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I'm Ollie, a recent graduate of Makers Academy, a highly-selective, 16-week Software Engineering bootcamp. I'm incredibly excited to be searching for my first role as a Junior Developer. After working in the charity and education sectors for many years, I decided to pursue a new challenge and career in Software Development. Since taking the plunge into the world of programming, I haven't looked back, and I'm thrilled to be learning and developing every day. ⭐

Previously, I worked as a Trust Fundraiser for Ambitious about Autism, a charity providing support for autistic children and young people, and promoting neurodiversity across the UK. Whilst I remain passionate about helping others, ultimately, I want a profession better aligned with my skill set and personal goals. I am naturally inquisitive, and have always been intrigued by technology and how things work. This prompted me to try coding, and I quickly realised that software development was the career path (and creative outlet) I had been seeking. 🔍

I truly love to learn, and I plan to build on the skills and knowledge I acquired at Makers (and independently), at a company where I can continue to grow and develop in a supportive team of passionate, driven developers, building creative solutions to important problems. 🧑‍💻🔨

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I am motivated by thinking through and solving complex problems, due to my background in academic Philosophy, which shares many transferable skills with programming. Fundamentally, both require the use of analytical skills and logic to solve problems, though programming offers far greater scope to apply these skills practically. In my working life, I have developed a keen eye for spotting problems and finding solutions, which save time, streamline systems and improve the function of my own role. At Ambitious about Autism, I was keen to improve upon our prospect researching system, as leads were not being pursued consistently, resulting in low returns from new donors. I introduced a system for recording prospects in a shared spreadsheet, with reminders being set up in our CRM system for each team member to contact their allocated prospects, and then report the outcome of each follow-up in a streamlined, half-hour meeting. This resulted in more donations from newly established trusts, more data captured in the system, and less time wasted throughout the team.

As a developer, I have further improved my problem solving skills by implementing Makers' processes for tackling coding problems, using test-driven development methodology and step-by-step learning techniques, to ensure whatever the size of a problem, an analytical and solution driven process will simplify it and give clear direction. These new skills have enabled me to deconstruct larger tasks, such as building a dyanmic web-game in React, or learning how to interact with API's, into reasonable, more manageable chunks. I love trying to figure out the cleanest, clearest solution when writing code, and take genuine satisfaction from grappling with and solving tricky coding problems.

In my charity role, I frequently led meetings and delivered presentations to influential donors, with a view to securing donations. These conversations required confidence, tact, and most importantly, listening skills, to understand what a donor wanted and expected from a charity partnership. These meetings resulted in a number of five-figure donations, most notably, the renewal of a multi-year grant worth £20,000 annually. Equally, when working in graduate recruitment, I delivered presentations promoting our internship scheme to audiences comprised of business owners; these played a significant part in our team exceeding the previous annual record of candidate placements. Working with autistic children required incredibly clear and considered communication, not only with the children, but also when difficult discussions were required with parents, all of which enhanced my ability to listen and communicate empathetically.

At Makers, daily pairing sessions meant that I worked with people who were ahead of me and people behind me in their coding journeys. This required clear and honest communication, not only asking questions when necessary, but also when taking on a more instructive role. I love working as part of a team, and I particularly enjoyed taking on a leadership position in group projects, running stand-ups and retros, overseeing ticket allocation and fostering an open environment where all team members felt confident to share their ideas and opinions.

My previous role focused on managing a large portfolio of trusts and foundations, all of which had specific deadlines for submitting funding applications. I had to prioritize my workload carefully to achieve the greatest return, whilst maintaining a high standard in my written applications. This required constant planning ahead, setting reminders and working to a timeline weeks in advance, to ensure that I would be able to deliver high-quality, bespoke submissions, without missing any application windows. I became used to working in a fast-paced, pressurised environment, as it was my responsibility to ensure that no opportunity was missed, as it would come at a cost to the charity and our beneficiaries.

In group coding projects, I was always vocal regarding time-management, and always advocated for an achievable, realistic Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This ensured that at the end of each project, we would have a tangible, working product to display, and I am incredibly proud that we were able to reach and exceed MVP for each project I was part of, owing to the detailed planning and time-management established at outset. Having become well-versed in Agile processes, I believe I am fully capable of quickly fitting in and adjusting to any Software Development team.

I am a highly motivated and dedicated individual with a proven track record of being a fast learner. I possess the ability to absorb new information quickly, soak up knowledge from others, and apply it effectively to my work. I am confident in my ability to learn new skills and technologies, which has allowed me to adapt swiftly to new environments, both profesionally and academically. This includes observing and learning the routines and subtle behavioural differences in each of the autistic children I worked with, comprehending and writing about increasingly complex philosophical concepts during my Masters degree, and learning how to write data-rich queries and navigate the vast CRM database in my first week at the charity.

The intensive, self-directed nature of studying at Makers ensures that all students graduate as independent learners, with the confidence and skills to embrace new technologies. This has given me the confidence not only to take on any technical challenge, but to embrace learning new technologies. For example, I was readily able to pick up complex frameworks such as React, and to learn Javascript in just two weeks. I am passionate about learning, and I look forward to continuing to pick up new languages and innovative frameworks, to solve new problems within the world of programming.

