Colin Asquith

Full Stack Lead Developer

Edinburgh

https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinasquith/
Umbraco Certified Professional Google Adwords and Analytics certified Microsoft Certified Application Developer

Personal statement

A dynamic and enthusiastic full-stack developer with over 15 years development experience in several industries and a proven ability to deliver successful projects. Able to work well with people as well as computers, to help deliver substantial results for businesses and their clients. Wide-ranging experience of programming languages and tools, eager and quick to learn new things when required. Currently excited by working with ASP.NET Core, as well as learning Xamarin and Python for Machine Learning.

Highlights

  • Excellent knowledge of C#, ASP.NET, .NET, T-SQL, Umbraco and building web applications with the Microsoft stack using SOLID principles, OO and front-end development with HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, Angular, Vue and React
  • Certified Umbraco developer, building CMS websites with Umbraco v4 to v8
  • Project and people management skills heading up development teams and working with clients to deliver optimum solutions, agile SCRUM master
  • Building mobile apps using different technologies for iOS and Android

Employment History

Director/Lead Developer, Propeller Software, (May 2012 – present) Edinburgh

Established my own company specialising in full-stack .NET development, building web applications for clients to help make the most of technology in their business.

  • Creating bespoke web applications and desktop applications using ASP.NET MVC, full stack development – from responsive front end layout through to business logic and SQL database creation and optimisation, SEO advice
  • Development of mobile applications (iOS and Android) using Ionic 2/Angular
  • Created a powerful, easy-to-use CMS for clients with email marketing integration
  • Front end JavaScript framework development React, Angular and Vue, CSS development in SASS
  • Development of BBC Umbraco CMS website for media sharing to journalists
  • PHP/MySQL development - Magento e-commerce systems, custom WordPress

Lead Developer, Multiply, (November 2016 – August 2019) Edinburgh

Heading up the development team, I was responsible for developing quality solutions and working with clients to deliver major projects, as well as developing proprietary tools for a marketing communications agency with specialisms in brand, digital and shopper marketing. Responsible for DevOps and CI/CD as well as unit testing of projects.

  • Design and development of enterprise level software for managing and running large scale e-learning for tens of thousands of users, using ASP.NET Core, Angular 6, Vue, Entity Framework and SQL Server
  • Responsible for project architecture, planning and managing work within the team using SCRUM
  • Development and roll-out of training systems for major banking and financial clients
  • Building the digital customer hub for C&C Group, using Umbraco and ASP.NET including SSO authentication with eCommerce, training portals and web to print systems
  • Sole developer building mobile applications for leading drink retailers on iOS, Android and Windows Mobile
  • Developing CMS projects for major clients using Umbraco and uCommerce

Senior Software Engineer, TheHealthFinder, (August 2010 – April 2012) Edinburgh

Working remotely as sole developer creating a custom Content Management System to build and update over 50 linked websites, allowing content to be selected and generated between sites as well as developing and integrating an advertising platform to allow advertisers to advertise across our network of websites.

  • Created several large web applications using ASP.NET MVC C#, with jQuery, AJAX, XML
  • Redevelopment of existing software to enable substantial reduction in server resources and costs

Senior Software Engineer, Bigmouthmedia, (November 2008 – August 2010) Edinburgh

Developing internal web applications and services for one of Europe’s biggest online marketing agencies, specialising in search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Part of a small team using an Agile process to regularly deliver value to the business through software.

  • Developed tools to process large volumes of web data to determine quality and potential of client’s SEO
  • Developed a large scale reporting system to aggregate significant amounts reporting data for clients, delivered through the web using SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and optimising SQL Server
  • Developed an in-house CRM tool to allow the business to share data and track clients

Software Engineer, First State Investments, (May 2006 – November 2008) Edinburgh

Delivering financial software for an investment company focused on creating and supporting applications to handle financial information for customers as well as traders. Also development of software to run daily processes to make business operation more robust and efficient.

  • NET web applications and web services written in C#/VB.NET, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX
  • WinForms applications and Windows Services
  • Database design and development (SQL Server 2000/2005), T-SQL, SQL Server Analysis Services

Software Engineer (Contract), WebAdvertising, (September 2003 – May 2006) Edinburgh

Developing web based solutions for a large number of clients, mainly large theatres and tourist boards, as well as web-enabling existing booking systems. Developed online ticket sales software, CMS products and e-marketing software, initiated development of a modular code library, to enable the company to develop solutions quickly.

Software Engineer (Freelance) - Mobilo, (July 2002 – September 2003) Edinburgh

Freelance work, retrained to move to web development in .NET. Set-up a company to provide web site and web application development and mobile development. Developed multimedia CMS for the Council of Europe to exchange and share documents and media as a pilot scheme.

Software Engineer, FifteenSeven, (December 2001 – July 2002) Edinburgh/Livingston

Working in a small team creating software modules for embedded systems such as digital cameras and MP3 players, development of USB mass storage functionality, an assembly language ID3 tag parser and C based hard disk cache.

Embedded Software Engineer, Nokia Mobile Phones, (August 1999 – December 2001) Farnborough, England

Working in a small team to develop multimedia software components for Nokia mobile phone handsets. Quickly given responsibility of audio playback and recording module with voice recognition and Japanese speech synthesis.

  • Development in C and C++, working with software teams around the world
  • Planning new features and scheduling component releases for new mobile handsets

Qualifications

  • Computer Science B.Sc. (Hons.) from Heriot-Watt University
  • .NET Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) - C#, Web, XML Web services and SQL Server. Umbraco Certified Professional (v7 and v8)
  • Other Certifications: ITIL, Agile SCRUM Master (PSM1), Google Analytics, Google Mobile Developer, Google Adwords, British Sign Language (Level 2)

Interests and activities

My main interests are making music, both acoustically (guitar and singing) as well as electronically and DJing. I also enjoy reading a wide variety of books and playing football. I spend my spare time with humans socialising and talking a lot, and my spare time with computers learning new things that interest me.