James Ravenscroft Web Developer
I am a full-stack web developer based in Auckland with management and technical lead experience, currently specialising in JavaScript and front-end web application development with React.
I've worked in a diverse range of environments and teams, from freelancing, to start-ups, to large multinational organisations with team members located around the world, using technologies ranging from C to CSS-in-JS.
I am a pragmatist who believes in picking the right tools for the job, automation, and people over process. I strive to make a big impact wherever I work, putting both user and developer experience at the forefront of everything I do. I enjoy collaboration, mentoring and getting quality features into production.
An avid learner and goal-setter, I am constantly experimenting with technologies and techniques outside of work. My latest aim is to pick up some AWS certifications, learning about devops tools along the way.
Employment
Air New Zealand Auckland, New Zealand
Contract front-end web development role for New Zealand's national carrier and one of the largest organisations in the country.
Joined the company at the start of a major digital transformation and advised on front-end technologies to use, setting up much of the front-end infrastructure to be used across the organisation. This included playing a pivotal role in getting the company's first design system and reusable component library off-the-ground, to its usage across multiple applications.
Led front-end development on a number of projects, including a rebuild of the flight seat selector, payment for inflight wifi, Oscar the chat bot, and developed and executed a strategy for migrating the company's major server-rendered Java applications to React single-page applications.
Technologies used include React, TypeScript, Redux, Jest, Webpack, Sass, and Node.
Wynyard Group Auckland, New Zealand
Front-end web development role for a multinational software company focused on the prevention of serious criminal activity worldwide.
Initially embedded within a team of external contractors on their site, in collaboration with company employees and stakeholders across the globe, developed a complex AngularJS web application interface for the company's criminal case management software.
The role then evolved into more of a technical front-end lead, devising and implementing a modular front-end architecture in React to compliment the company’s microservices architecture. This included development of a reusable component library, integration with the existing Angular 1.x application, and focus on internationalisation, accessibility and automated testing.
Technology used has included JavaScript (ES6+), Angular, React, Redux, Jest, Webpack, Sass, Node, Elasticsearch, and AWS.
Kanetix Toronto, Canada
Head of development of the RateSupermarket.ca property within Kanetix. Introduced Scrum and acted as the Scrum Master, whilst also remaining highly active within the development team. Greatly increased efficiency and output with sprint completion averaging 98%.
Moved the company towards SOA to aid integration inside and outside of Kanetix, building a new REST API, ans also initiated and developed an extensible front-end comparison framework for use across Kanetix and externally through the company's partner network, using Angular.js, Sass, Grunt and Bower.
Designed and developed a landing page which trebled conversion, and helped the company quadruple its all-time daily mortgage revenue record twice in the week it was launched.
RateSupermarket.ca/Kanetix Toronto, Canada
Development for Canada’s largest financial product comparison site, taking it from a start-up, to a small business, to its acquisition by Kanetix in June 2013 and beyond. Initiated and oversaw a huge redevelopment of the site, including migrating the site to a new framework, redeveloping the site to be bi-lingual, and a complete restructure of the database. Created a database migration utility to migrate changes between the old and the new database structure, in addition to deploying changes between platforms, for which the company received a tax refund for R&D.
Introduced several schemes to improve code quality, including test-driven development, continuous integration, code reviews, and authored code quality guidelines for PHP, JavaScript and MySQL.
Advanced Health & Care Derby, UK
Development of the GP and hospice management system, CrossCare, for one of the largest software companies in the UK. Working with a legacy development platform, which included use of a MultiValue database, worked extensively on both the application and several web-integration projects.
Echostar Europe Steeton, UK
University placement year role as part of a large team developing embedded software for digital TV clients around the world using C and C++. Included spending 3 weeks working in Colorado, USA, on a project for Dish Network.
PC Service Call Nottingham, UK
High-volume phone and email support helping consumers fix issues with their PCs and digital equipment.