From high-traffic websites to SaaS platforms, I have been making things for the web for more than 20 years. A proud 1x engineer, I prefer simple, pragmatic solutions over jumping on the latest trends.
Outside of tech, you'll find me spending most of my free time outdoors trail running and mountain biking, as well as perfecting my wood-fired pizza recipe.
Taking a break to spend more time with the family, get outdoors, and dive deep into accessibility on the web.
Technical Lead for Rex Websites & Rex Reach.
Brought in to assist the company founder to devise and implement better development processes, help with strategic planning, and assist with technically-challenging implementations. Generally assist this small company provide an enterprise service to it's enterprise customers.
Improve the development and release cycle by adopting aspects of Agile methodology and introducing better software specification procedures. Firm up support processes to reduce overheads to development team and enable more time for product development.
Subject-matter experience with Amazon Web Services led me to helm the company's first cloud-based implementation for a large Sydney university.
Databee's team works in a 100% remote capacity, distributed across four states in Australia. Guided the creation of a company culture that makes ‘remote' work, including the implementation of knowledge-sharing and internal documentation using Atlassian Confluence.
The company's core competency and product offering is with FileMaker®, however one of their main products includes a sizeable web component built with PHP. I provided hands-on development and high-level consultancy to modernise the codebase (within certain constraints imposed by the underlying FileMaker® core) for improved performance and maintainability.
After spending 18 months as the Technical Director I made the sideways transition to be much more hands-on with the development of our product suite, and also drive forward my professional training as a FileMaker® developer. Mentoring junior developers and taking the lead on new product development using software development best-practice.
Stabilised the incumbent legacy platform - built to spec by a third-party and maintained by an offshore development team in the Philippines. Reimagining the platform, breaking apart the single monolithic application into smaller independent services, primarily built on the popular Laravel framework. Pushed development towards using the latest technologies, standards and practices.
Migrated away from a costly dedicated server stack to a cloud-first policy, moving all infrastructure to across to Amazon Web Services with a 'Lean DevOps' approach to reduce the need for dedicated DevOps staff.
Worked closely with the founders and board members to align the technical roadmap for the platform with the short, medium and longterm objectives of the business. Built up the onshore technical team, managing and mentoring developers on two continents.
Implemented agile methodologies (Scrum), educating staff and stakeholders in the benefits and processes involved. Heavily involved in scoping and maintaining the development backlog. Introduced security best-practices and a knowledge-sharing culture within the development team and the wider company.
Involved with the appraisal of third party services to integrate into the business ecosystem - in particular oversaw the migration of the incumbent Netsuite service over to the Zuora subscription management platform.
With a stable, extensible platform and a solid development/release cycle in place, innovation became an important metric of success. Released a cross-platform (iOS and Android) mobile app, and implemented industry firsts in communication and third-party integration tools that added value to both our customers and our industry intelligence. Heavily involved in the preparation of applications for R&D tax incentives, working with both our R&D tax advisors (PwC) and government departments.
Hands-on development, contributing to the development and review of all aspects of the code-base.
On arriving at Fastrack I quickly architected and built-out a solution to deliver on one of the agency's outstanding commitments. This formed the basis of a complete bespoke digital solution for the agency, catering to the specific needs of hotel and travel providers.
Completely reimagined the agency's technical offering - utilising a cloud-first approach with Amazon Web Services and DigitalOcean - and negotiated strategic partnerships with a range of third-party service providers.
Built up the development team, increasing the agency's technical capacity and enabling them to be able to service larger, higher profile and more complex contracts.
Introduced a delivery pipeline into the studio, streamlining the flow of work through the agency and optimising communication between departments.
Heavily involved with tenders, dealing with executive teams at a range of national and international hotel chains and putting together highly successful proposals.
Senior developer across two agile teams. Mentoring junior developers. Dealing with technical teams at national logistics carriers to enable integration into the Temando system. Point of contact for visiting developers from the company's French investor (Neopost).
Complete end-to-end development, testing and delivery of a new learning management system for a state-wide training body, including liaising with stakeholders at all levels throughout the duration of the build.
Working side-by-side with the founder and the rest of the management team, my role at MacBackpackers touched every corner of the company's digital footprint, and beyond. This variety drew on every part of my experience and skillset including technical, creative, business development, customer service and people management.
Responsible for the technical strategy, from maintaining IT infrastructure to scoping and building critical online systems. Developed a fully integrated end-to-end booking management system for the coach tours and backpacker hostels.
Conceptualised and designed print and marketing collateral including seasonal brochures to be distributed worldwide.
Built a successful network of resellers, with agents as far away as Australia and Canada, and represented the company at travel industry expos and sponsored events across the UK.
Developed and marketed a member benefits platform involving local tourist attractions, which was ultimately co-opted by the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo to offer to it's 5,000+ international visiting performers and support staff, increasing the company's brand visibility at no additional cost.
Spent a six month sabbatical managing one of the chain's backpacker hostels to assist in research for the bespoke booking and management system, as well as improve the operational efficiency and guest ratings of the property.
Spent 12 months of my tenure working remotely from New Zealand and Australia.
In the days before iPhones, when Flash was still king, I was responsible for building rich media applications using Flex, ActionScript and PHP back-ends as part of a small special-projects team.
Tasked with researching new online technologies and building innovative and interactive applications for an international client list, as well as the design, build and maintenance of website products.
My role involved national and international travel to present to stakeholders onsite, as well as providing technical input to the agency's creative pitches.
In a joint venture with a public relations company, I was responsible for all creative projects running through the agency, maintaining delivery schedules and overseeing all the creative output.
Sought additional revenue streams and launched a digital printing service in collaboration with Xerox.
Proactively sought marketing and brand opportunities for incumbent PR clients and launched a number of award-winning marketing campaigns for national organisations.
I founded studio ST with my roommate (also an architecture graduate) whilst studying at the University of Sheffield for my Masters of Architecture. Originally providing 3D/CGI architectural visualisations for unbuilt projects, on graduating I parted ways with my co-founder (who went off to pursue his career in architecture) and broadened the offering to include graphic and web design services, as well as periodic architectural CAD services.
Servicing a wide range of SMEs - as well as architecture practices and property developers - across Sheffield, I grew a team of full-time designers and the occasional college intern.
As part of my professional education as an architect I spent a year working in architectural practice. Worked on a wide variety of projects, dealing directly with clients, local authorities, conservation bodies and building contractors.
My biggest achievement was single-handedly taking a project from concept, through design, planning approval, and detailed design, and onto completion on-site. Utilising a variety of ‘green' technologies never before used in the UK, the project was recognised with a number of local and national civic awards.
You can reach me on hello[at]philstephens.com, or can connect with me on LinkedIn.