Work Experience
Game
Worked on the night shift team preparing the stores for their stock takes. This was only a temporary job after school until I found something to study or a permanent work position.
Responsibilities:
- Sort and stack stock
- Mark bins
Mercedes-Benz (Century City)
Started work as an apprentice mechanic but eventually realised that I will not be able to work as a mechanic for the rest of my life, and decided to start studies the next year.
Responsibilities:
- Servicing passenger vehicles
- Fix passenger vehicles
- Study while working
Imbali Studio
After my college studies I landed a job as a Junior Web Developer. Here I would work and gain a lot of knowledge that will ultimately help me to become a full stack developer using PHP, CSS 3, HTML 5 JavaScript and back then JQuery.
Responsibilities:
- Develop / Code new websites from photoshop templates
- Design / Develop database structures
- Maintain and fix current bugs on client websites
- Maintain / Develop the company custom framework
- Implement basic SEO into web pages
- Develop newsletters and send out via custom bulk message system
- Answer and manage customer phone calls
Foresite Media
After a big decision to change employers I eventually ended up at Foresite Media. Initially this seemed like my dream job but quickly turned out that I've made the wrong decision moving away from Imbali Studio.
Responsibilities:
- Maintain the portfolio of sites (at that stage there was 250 websites+)
- Created a new web application to add to the portfolio
- Upkeep and maintain their largest site that consisted of 800+ concurrent users at peak hours of the day
Imbali Studio
With my return to Imbali Studio now as their Senior Developer most of my daily responsibilities stayed the same with increased pressure to deliver more quality work. Unfortunately for me I came to learn that the studio was having some financial trouble and I started looking out for another opportunity in the end.
Responsibilities:
- Develop / Code new websites from photoshop templates
- Design / Develop database structures
- Maintain and fix current bugs on client websites
- Maintain / Develop the company custom framework
- Implement basic SEO into web pages
- Develop newsletters and send out via custom bulk message system
- Answer and manage customer phone calls
Expat Explore Travel
With the end of an Imbali era, I started working for this travel company as their first in-house developer. I resurrected their site from the grave. It was so bad that it would fall over about 3 to 5 times in one single day. Today both me and the company grew a lot and we no longer use PHP as our main coding language. We moved to serverless approach with AWS lambda and some NodeJS frameworks. We do have a tailor made front-end framework as well as a back-end framework. We where one of the first companies to move over to this approach in website development and at the time we decided to move to these new technologies there was not very much open-source frameworks for the technology yet.
The build has proven itself very useful and the technology is VERY widely used in many other companies today.
Roles:
- Full Stack Developer - Apr 2015 to Nov 2017
- Senior Front-end Developer - Nov 2017 to Apr 2018
- Lead Developer - Apr 2018 to Current
Responsibilities:
- Maintain the current legacy website
- Design and maintain new technology implementations
- Maintain current in-house frameworks
- Development of new packaged modules for the front-end framework
- Roll-out of new campaigns (these are rather large projects)
- Setup CICD of any new repositories or new projects
- Manage database information and architecture
- Supplying quantitative data for reporting purposes
- Working closely with the marketing department with new ideas and development thereof
- Manage a team of 3 front-end developers and 1 back-end developer
- Ensure all work going through the pipelines are completed in the expected timelines
- Ensure all work released for production is completed to specification
- Give guidance and work with other departments in the company regarding tech requirements and implementation into new 3rd party systems
Education
Matric
Completed Grade 12 in 2004 at Bellville High School
Subject completed:
- Afrikaans - First Language
- English - Second Language
- Mathematics
- Natural Science
- Computer Studies
- Geography
Apprentice
Completed NQF 3 motor mechanic apprentice with Mercedez-Benz South Africa through MERSETA
Web Design & Development
Studied web design & development course through Northlink College.
Subjects completed:
- HTML and CSS
- OOP Programing (VB.net, Python & Java)
- Web Programing (ASP.net)
- Graphic Design (Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash)
- Hardware and Networking
- Business Communication (N4, N5)
- Entrepreneurship (N4, N5)
- Accounting(basics) (N4)
Interests
Aquariums
As a kid I was introduced to fish keeping. I was left to my own knowledge and devices and always somehow made a success of my aquarium, getting the difficult task right of not needing any water changes for years as the aquarium has become self sustaining.
I left the hobby in my early 20's and decided recently to pick the hobby up again. Today my new aquarium is 2 months old (08-01-2020), and is already doing well and I have not forgotten my old tricks and the aquarium has been self sustaining thus far for 30 days without needing any other interference!
Surf Fishing
I was introduced to fishing by my dad when I was about 5 years old. My dad himself was never a big fisherman, but he took me fishing as a bonding experience. As fate would have it, that day we caught our first fish. Ever since then I was hooked. Because my parents never had interest in fishing I somehow always ended up with friends who's parents were seasoned fishermen. I learned all their tricks & trades and I have never stopped fishing since.
Gaming & Streaming
In my after work hours I spend my time playing games and streaming my gaming to the world of viewers on various platforms. Currently I stream my gaming on twitch, youtube and mixer and create video content on facebook and youtube.
This started as a personal project to see if I can make a successful streaming channel on either of these platforms and to figure out what it takes to eventually setup a channel to become successful (figuring out the formula).