Name: James William David Shiell
Mobile: +44 79 8139 9696
  • Primary Skills
    • Object Orientated Programming and Design
    • Java with Swing, Spring and JEE
    • Server-side, web and desktop development
  • Secondary Skills
    • Languages: C, C++, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, SQL, XML, XSL
    • Markup: XML, HTML, XHTML, CSS
    • Libraries: Spring, Struts, Hibernate, Grails
    • Methodologies: Scrum, TDD, Waterfall
    • Build: Ant, Maven, TeamCity
    • IDE: IDEA, Eclipse, JBuilder
    • OS: Linux, Mac OS X, Windows
    • App Servers: Weblogic, Tomcat, Jetty
    • RDBMS: Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL
    • VCS: Subversion, CVS, Sourcesafe, MKS, Clearcase

Community

Employment History

Software Developer, Man Investments (Contract)

March 2010 – December 2010

I am currently involved in a project customising a Caylpso installation.

Software Developer, Signature Technologies

June 2009 – March 2010

Signature is developing a grid-based gaming system using Java, Spring and Gigaspaces XAP. The system is currently accessible via Facebook, but has been architected to allow the future launch of a commercial gaming system. As part of this, effort has been expended to ensure non-sensitive data can scale horizontally via Amazon EC2, while retaining the ability to partition sensitive data on private servers.

I have been involved in the server-side development, developing the gaming back-end, back-office functionality and the web-based customer front end. Due to the small size of the team I am also tightly involved in development infrastructure, deployment and production support.

We have proceeded using a Scrum-style methodology, using TDD and Fitnesse to drive business acceptance testing. We have also made use of pair programming for knowledge transfer, design work and intricate tasks.

Senior Developer/Technical Architect, Signature Technologies & Stan James

November 2007 – June 2009

I worked on a trading and affiliate platform development project for Stan James. In November of 2008 Stan James purchased our team. Throughout the project we operated an agile team, focusing on the Scrum methodology.

Initially a senior developer on a Spring-MVC based application I was later promoted to Technical Architect and become responsible for code quality, technical decisions and build infrastructure. I also had a large role in hiring to grow the development team, leading to a presentation at XPDay 2008.

The system built on a Oracle technology stack (Coherence, Oracle 11g, WebLogic 10.3), and front-end technologies used included GWT, Spring-MVC and Swing/WebStart. I also integrated payment systems by both TrustMarque and Commidea.

I was responsible for the build & development environment, implemented Maven as a build system, managed TeamCity for CI and authored release and deployment applications using Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

Senior Developer, Inspired Gaming Group (UK) Ltd.

July 2007 – October 2007

I joined Inspired as a developer on their Java server-based gaming products. My focus was originally upon refactoring the client kernel to allow internationalisation support. However, a continued lack of work led me to terminate my employment at the end of my probationary period.

Senior Developer, JacobsRimell Ltd.

June 2006 – July 2007

I joined JR as an engineer on their modular JEE-based telephony provisioning product, APS, used by Comcast and UPC. My tasks included the development of a DOCSIS bootfile generation driver and to design and lead the implementation of an OSS/J interface for the APS system. The bootfile driver generated device bootfiles, driven by a template in the X.500 directory. The OSS/J interface provided an industry standard interface to the provisioning server, implemented using Web Services and WS: Notifications.

Product Developer, Donovan Data Systems Ltd.

September 2005 – June 2006

I was part of their project to replace green-screen systems with a web-based interface. The system was based on an in-house Java framework for web-based applications. My responsibilities involved technical design and implementation, including the application framework; integration with the legacy mainframe and MySQL database; and use of CruiseControl and CheckStyle to maintain code quality. I also frequently worked with the US-based framework team to resolve issues.

Analyst/Developer, Datacom Systems Ltd.

March 2004 – June 2005

I worked on CMS, a project for the NZ Ministry of Justice involving a web based 3-tier system using J2EE, WebLogic Server and Oracle 9i. Various projects also involved the use of SOAP, XSL, Java applets and Visual Basic ASP. I was also responsible for the production of a comprehensive build script using Apache Ant. This project was based on a client site.

Software Developer, Deeper Design Ltd.

January 2003 – February 2004

During my employment I worked on bespoke solutions, including a two-tier web system with Struts, Tiles and JSP, Swing clients, XML/XSLT reporting and database development with Hibernate and PostgreSQL.

Software Developer, Unisys NZ Ltd.

January 2001 – January 2003

I joined Unisys NZ as part of the 2001 graduate intake. During my time there I was exposed to Win32 service development (MFC, Win32 C++ and J++), EJBs, Struts, WLS 6 and Oracle 9i.

Research Programmer, University of Waikato

August 2000 – December 2000

I was employed as part of a project to develop website CMS tools using PHP and MySQL, which were later used to manage department websites.

Education

Bachelor of Arts – Computer Science & Dramatic Arts (2001)

University of Waikato, New Zealand

  • Sun Certified Business Component Developer
  • Sun Certified Java Developer
  • Sun Certified Java Programmer

General Information

Outside work I am a lapsed SCUBA diver and enjoy mountain biking, computer gaming and excessive reading. I also have a keen interest in computers in general which has given me a wide range of knowledge useful during my work. I also spend time on my own software projects, some of which have been released as open-source.