Ambitious about Autism (Nov 2019 - Jun 2022) Trust Fundraiser

• Responsible for managing a large portfolio of donor relationships with numerous competing application deadlines. The value of my portfolio was raised each year as I exceeded my targets, eventually reaching a value of approximately £100,000 per year. -I wrote bespoke fundraising bids (ranging from £1000-£25,000) and reports for high-value donors. This involved liaising with project delivery teams, our finance department and external Grants Managers, to ensure our fundraising product met donors' needs, showcased the fantastic work of the charity and delivered accurate reporting.
• Undertook extensive prospect research to identify income growth potential, which involved managing two Prospect Research volunteers' workloads.
• Project Manager for all projects across the three schools in our education network - working closely with school staff, contractors and Heads of Department across fundraising and finance, to ensure our projects and services ran smoothly, deadlines were met and budgets were adhered to.
• I received an award for Outstanding Contribution to the charity in my first year, thanks to my successful application for two minibuses (worth £80,000+). During my time at the charity, I am proud to say that I raised over £225,000.

World Literacy Foundation (May 2019 – Nov 2019) Fundraising Intern

• The World Literacy Foundation is a charity that seeks to tackle poverty domestically and overseas through the alleviation of child illiteracy.
• My role involved researching trusts and foundations that aligned with either our Sun Books project in Uganda or one of our UK based projects and drafting funding applications.
• Planned, executed and volunteered at events to boost the profile of the charity and solicit donations.

Albion Primary School (Aug 2018 – Aug 2019) Special Educational Needs Support Staff

• Worked with autistic children, assisting them socially, academically and emotionally in all aspects of their school life.
• Planned and delivered individually tailored lessons in conjunction with the class teacher and Special Educational Needs Coordinator, focusing on speech and language development, basic Maths and English, and empathetic and social behaviours.
• Frequently led group sessions for a small class of autistic children, where we practiced sharing, showing restraint and playing together, utilising a range of sensory equipment to engage the children’s attention.

Sugarman Group (Nov 2017 – Aug 2018) Classroom Assistant

• After completing my Masters degree, I worked as a one-to-one classroom assistant. I taught with children with various behavioural issues and special needs. Shortly after being placed at Albion Primary School, I was hired as a full-time member of staff.

Unitemps, University of Roehampton (Feb 2016 – Aug 2016) Office Administrator

• I designed innovative advertising campaigns and social media initiatives for Roehampton University to raise awareness of Unitemps services.
• My pitching of our Santander-partnered internship scheme to prospective clients (in live presentations and over the phone), meant that our team exceeded the previous annual record of candidate placements.
• I was responsible for managing and updating data spreadsheets and coordinating targeted mailshots to the alumni and student database.
• Frequently liaised with CEOs and HR departments, communicating effectively and professionally at all levels.

Gee & Watson Financial Advisors (Nov 2010 – May 2012) Office Assistant - Part-time

• I was involved in day-to-day office management, taking calls, organising meetings, referring clients to appropriate team members.
• This position enhanced my time-keeping and organisational skills.

Makers Academy (Aug 2022 - Dec 2022) - 16-week Software Development Bootcamp

• Learning how to learn coding languages: Makers doesn't simply teach one coding language; the focus is on developing the necessary skills for picking up and adapting to new coding languages. After working in Ruby for 10 weeks, I was able to apply the concepts we'd developed to learning JavaScript in two weeks, giving me confidence when working with new languages and frameworks.
• Test-Driven Development: Gained a thorough understanding of how to write strong, behaviour-focused tests and the benefits of test-driven code, using the Red-Green-Refactor model.
• Pair programming: Established fantastic working relationships with peers in daily pairing sessions, working as both 'driver' and 'navigator' to achieve shared goals.
• Debugging: Learned the importance of getting visibility when faced with an error and how to follow stack trace messages ,to find and fix a problem at the source.
• Object Oriented-Design: Can develop and structure applications using objects and classes, having learned how to split a program into smaller, manageable chunks of DRY code.
• Databases: Worked with PostgreSQL, ActiveRecord (ORM), MongoDB, Mongoose (ODM) and TablePlus to build databases and programs that store data and perform CRUD operations.
• APIs: Used GET and POST requests to APIs for a number of projects throughout the course, using Postman and testing to deepen my understanding of data transferral.
• Agile workflow: Followed Agile development processes to build projects as part of a team, complimented by various technologies; detailed planning (Excalidraw), tickets (Trello), sprints, retros (Miro), daily standups and iterative development.

University of Amsterdam (2016 - Sep 2017) – MA – Philosophy – (Merit - GPA of 79.1%)

• Awarded a Distinction for Master’s Thesis.
• I honed my problem solving, research, and critical thinking skills. I studied Temporality and Time, Philosophical Literature, Philosophy of Language and Phenomenology. 🧠

University of Roehampton (2012 - 2015) – BA – Philosophy – (1st BA Hons)

• Graduated with a First Class Degree and was awarded the Vice Chancellor's Scholarship for my academic achievements.
• Here, I first encountered Philosophical Logic, studying boolean logic, truth tables and other logical syntax, which proved helpful when learning coding principles. 🧮

• Passionate Liverpool supporter (hailing from the Wirral), attending as many live games as possible! 🔴 ⚽
• Travelling and experiencing new cultures is perhaps my favourite hobby - some of my more interesting destinations include Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, India, Ukraine, Russia, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia. ✈️ 🌎
• Keen golfer, though my game is very much a work in progress.. ⛳ 🐯
• Snapping portraits of friends and capturing natural beauty on my 35mm film cameras. 📷 🎞️
• Healthy living and cooking - I like to work out a few times a week and enjoy trying new dishes and cuisines! 🏃🍴