Curriculum Vitae - Matthew Dobson B.Sc. (Hons)

AVAILABLE (Updated: 02/07/2009)

I am currently available and actively looking for a new contract role, keeping myself busy doing freelance work.

Looking for a web based, data centric systems developer position using C#, ASP.NET, SQL and associated web technologies.

My main focus is on Financial Services companies in the City of London. I am also considering Digital Media roles.

Experienced .NET Developer specialising in C#, ASP.NET and SQL Server, with 12 years IT experience within the Financial Services sector of London, 10 years developing solutions for blue-chip companies and a lifetime of interest in computing. I have strong business analysis, application architecture and development skills and contribute heavily to the projects I work on to identify and develop requirements. I am familiar with high dependency, high volume and data sensitive systems and trading room environments. My approach to development is very dynamic to demonstrate ideas and achieve rapid results. Experienced working with front and back office teams.

My interpersonal and communication skills are uncharacteristically strong for an individual with my technical abilities. This enables me to engage with the customer, and drive all aspects of the development life cycle; effective requirements analysis and objective recognition; solid design and development techniques with a good feel for intuitive design; pro-active testing and support. Transfer of business objectives into IT deliverables is a core competency I have. I have experience leading small teams of developers and project management.

I pride myself on being a bright, diligent and a competent IT professional who works well in high pressure environments or when faced with complex problems. I am strong mathematically and a logical thinker.

• Confident, well-organised, innovative and proficient analyst developer;
• Excellent interpersonal, presentation and negotiation skills;
• Effective communicator with stakeholders and team members, written and verbal;
• Good awareness of business processes and an understanding of objectives and restraints;
• Natural leader with a proactive, self-motivated and positive personality;
• Adaptive management style to address project interests, objectives and personalities;
• Innovative and creative with good user interface / systems interaction design ability;
• Strong technical knowledge of servers, workstations and networking;
• Quick and enthusiastic to pick up new technologies, ideas and concepts;
• Constantly seeking new skills, knowledge and abilities to maintain professional competence;
• Exceptional problem solving ability from extensive practical experience;
• Enthusiastic self-managing team player with the ability to work in a group or independently;
• Good humoured, approachable and conscientious hard worker.

Personal Responsibilities:

• Business Analysis – Engage with internal teams to analyse business process and plan implementation;
• System Architecture – Work with the infrastructure project team to design the Server Consolidation database;
• Data Mining – Obtain and manipulate data from multiple data sources across the bank;
• Strategy – Coordinate cross work-stream processes based on common interests, data availability and strategy;
• Data Modelling – Build the central SQL 2005 database to support project activities and feed business systems;
• Rapid Development – Use agile principals to provide an evolutionary development model for rapid results;
• Scripting – Build network scripts to identify servers, and scan hardware, software, configuration to SQL;
• Automation – Automate repetitive tasks to enable rapid solution and document generation;
• Server/Service Support – Implement, manage and support IIS/SQL services to facilitate work-stream activities;
• Legacy Systems - adopt existing Business Intelligence and Information systems and further develop / refactor.

Personal Achievements:

• Received high praise for enabling the project to achieve previously unrealistic targets and deliverables;
• Successfully handed over the system to the banks Business Information team.

Personal Responsibilities:

• Business Analysis – Work with business and infrastructure architects to identify data, process and automation;
• Technical Lead – Provided desktop solutions alongside three developers working on applications and servers;
• Development – Design and develop the central project database using a SQL backend and intranet frontend;
• Automation – Automate Audit to Deployment: PC discovery; hardware, software and profile scanning; PC build scripts leveraging BDD; data migration; application package deployment through SMS; user profile creation;
• KPI Reporting – Implement feature rich reporting module for ad hoc queries, KPI and executive reporting;
• Server/Service Support – Implement, manage and support IIS/SQL services to facilitate project activities;
• VBA Migration Coordination – Technical lead for VBA migration team. Automate the identification of compatibility issues to 2003. Expert support for VBA conversion issues to front/back office developers.

Personal Achievements:

• Created a very slick set of tools which automated 90% of the migration process with impressive results;
• Maintained high-volume database system configuration throughout the course of the programme.

Personal Responsibilities:

• Process Analysis, Design and Implementation of systems to support project activities: Deployment Database, Audit, Discovery, Packaging, Helpdesk, Discussion Board, Asset Register, Checklist System;
• Team Management – Hands-on management of the Application Discovery team;
• VBA Migration Coordination – Identification, migration and support of Office files and Outlook forms. Provide support for front office developers with complex technical solutions;

Personal Responsibilities:

• Lead generation and customer care: sales, client relations, requirements analysis and proposals;
• Server configuration, hosting and support (IIS, SQL, Email, DNS, Domains);
• Design and development of data centric web based systems including bespoke e-commerce systems.

Achievements:

Designed and developed: bespoke HR extranet system for Old Mutual plc; extranet system for employee screening agency; service desk intranet system for Skandia; ecommerce system for a warehouse business; various content managed and data driven websites for small businesses.

Personal Responsibilities:

• Provide Trading room support for development, market data systems, VBA, databases and applications;
• Primary contact within the central technical services, developing bespoke and ad hoc systems:

• Service Desk System (Incident Management, Requests, Purchasing, SLA, Asset Management). 300 technicians / 3000 users internationally.
• Business Continuity Planning Intranet. 250 administrators, 3000 employee action plans. This system received high praises from executive management and audit.
• Ad hoc development projects; corporate relocation database; performance indicator reporting, etc.

• Provide DBA support for the groups major international finance systems processing the operating finances including optimisation, troubleshooting, stored procedure development and general maintenance;
• Multi-discipline Technical Project Manager: including desktops, networks, servers, telecoms, market data, software, databases and development also facilities and building management;
• Business Continuity Manager: business analysis, technical design, implementation team management, programme budget, coordinate technical and business user testing activities, reporting and presentations.

• • Design and develop helpdesk, disaster recovery and ad-hoc systems;
• Manage support team of 6; Provide 2^nd & 3^rd line trading floor workstation and server support;
• Disaster Recovery Planning, Implementation & Testing; Y2K hardware / software upgrade & replacement;
• Desktop builds; Anti-Virus; NetWare; MSMail; Exchange; servers; remote access; backup tools.

• 2^nd line hardware and software support; NT4 domain and NetWare administration;
• Disaster recovery planning, implementation and testing; NT4 desktop rollout; NetWare 4.11 migration.

• 1^st and 2^nd line hardware and software support;
• Cabling, network and NetWare server maintenance; Network infrastructure schematics documentation.

In my spare time run a small web development business providing ecommerce and internet solutions. I also enjoy digital photography, cycling, spending time with my two children, and socialising with friends and colleagues.