Hi, I'm Andy

I am a software engineer with over 35 years experience of designing, developing and delivering software applications.

Over the years I have worked in many industries, namely manufacturing, healthcare and hospitality. I have worked as a permanent employee and also as a fixed-term contractor. I am currently working as a projects software engineer for a company in Stevenage, UK.

Since 2010, I have gained experience in developing applications for the cloud using the php stack (php, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery, VueJS, CodeIgniter and the mySQL database). This has allowed me to sharpen my skills in a specific set of technologies in order to produce higher quality apps and therefore provide a better service to my clients. Over the years I have built, or contributed to:

• a customer based activity system, complete with automation,
• a case management system for a number of ombudsmen,
• a guest house room reseveration system,
• several I.T. helpdesk applications,
• a CRM system complete with sales pipeline and marketing campaign scheduling,
• an employee leave request system,
• a charity client management system,
• an eCommerce system,
• and an addition to a manufacturing process planning system.

I am familiar with every aspect of the software development lifecycle and now use the Agile / DevOps process for designing, building, delivering and supporting high quality software applications. In addition, I apply "clean code" techniques to ensure the code is efficient and also to assist other developers. I love making software and training people to help them and their organisations reach their goals. With well-defined and well-designed software applications, together with top class training, I am convinced any organisation can overcome any obstacle.

A self-styled 'coding monkey', I love everything connected to software development and as such I am always on the lookout for the next thing to learn. I recently completed a course in VueJS and am now learning .NET MAUI (the replacement for Xamarin - mobile app development in C#) .

My favourite development tool? It's got to be JQuery! It's just so flexible and makes JS functionality so much easier to develop and incorporate into the front-end of web-applications.

And my least? CSS, for sure.

Outside of work I am a keen amateur photographer and have a page on Viewbug to showcase my efforts. My main camera is the Canon EOS 2000D but I also have a Praktika Film SLR (bought as a birthday present when I was 16), which I still use for black and white images and motion effects.

My photography portfolio can be accessed here.

Always one to seek new challenges, I am trying to learn Italian while serving clients. In September 2019, shortly after passing my 30 year career anniversary, someone described me as "a veteran of the software industry" - I've yet to get over it!

Andy Wood, Software Engineer