THOMAS HV CORLEY
Curriculum Vitae
years
SINCE I WAS BORN
7 years
CHEF
2 years
SUPPORT ENGINEER
years
SOFTWARE ENGINEER
BIO
A physics graduate turned chef turned developer. My transition from restaurants to software was made with relative ease. I had some experience in C from university and, coupled with some web design skills picked up whilst creating my food blog, I had a good starting point. Having had management experience from working in kitchens has also been valuable.
I am primarily a Ruby on Rails engineer but I have developed a love for JavaScript and I'm leaning more and more down the JS path (there is something about designing a dynamic user interface that I find very satisfying). For the past year or so I've been working at CiteAb, a life sciences data company based in Bath, working remotely from Edinburgh. The company's mission is to accelerate science by providing rich data on products used in scientific research. Working at CiteAb has given me exposure to a number of new technologies, including Elasticsearch and various AWS services, in addition to building upon my existing skillset, most notably levelling up on writing SQL queries.
I'm keen to find a role that aligns with my interests and values, at the same time as making use of the technologies I know and love. In this way I feel I'll be able to deploy my skills with the greatest possible impact. Something that I've learned about the process of building software is that it's all the more rewarding if that software's purpose and end goal is something I have a passion for.
SOFTWARE SKILLS
Ruby
Rails
JavaScript
React
Redux
EXPERIENCE
JUNE 2022 - PRESENT
Software Engineer
Bath (working remotely from Edinburgh)
- Joined a small team of 4 engineers (including our CTO), working on new features and maintaining the existing infrastructure
- Working in a small team resulted in exposure to all parts of the application, and having knowledge of all parts of the infrastructure. A great opportunity for learning
- Building and maintaining large datasets levelled up my SQL skills
- I designed and delivered a project to create a citation widget that has generated considerable income for the company
- Overhauled all jQuery in the front end site and replaced it with vanilla JS
- Authored swathes of documentation covering most areas of the application, for the benefit of the rest of the team and to help onboard new engineers.
JUL 2019 - JUNE 2022
Software Engineer
Edinburgh
- Moved to Junior Software Engineer after 16 months in Support
- Promoted to Mid-level Engineer after 7 months
- Learned methodologies and practices to work in a large organisation
- Key member of the team implementing Open Banking feeds, working with the banks' public APIs
- Led and delivered a Webhooks project, to allow real-time updates to some of our API partners
- Contributed to the FreeAgent engineering blog
- Monitored my projects carefully post-release to measure their impact and detect issues early
- Authored high quality documentation to support my projects and share knowledge across the team
- Implemented new features with React + Redux in a legacy app
- Contributed to Open Source – merged an improvement to the Ruby OAuth2 gem
APRIL 2017 - JUL 2019
Support Engineer
Edinburgh
- Second-tier support role providing technical assistance to both customers and the first-line support team
- Became a FreeAgent domain expert and learned the value of domain knowledge when building software
- Learned the value of comprehensive documentation, and authored many documents to aid other engineers
- Wrote ad-hoc Ruby scripts to fix data in customers' accounts
- Became adept at using ActiveRecord to find information in a Rails console
- Created an internal "training game" tool to teach new hires about the codebase
- Working with a wide range of teams and stakeholders across the business
- Truly learned the value in helping others – not only customers but also colleagues
2010 - 2017
Chef
Edinburgh
- Worked in 5 different restaurants over 7 years
- Reached the senior position of Sous Chef at Michelin Star restaurant The Kitchin, one of the best restaurants in the UK
- Managed a team of 10 chefs and was responsible for daily orders and stock control
- Was a key member of a team that opened a brand new restaurant in 2013
- Developed a tireless work ethic
EDUCATION
2009
BSc Physics, Honours Degree, 2:1
The University of Sheffield
2006
4 A Levels (Maths, Physics, English Literature, P.E.)
King Edward VI School, Morpeth, Northumberland
CONTACT DETAILS
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