Hello, I'm Harry James
Driven Software Engineer and Cloud Infrastructure architect.
About Me
I'm a Software Engineer and architect of technical solutions; optimising software, database queries and cloud infrastructure to develop highly scalable, reliable applications.
I primarily have a Backend focus, with good familiarity of full-stack JavaScript web frameworks, but I take a tech-agnostic approach and I'm open to alternative opportunities, having worked with a range of other languages and frameworks in the past.
With over 2 years of industrial experience and 12 years of programming experience, I've developed a deep understanding of backend systems, database optimisation, and API design.
I'm based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, where I earned my 1st class MComp Computer Science degree from Newcastle University. I am open to in-office and hybrid opportunities near me, or Remote opportunities.
Skills & Expertise
Work Experience
- Completed MongoDB training and certifications, led improvements to core search functionality improving matching of relevant results based on popularity and enhancing visibility (and uptake) of internal product offerings.
- Mitigated and acted on infrastructure issues by setting up alerts and monitoring in AWS, performing necessary hardware adjustments and relaying cost implications to senior managers which prevented outages/degraded performance during peak times, improved infrastructure performance and reduced costs.
- Developed internal tooling to simplify common tasks like authenticating with OAuth providers and setting up Docker for MongoDB, allowing other engineers on the team to build in an environment with mock data and necessary indexes for performing searching on a local environment.
- Expanded reach into frontend technologies, using React.js and other frontend libraries to develop reusable components for the organisation's internal administration product.
- Started in app squad, Transitioned squads in March 2024 to become the main engineer responsible for the backend of our internal admin tool, with occasional assistance and collaboration through reviews from others.
- Used a range of technologies including TypeScript, Swagger, Docker, Serverless, AWS (S3, SQS, Cloudfront and more), Postgres + RDS, MongoDB within a monorepo codebase of microservices.
- Actively engaged in code reviews and constructive discussions to gain insights into the team's work, establishing and enforcing best practices to ensure high quality, maintainable code is integrated into our stable branch.
- Attended tech conferences and engaged in relevant webinars inside and outside of working hours.
- One of 3 appointed organisers of NUSU's Freshers' Week responsible for booking, budgeting, and negotiating daytime and alternative evening events, transport coordination and managing over 200 student volunteers.
- Communicated high-level directives through the hierarchy of volunteer 'crew', planned contingency action and led incident responses to deliver a successful large-scale event for over 2,000 incoming students.
- Represented the Computer Science department at Newcastle University during open days and recruitment events.
- Liaised with prospective students and guests, leading Q&A panels, providing tours of the building and training future ambassadors.
- Supported and mentored first-year students through virtual and in-person lab sessions.
- Resolved technical issues, answered queries, and demonstrated concepts part of the course syllabus.
- Assigned to modules relating to Mathematics, Databases (SQL and NoSQL/MongoDB) and Programming (Java and Python).
- Performed QA through manual and automated testing, logging and taking ownership of issues on JIRA.
- Responsible for maintaining the existing Android application in Kotlin; fixing bugs, updating functionality following changes in the REST API, adding new features, and deploying app updates to the Play Store.
- Assisted with some minor frontend tasks in Angular.
- Worked position 1 day per week alongside university studies, occasionally longer outside of term time.
Education
Completed a Master's in Computing Science with First Class Honours, focusing on advanced algorithms, distributed systems, and software engineering principles.
Key Modules:
- Bioinformatics
- Cryptography
- Reliability and Fault Tolerance
- Distributed Algorithms
- Information Security and Trust
- Security Analysis of Complex Systems
Dissertation:
"A data observatory for antibiotic resistance genes" - A webapp built using Next.js, React.js and MongoDB to track trends in antibiotic resistance and assist researchers in the field of bioinformatics.
Societies:
- 20 Minute Society - Secretary (2021/22 academic year) and Social Secretary (2020/21 academic year). One of the largest societies at the university during this time.
- RAG - Raising and Giving.
- NUCAT's (Newcastle University Computing and Technology Society)
- LGTBQ+.
Achievements:
Awarded School of Computing Community Award 2022 as recognition of contributing to the School and wider community.