Alex Chapman

Full Stack Engineer

Resume

About

Alex Chapman is a Full Stack Software Engineer with a keen interest in data engineering and data enablement. He currently contributes to PensionBee as a Senior Software Engineer with particular focus upon scalability and site reliability.

Prior to PensionBee Alex contributed to Capital One’s machine learning platform, enabling both operational and exploratory analytics within a data driven enterprise. Working across both frontend and backend - he has a proven track record of enabling and pushing the bar higher on DevOps, robust quality engineering practice and well-managed change.

Having built experience in an extensive repertoire of tools and technologies, Alex is keen to make his mark and help others break new ground on their journey into data engineering and software development in the cloud.

Tech and Tools

  • Frontend: JavaScript (React, React Native, Redux, Styled Components, SCSS), Cypress, Jest.
  • Backend: Java (Spring, JAX-RS, Jersey), JavaScript (Node.js, Express), Python (Flask, Django), Ruby (Rails), Salesforce (Apex)
  • DevOps: Terraform, Docker, Jenkins, CloudFormation, GitLab CI, Ansible, Maven, Gradle, Git.
  • Data: Python, R.
  • Cloud: AWS (Lambda, EC2, S3, ECS, EKS, Dynamo, RDS, API Gateway), GCP (Compute, Cloud Functions, GKE, TTS, STT, AutoML), Vault, Consul.
  • Currently Exploring: Rust, TypeScript.

Professional Experience

Software Engineer: PensionBee – July 2021 – Feb 2022

  • Planned, designed and delivered a data driven rules engine used to intelligently distribute work across customer service agents going above and beyond ticket request volume.
  • Contributed to a number of business automation projects aimed at making pension transfers faster, smoother and less involved.
  • Designated frontline engineer as a first point of contact for incident assessment and response across the technology estate.
  • Solved problems around site reliability, monitoring and application scalability and incident response. Significant contributions included reworking error handling across backend services and maturing the technology estate via pattern forming across both logging and testing.

Software Development Engineer: Capital One – June 2019 – July 2021

  • Part of the Data Engineering team; solving problems around container orchestration, data pipelines and security within a highly regulated industry. Working full stack across our machine learning platform.
  • Responsible for mentoring and leading a team of 12 graduates and 15 interns delivering on our annual Software Academy projects.
  • Beyond core delivery; leading on cloud transformation projects; rearchitecting and building customer agent tooling in the cloud.
  • Engaged in a number of enterprise wide initiatives focused on infrastructure provisioning, CICD and well-controlled change.
  • A keen champion of quality engineering contributing to enterprise level initiatives and responsible for running external talks and events on quality engineering.

Lead Teaching Instructor: Code First Girls – Sept 2018 – Sept 2020

  • Empowered curious engineers to develop a fundamental understanding of web development and software engineering.
  • Planned and delivered weekly workshops on HTML, CSS, Bootstrap and Git and taught over 100 people how to code!

Teaching Assistant: University of Sheffield – Sept 2018 – June 2019

  • Delivered weekly seminars and labs - supporting first and second year students in developing their understanding of object-oriented programming (Java and Ruby), unit testing and SOLID principles.

Desktop Support Analyst: NYCC – Jun 2018 – Sept 2018

  • Day-to-day operational support for staff across the enterprise resolving technical issues and investigating issues in line with SLAs.
  • Solid understanding of Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, LDAP, Active Directory, LanDesk/Ivanti in operational and support contexts.
  • Contributed to major digital transformation projects across the organisation.

Desktop Support Analyst: NYCC – Jun 2017 – Sept 2017

Hospitality and Catering: Mowden Park RFC – Jun 2015 – Sept 2016

Delivery Person: Local News – Aug 2014 – Sept 2016

Crew Member: McDonald’s – Jan 2015 – Sept 2015

Qualifications

2016 - 19: BSc Computer Science, University of Sheffield.

  • Average Module Score 82%
  • Broad experience across backend service engineering, frontend web development, IoT, functional programming, machine learning and data processing.
  • Dissertation Topic: Detecting Dementia Using Automated Speech and Language Analysis (Python Project)

2014 - 2016: A-Levels, Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College

  • Mathematics: A
  • Further Mathematics: B
  • Computer Science: B
  • Physics (AS Level): C

References

Available upon request.