Profile
Hello 👋 I'm Ryan, a 31 year old Front End Developer from Edinburgh.
I had a keen interest in developing websites prior to starting a development career in 2010. I’ve since developed these skills over the past 12 years, taking a break in between to dive into the User Experience side of design. Recently I've been helping re-platform an ageing PHP dashboard into a new React SPA for use by around 30,000 monthly active users.
In my free time during the pandemic I have been working with React Native to build a video application for small businesses. I was responsible for the iOS and Android mobile applications.
Skills
PHP
JavaScript
React
HTML
CSS
UX Design
Skill Tag Cloud
- Yii Framework
- Craft CMS
- WordPress
- Next.js
- React Native
- jQuery
- TypeScript
- GraphQL
- Balsamiq
- Git
- Linux
- MySQL
Previous Work
CitNOW
CitNOW is a suite of video products built for the automotive industry. The products help over 11,000 franchise dealerships in 60 countries communicate with their customers during the car buying and owning process. I’ve seen the company grow from start up to scale up during my time—being heavily involved in key scaling projects like localisation and re-platforming.
- Front End Developer
- February 2021
- –
- Present
I moved back into a Front End role in February 2021. I took this role to help me develop React skills that I was learning in my free time, within a commercial environment. I am part of the internal team that works alongside an external agency to deliver the dashboard products, part of a major re-platforming exercise.
- Senior UX Engineer
- August 2018
- –
- February 2021
Whilst working on customer facing products as a Developer, I had a lot of interest in the UX design area on how things are designed and how they work. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to explore this further by moving into the Product team at CitNOW. I maintained an Engineer title during this time, and so continued to work on code and bug fixes.
As a UX Engineer, I was involved with both the Product team and the Development team. I had the opportunity to visit our customers both here, and abroad, to gather feedback and test prototypes. I primarily used Balsamiq for quickly wireframing concepts, which I then translated into Adobe XD prototypes with the help of team mates.
Whilst working this role I attained the Professional Diploma in UX Design certification by the UX Design Institute. I also gained a deeper understanding on how best to work with Designers and Product Managers during this time.
- Developer
- May 2014
- –
- August 2018
I started working at CitNOW in May 2014 as a PHP developer working on customer facing products and internal systems when we had around 600 dealerships. I worked on re-developing the customer dashboard, which introduced me into localisation and management of translation files. To date we support over 44 languages within our platform.
Over the years I have:
- Built a quotation system allowing dealerships to create Vehicle Health Check reports, and customers to approve that work after watching their video. This product now delivers millions of euros worth of quotations to drivers each week, and is possibly the most used Vehicle Health Check quotation system in Europe.
- Rebuilt our video page product into a modular system which made it easier for designers to work with OEM themes. These video pages serve up around 1.3 million videos each month.
- Created a new product API for sending and receiving images to third party systems for Quality Control and Background Replacement.
- Rebuilt our E-mail/SMS system to allow customer customisation through a front end UI.
Arquila
Arquila was a company that produced Business Management Software for small to medium businesses.
- Developer
- August 2010
- –
- May 2014
I started as a junior PHP developer, progressing through various roles whilst helping to build systems based around task management, financing and reporting.