alex-swann / cv

An outline of my experience and project work

Alexander Swann

Education and Projects | Skills | Previous Work Experience | Interests

Over the past 6 years I have been working as a visual effects compositor. My work has comprised of films including Gravity, Harry Potter, Iron Man, and more for which I have been fortunate enough to be part of a BAFTA and Academy Award winning team. Additionally I have had experience working on commercials for advertising companies which include Nike, Addidas, Compare the Market and Unilever. My role comprised of adding effects to existing images and videos, creating a final product within a budgeted timeframe to meet the creative requirements of the director. It also had to meet the technical requirements of our clients too. Due to that I am already professionally familiar with what is needed when accessing how long it takes to tackle the problem of creating a product from beginning to end and taking its delivery date into account.

More recently I have wanted to expand my horizons regarding learning and problem solving. Furthermore I have been looking for the opportunity to find a more structured career route which has led me to computer programming. Due to this, since February 2016, I have been learning to code and have currently just finished a 16 week course in web development at Makers Academy. Over the course of this time I have learnt how to enhance my problem solving skills, how to better my ability to self teach and updated my research skills. Initially for the first few months I was covering Ruby and since then I have been familiarising myself with Node.js and JavaScript. I've been working in teams of 6 on several open source projects all of which have been approached with Test Driven Development in mind and all of which have been pushed to my GitHub profile. Lastly, I've also gained the reputation of being a sneaky ping pong player.

At present I am looking for a developer role which provides opportunities to learn and grow in a fun and exciting environment.

Skills

Problem solving

Problem solving (or puzzle solving as I like to think of it) has always been something that is a part of me. From working out mazes, to doing sudoku and crossword puzzles, as well as acing IQ tests. It's something I just love and find fun especially when it's not just the same problem over and over again as it keeps you thinking. In my previous job this is something I had to tackle continuously all the time. What I especially love is when you are presented with a scenario when a problem can have multiple angles and solutions. From that, healthy debate can come from a group trying to understand the same problem and something new can be learnt by everyone involved. This is a skill that I have always been developing throughout my life and career, and its something I always want to improve.

Efficient Thinking

If there's one thing that I've always embraced when in a professional work environment is the idea of not doing more than is needed and keeping things simple. To add to that, structuring the process of creating a product or application in a reasonable timeframe with realistic goals to me is an essential work ethic. It not only means you have a positive team but a quality product and a happy client. In my previous role in visual effects I always had the idea of MVP in mind without realising this was a concept generally embraced by tech companies working in an Agile environment. It's a way of thinking that makes sense to me to keep time wastage to a minimum and means you're not making assumptions about what work is needed. The fact my previous employer kept me on for about 3 years I hope proves the fact that I was a useful asset because I always worked with this mindset.

Communication & Team Building

I am a big fan of communication and I always make sure to communicate what I am doing and what ideas I might be able to contribute towards a collaborative project. Since being at Makers we have been taught about Extreme Programming (XP) values of which I'm a big fan. Encouraging those within your group to voice their opinions and concerns really helps to add cohesion to any group. With that in mind it also helps everyone to mentally cement what process has been set out for your project and helps the team to understand where everyone's strengths and weaknesses lie. I wouldn't consider myself a lone wolf coder and always believe communication and working together as a team is crucial to good development and keeps the group's morale high.

Education and Projects

Makers Academy (April 2016 to August 2016)

A 16-week web development bootcamp which puts emphasis on:

• Pair programming
• Test driven development and behaviour driven development
• Agile methodologies
• Object-oriented design
• How to learn and apply knowledge in a pressured environment and a short space of time
• Ruby, Javascript, Rails, Node.js
• Jasmine, Rspec, Capybara, Zombie, Mocha, Sinon

My favourite group projects which showcase the current skills and tech I've picked up:

Project title	Description	Development timeframe	Technologies	Testing
smrt-mirror	A mirror with an inbuilt display using Leap Motion to detect hand gestures to activate and control the device	10 days	Javascript, Node.js, Express.js, Nunjucks, SASS, jQuery/AJAX	Mocha(Chai), WebdriverIO
Battlecodes	A real-time multiplayer game inspired by Codewars where players race each other to solve code challenges	4 days	Javascript, Node.js, Express.js, Socket.io, SASS	Mocha(Chai), Zombie.js, Sinon
JustMeat	A YELP clone focused on searching restaurants that make just meat dishes	4 days	Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Carrierwave, PostgreSQL	Rspec, Capybara
BinaryBnB	An AirBnB clone listing spaces that can be hired by other users for a night	4 days	Javascript, Node.js, Express.js, Thinky(ORM), RethinkDB	Mocha(Chai), Zombie.js
BookMark Manager	An online bookmark manager that enables a user to organise their favourite websites	4 days	Ruby, Sinatra, DataMapper, PostgreSQL	Rspec, Capybara

University of Bristol (Oct 2005 to Jul 2008)

• Archaeology & Anthropology, BA (Hons.) 2:1
  • Additional units in Geology and Archaeological Sciences

Previous Work Experience

• Compositor at Passion Pictures (Feb 2013 to Apr 2016)
• Compositor at Framestore (Jan 2013 to Feb 2013)
• Compositor at Jellyfish Pictures (Oct 2012 to Dec 2012)
• Paint & Roto Artist at Framestore (Jan 2011 to Oct 2012)

Responsibilities included working part of team to deliver shots and sequences from start to finish for directors, film studios and advertising agencies. The work consisted of added visual effects to images and video sequences taking creative and technical decision making into account.

Interests

• Wood Crafting
• Singing & Music
• Philanthropy
• Adventure Sports
• Ping Pong
• Yoga