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Hello, I'm
Douglas McKechie

Lead Software Engineer & DEV Team Leader

About

Hello world :)

I'm a Lead Software Engineer and DEV Team Leader within the IT industry. I have over 17 years experience using web, database, and mobile technologies to deliver solutions for a variety of clients.

I have worked for companies both large and small. Currently I am employed by a dynamic and growing company operating in the electricity and telco industries.

My hobbies and interests include computer gaming, Lego, model making, electronics, photography, chess, music, playing the bass guitar, modular synthesis, stamps and coins, plus many more.

For many years I have lived and worked in the Wellington region of New Zealand.

Thank you for visiting.

Skills

Software Development skills

Client-facing developer with strong CMS and web application development skills. Focused on back-end PHP, database, and API development - though I have full-stack experience.

PHP development

15 years

HTML

17 years

Database development

17 years

JavaScript, jQuery

Many, many years

Team Leadership

3 years

Mobile Development

2 years

Specialities

  • Coding the functionality and business logic of websites / web applications
  • CMS development, with SilverStripe and Wordpress in particular
  • Object Orientated PHP programming
  • Database design and development
  • API design and development
  • JavaScript, jQuery, HTML canvas

Experience

Over 17 Years Experience!

In my current role I am Lead Software Engineer and also Dev Team Leader so about a third of my time these days is doing leadership focused tasks such as improving team standards and systems, running agile meetings, peer reviews, mentoring, recruitment, PDPs and working closely with other team leads and senior management to ensure the Dev team members can complete their tasks successfully.

I have always been a client-facing developer and enjoy meeting with clients to learn about what they do and discuss possibilities. I am experienced in conducting end-user training.

During my career I have had the opportunity to work on a number of large, complex, and "high visibility" projects which have been completed with great success.

Scroll down for an overview of my work history.

Monster Group

Lead Software Engineer

Apr 2019 - present
In this role I am both Lead Software Engineer and Development Team Leader. As such I do a mixture of tasks including PHP and Database development, setting of team standards, peer reviews, mentoring, project planning, system design, recruitment, PDPs, and working very closely with other team leads and senior management.
Chrometoaster

Senior Developer

Jun 2018 - Apr 2019
Backend SilverStripe 3 and 4 developer for an award winning design agency. I worked very closely with clients, our designers, frontend developers and project managers. Most of my time here was working on the Smart Investor & Vaping Facts websites.
Catalyst IT

SilverStripe Developer

Dec 2015 - Jun 2018
Primarily a backend developer creating websites for various clients in SilverStripe 3.x using the Common Web Platform (CWP) and Catalyst Cloud, for example the Taranaki Regional Council website. I did quite a bit of JavaScript and jQuery, HTML, CSS, and API integrations. I worked very closely with colleagues and clients, including going on a number of site visits which I enjoyed.
Trade Me

Developer

Oct 2014 - Nov 2015
Trade Me purchased the previous company I worked for. Most of my time here was working on some large web-app projects for the public sector involving microservices, REST, OAuth2, MVC, reporting, and complex data migrations. More cross-platform mobile app development using Xamarin for a well known NZ brand.
Senior Developer

Face Ltd

Feb 2012 - Oct 2014
Completed a native smartphone application for a well known NZ brand and loyalty scheme using Xamarin studio and C#. I built a large project from scratch using the Codeigniter MVC framework including all the database design and development, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript programming, and a significant data migration.
P.E.I.

IT Developer

May 2010 - Jan 2012
For the Practical Education Institute in Taranaki, I mainly created web applications using PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Did some web-app-for-mobile development using jQueryMobile and started getting in to HTML5 and CSS3 doing some interesting things with canvas.
Contact Energy

Business Intelligence

Aug 2007 - Jun 2009
In this role I used Oracle Warehouse Builder to extract, transform and load (ETL) data from various source systems in to the data warehouse and then on to the end user layer. Also did a lot of reporting using BI Publisher and web app development using Oracle APEX.
NZ Racing Board

Software Developer

May 2004 - Jul 2007
Development and maintenance of a large corporate web-app intranet using Perl, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript running on Oracle databases. Experience with after-hours oncall support.

Education

Constantly learning

As well as my formal qualifications, I have kept learning all these years about many aspects of web development and IT either by attending formal training, or by reading tutorials and completing online courses via Udemy, Tuts+ etc.

After completing a number of leadership focused courses in 2021, my current learning goals are more technical focused. Currently I have Vue.js and Laravel development Udemy courses purchased and ready to go. I also plan to update my Data Warehousing / BI knowledge this year.

In December 2021 I purchased a whole Humble Bundle of IT books on various subjects from Raspberry Pis, Arduino, PHP, JS, to Machine Learning and more. I intend to read these over the coming months as well.

I also believe that communication and interpersonal skills are important so I was a Toastmaster for more than 3 years. I served on the committee as both VP of Public Relations and also VP of Membership. After taking a break in 2021 I am considering re-joining in 2022.

Formal Qualifications

I completed 2 diplomas making for a total of 4 years of study. After completing high school I knew I wanted to work with computers but was not sure in what areas, so the first course I did covered a broad spectrum of topics with the second being focused specifically on software development.

Wellington Institute of Technology

Diploma in Software Engineering

2002 - 2003
This course was web, database, programming and electronics focused. I created a tile map game engine and game for my second year project. I was top student, or there abouts and appeared in the prospectus for the following year.
Waiariki Institute of Technologyy

Diploma in Business Computing

2000 - 2001
A broad IT course with a taste of everything in the first year. In my second year I focused on web development, multimedia, programming, and databases. I graduated with distinction.

Contact

Let's Keep In Touch

I am open to considering new opportunities. If you would like to get in touch then please do so via one of the following channels. LinkedIn is my preferred method of contact.

Email
contact@douglasmckechie.geek.nz
Douglas McKechie
PO Box 25613
Wellington 6140

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