About me
At the age of 16, I secured my first job as a chef. In this role, I learned the skills of co-ordinated teamwork through effective communication, in a high-pressure environment. It also helped me build the foundations of leadership through roles such as Sous Chef, where I had the opportunity to work with business owners and reputable head chefs, benefiting from their individual mentorships and witnessing a diverse range of leadership styles.
At the age of 20 I was appointed Front of House which helped enhance my people skills. I learned the value of customer service and built upon my existing communication skills. I managed my own team of waiting staff, ran my own services and all the responsibilities which came with them. I developed a lighthearted but professional and effective leadership and communication style.
During this period of employment, I used my spare time to explore my interest in engineering. I built my own boat from marine plywood and fibreglass, details of which are in my LinkedIn profile. This motivated me to pursue with passion, a career in engineering, taking a course in welding, with a focus on ship/barge building. To this date I have aided the construction of over 24 canal barges. Working closely with the Cole family, founders of Colecraft, one of the most prestigious canal barge builders in the UK, I put into practice not only my practical skills, but my attention to detail, and creative problem-solving, all within the strict parameters of strict legal standards and regulations.
I then secured a contract repairing rail carriages at the oldest repair depot in the UK. It is where the Queen's train and now King's train is kept and maintained. I was trained in strict coded (welding) procedures before moving to Canada to work on the construction of the largest naval ship ever built on Canadian soil! I was trained to the highest standards and certified in FCAW, abiding by strict safety regulations, high tolerance welding procedures and GDPR regulations as the role required security clearance.
Please see my LinkedIn profile for my full career history. I have now returned to the UK to pursue a career in software development. My passion for this career change was sparked when I created an online shop on an app called Depop last year (link). The nature of the business was to sell unique fashion items procured from USA, Canada to the UK market, and the store outperformed the vast majority of shops on the app, with a 2/3rds 5 star review to sales ratio. During this period, I not only gained invaluable business insights and commercial awareness, but also drove me to learn to code HTML, CSS and JavaScript in order to create my own website, bots and automation tools.
Depop
I am looking to break into the software development industry as a front-end developer in order to perfect the skills which I have learnt on this course. I would also like to progress into cyber security as a penetration tester. These hard skills complemented by my soft skills, creativity and work ethic, I believe will be a good match for those roles:
My Skills
- HTML
- CSS
- Scss + Sass
- JavaScript
- Python
- SQL + MySQL
- Git + GitHub
- Node.js
- React.js
- Photoshop/GIMP
- Libre/Microsoft office
- MS Teams
- Understanding of strict safety regulations, procedures and legal requirements
and importance of compliance (such as weld)
- Understanding of procedures relating to legal compliance/GDPR
- Ability to co-ordinate teamwork activities in high stress/pressure environments
to achieve a united goal
- Good communicator with stakeholders at all levels
- Ability to organise, plan and prioritise activities in order to meet deadlines
- Customer service focused - find commonalities to build rapport, and place the
needs of the customer first
- A light-hearted and supportive leadership style, engendering good
collaboration and calm focus on activities
- Target achievement oriented and desire to achieve excellence in standards of
work
- High level of attention to detail
- Tenacity in problem solving
My Projects
Please do have a brows of my projects!