had to reengineer these pages so that, at run time, the user could select in which language the pages were displayed. This then allowed the client sell their Internet products into other European markets. I also had to enhance this application to include additional features such as support for Microsoft's Small Business Server.

Contact Management System using Visual Basic & Access

To support Bluesoft's sales and marketing operations I had to design and implement a contact management system using Visual Basic and Access. This system had to be fast and easy to use so that users could input their data while on the phone to potential customers. This system is now being sold as a commercial product by Bluesoft.

Telephone Order Processing System using PowerBuilder & SQL Anywhere

Working for a major factoring company I produced a pilot system to handle incoming telephone orders for a new product. Although this was a pilot system, it still had to be robust and user friendly enough to be utilised by users on the telephone to customers.

Corporate Benefits Tracking System using Access & VisualBasic

The Benefits Tracking System was a package originally developed as a prototype in the USA by one of the leading Actuary Consultancies to capture, control and report on staff benefit packages, on a country by country basis, for large multinational corporates. Working for the UK subsidiary, my role was to take over this system from the American parent company, rewrite and productionise it, while making it suitable for the world market. I successfully globalised the software and enhanced it so that the client was able to successfully sell it in both the USA and Europe.

Tool Evaluations

Bluesoft operated a Test Drive Centre where, under expert guidance, clients could gain hands-on experience of a wide variety of Client/Server development tools such as PowerBuilder, Delphi, Java, VisualBasic, VisualC++, C, Guidelines, NatStar and RemoteWare. I was responsible for programming these tools, evaluating them, and providing expert assistance to clients using the tools. In each case, I evaluated the tools by developing a crew scheduling application. This was intended to be representative of a real project and involved operations such as scheduling workers to jobs.

Specification and Prototyping of a Credit Control System using PowerBuilder

Working for a major factoring company my responsibilities were to understand user requirements and draft specifications and produce a full specification with estimated timings and produce a draft prototype.

Dialup Insurance Quotation System using C and Applications Manager

On an insurance project for 400 remote end users, I was responsible for developing the interface between the PCs and the remote mainframe for which I used C. I also developed parts of the user interface for which I used Applications Manager. To interface the PCs to the remote mainframe I used C. The PCs were running OS/2 and connecting via ISDN into a DB2 mainframe. Since this was a customer facing system, stability and performance were of the utmost importance.

Lucas Automotive Limited March 1986 - May 1995 Software Development Engineer & Network Supervisor

My job at Lucas Automotive evolved over a number of years.

Initially my work was mainly building and testing prototype printed circuit boards and testing other electronic hardware. I then moved on to design, program, and use computer controlled test equipment.

I then went on to write control software, mostly for car braking systems, although I spent some months writing software for diesel engine vehicle applications. Since these systems are safety critical this software has to be written to the highest possible standards. To do this job I made extensive use of Motorola 6800 assembly language in real time embedded applications. I am therefore very familiar with microprocessor and automotive diagnostic and debugging systems. I have also travelled abroad both to meet with colleagues in Germany and to test braking systems close to the Arctic Circle in Sweden.

As the use of personal computers became more widespread I was made responsible for the departmental LAN running Novell NetWare 3.11 and for hardware and software support for all the users in my department. As network supervisor I used a number of programming languages including C, C++ (both under DOS and under Windows) and 8086 assembler. Since I had two distinct different roles, I had to manage my time effectively with very little supervision.

page last updated 16/01/2010