Adam Straughan BEng. Hons

Posted on 20th July, 2012.

An experienced software development lead with a solid background in all aspects of the SDLC. Able to act at all levels from technical design authority to software craftsman; striving for the balance for getting it right and getting it done. Excellent communicator, both in technical and non-technical environments.

Current

Historical Background

Career History

Global scientific consumables, equipment and software. Developing software for control and use of ICP instruments using various aspects of .Net 4 technology stack, including WCF and WPF.

  • Line Management. Line managed a team of 6 developers. Updated standards and development ecosystem.
  • Agile Practitioner. Introduced Scrum software development approach to new projects with both the software development and product management groups.
  • Quality and Standards. Introduced and embedded as common practice; coding guidelines, peer code review, test driven development, standardisation of development toolset and continuous integrations builds.
  • Technical Direction. Guide team members' technical development through such initiatives as coding dojo, code reviews and personal mentoring.
  • Software Development. Practice what I preach, leading by doing.

Worldwide examinations and assessment provider, many in-house business support products using various aspects of .Net 3.5 technology stack, including SQL 2008.

  • Line Management. Line managed a team of 6 developers. Updated standards and development ecosystem.
  • Agile Practitioner. Introduced Scrum software development approach to new projects with both the software development and product management groups.
  • Quality and Standards. Introduced and embedded as common practice; coding guidelines, peer code review, test driven development, standardisation of development toolset and continuous integrations builds.
  • Technical Direction. Guide team members' technical development through such initiatives as coding dojo, code reviews and personal mentoring.
  • Software Development. Practice what I preach, leading by doing. (WCF, application architecture, socket communication with hardware, WinUsb Device driver, demo single page web application)

Main product, LAS, is a .Net 2.0 desktop application which allows configuration and control of microscopes and digital cameras to capture process and measure specimen images.

  • Technical Mentoring. Give technical leadership, .Net and OOD expertise to the team. Presented several in-house training sessions including Architectural overview, NUnit, FxCop and OO design patterns
  • Quality Focus. Effected culture change to use code review and unit testing as part of the daily process. Coding guidelines reviewer, authored code review checklist
  • Application Architect. Provide architectural design for all parts of the product including the integration of a SQL server backend.
  • Product Maintenance. From requirements capture through component design, unit test and code, complete new product modules

Bespoke software development, web and desktop based, for various clients.

  • Team leader. Lead team of 4 developers on large mission critical .NET framework database front end application. Ensured code quality for a maintainable system
  • Software Architecture. Designed and implemented in-house ORM for .NET. Saved 100s of hours of coding whilst eliminating cut & paste bugs (C#/ VB.net)
  • Client/ Server work flow. Designed and implemented workflow system for case payment authorisation and management system using SQL, Web services, NT service with Win-Forms front end (C#)
  • ATL COM objects for a data driven conveyor control system. Designed and wrote plug-in system to enhance and support client solution
    • Heavy use of multi-threaded flow control, database connectivity using ODBC.
    • Added functionality to embedded sub-system, in ANSI C.
    • On site trouble shooting visits to help client face customer in France.

Mobile client server booking system.

  • Interface to telephone booking system. Designed interface to automate telephone booking system for taxi cabs between customer system and 3rd party bespoke telephone system
  • On Site Visits to Singapore for sub-system test and integration
  • Product Maintenance. 16-bit MFC application to book and manage taxi system

Bespoke desktop software development for various clients.

  • Image Database/Analysis. Maintenance and enhancement of in-house product (16 bit MFC) and image analysis (Win16 SDK in C)
  • Image Capture drivers. Using C++, wrote VBX and OCX controls for MS Visual Basic to incorporate several frame grabber hardware into clients imaging library.

Qualifications

  • MCP, Exam 70-306 Windows Forms Applications with VB.net (MCP:2859994)
  • NVQ level 3, C Programming
  • BEng (Hons), Mechanical Engineering, Nottingham University

Other Interests

Learning new technologies; (BDD, Python), climbing.