Luke Watts
I am a full-stack developer with 9 years experience in product and agency teams.
I enjoy learning new tools and technologies. This could be part of a business
critical project or exploratory research.
The most enjoyable projects to work on are those where I can take part from
beginning to end. The starting point could be a loose collection of requirements
or quick sketch. Working collaboratively to create something useful,
that brings value to people.
Tools & Technologies
Ways of Working – Agile, scrum, mentoring, coaching, design thinking, TDD & RDD
Languages – Typescript, Javascript, PHP, Python, Ruby
Frameworks – Node.js, Express, Koa, Vue, Laravel, Slim, Kirby, PHPUnit, Mocha, Ava, Jest & tap
Datastores – PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis & BigQuery
Tooling – Git, webpack & zsh
Operations – Kubernetes, Docker, EC2, Openshift, Azure, Docker & Vagrant
Current Employment
Software Team Lead, Snyk Ltd
September 2019 – Present
Software security tool for developers, helping companies use open source software and stay secure.
- Providing team members with regular feedback, mentoring, and coaching.
- Hiring the right people to support the team's growth.
- Organizing and facilitating quarterly team planning sessions for our distributed team.
- Working with your team’s product manager to plan and achieve goals to ensure the team communicates proactively and sets realistic expectations with their stakeholders.
- Balance feature delivery with ongoing technical investment.
Highlights
- Introduced an experiments based methodology for the team which offered us the opportunity to explore and enhance the engagement and adoption of our features.
- Leading planning sessions as part of the annual all-hands meeting and presenting the results back to a 200 strong audience.
Developer, Snyk Ltd
October 2017 – September 2019
- Designing features with the product team based on user needs and outlining their implementation.
- Deliver a SaaS application incrementally in a full CI/CD workflow.
- Working as part of a distributed team, communicating clearly and proactively.
Highlights
- Introducing Vue to begin the migration from a server rendered application to one with more client side components to support more interactive user experiences.
- Migrated the e2e test suite from Nightwatch to Cypress making it easier for developers to run and author additional tests locally.
Previous Experience
Technical Lead, Bravo Charlie Mike Hotel
January 2015 – October 2017
Design and branding agency working internationally to deliver projects for clients across a wide variety of sectors.
- Lead delivery of all digital projects within the company. This covers each step of a typical project life‑cycle and managing client relationships.
- Project scoping and management with clients to ensure their systems are delivered on time.
- Accompany the company directors to new business pitches, providing bid‑winning technical ideas.
- Work closely with designers to implement prototypes which demonstrate how their visuals can be achieved across devices.
- Provide documentation and training during the project completion process.
- Design and implement feedback cycles with client’s to enable sprint based approach on larger projects.
Alongside the demands of client work I have also:
- Built bespoke invoice software for the company and introduced specialist accounting software to automate most of the financial tasks.
- Maintained the studio's suite of machines (primarily OSX)
- Introduced offsite backup procedures to ensure ultimate resilience for the company's data.
Highlights
- Working with the estates team at Kings Cross to put together a performance piece with fountains, powered by GIF imagery, to accompany a string quartet at Kings Cross Granary Square. As part of the designjunction event, it attracted over 25,000 visitors over the weekend.
- Introducing the team to new methodologies and techniques, such as weekly sprints, mobile first and responsive design patterns.
Director, LA Code & Design Ltd
December 2012 – 2014
Worked as full stack web developer on a contract basis with a number of London based design firms.
- Working alongside designers from the earliest stages of prototyping and scoping out projects through to completion, troubleshooting and handover.
- Providing in-office training as part of the hand-over with the client teams.
Highlights
- Working alongside multiple teams across different studios. This offered me the chance to experience different working methodologies.
- Being able to have the flexibility to attend industry events in the UK and abroad.
Developer, Signal Noise
September 2010 – November 2011
As the first hire at this data design agency, I worked directly with the design directors in building out web projects and physical prototypes.
Sessional Lecturer, University for the Arts London & University for the Creative Arts
September 2010 – June 2012
I focused on introducing web technologies as a medium for editorial output, across a few undergraduate and postgraduate level courses. The short course was split between introductory sessions and workshopping on a one to one level with individual students.
Developer, Inventive & Co
Summer 2010
Worked alongside a senior developer to design and build out a bespoke CMS for a production studio. Notably this system handled video uploads and transcoding of video formats for playback a custom Flash media player.
Interests
Away from the computer, I’m a keen cyclist and can often be found meandering around the Dutch polders looking for a hill to roll down. I enjoy longer endurance rides, the longest one to date being ~250km.
I’m also in the early stages of learning Dutch, maar het is langzaam proces.
Education
University for the Creative Arts
September 2007 – June 2010
BA Hons - Graphic Design New Media 2:1