James Gascoigne - Taylor

Software Engineer

I wrote my first invoicing program in qBasic at the age of 13
It couldn't save and was never used
but my passion for software engineering grew from there.

About Me

  • Name: James Gascoigne - Taylor
  • Date of birth: 01 May 1982
  • Address: Farm 178, Diep Rivier, George
  • Nationality: South African
  • Phone: (+27) 81 344 2904
  • Email: james@flippakitten.com

Objective

To build the most useful software that can deliver value to as many people as possible. Great software should make one's life easier and as technology advances and systems become extremely scalable we can fill gaps in the market that was simply not possible in the past. My aim is to be part of the best teams in the world to contribute to building that level of distributed software.

What I Do ?

Mainly using Ruby on Rails, I am part of teams that build large scale distributed software as a service. The technology stack differs from project to project. My skill set spans front and back end as well as advanced logging and data analytics using tools such as Elasticsearch. I am not limited to Ruby as I have experience with PHP and Python and have built systems and tools using both these languages. I also like to invent software services from the ground up in my spare time, this helps me hone my skills outside of normal office hours. Some of my other skills outside of working hours is flyer design

  • Frontend
  • Backend
  • Agile
  • Data Wrangling
  • Centralized Logging
  • Abuse Detection and Prevention

Resume

Experience

  • 2018 - present

    Software Engineer II

    GoDaddy, Arizona, USA (Remote)

    Working on various products within the GoDaddy infrastructure that delivers value for the customers of our customers. I work with various technologies and on different enterprise grade infrastructures that include CICD pipelines, Kubernete's clusters Kafka Streams, NoSql Databases, document stores, Relational Databases. The primary languages are Ruby and Javascript.

  • 2014 - present

    Founder / Developer

    Wildsedge, Wilderness, South Africa

    Designed and developer a free events portal for the Garden Route area. It's primary function is to hone my developers skills and I practice the entire Agile methodology in the development process. There is currently a major rebranding and focus shift which will see Wildsedge become something bigger and better.

  • 2016 - 2018

    Software Engineer I

    GoDaddy, Arizona, USA (Remote)

    Working on the Email Marketing product with a focus on email delivery and compliance. My duties included analyzing data from Kibana and then building systems that would help with the detection and prevention of abuse scenarios.

  • 2014 - 2016

    Delivery and Compliance, Community Therapist (Technical Support)

    GoDaddy, Arizona, USA (Remote)

    After Mad Mimi was aquired by GoDaddy, I was doing the same position as before until a promotion to Delivery and Compliance. Delivery and Compliance involves investigating potential abuse by users and maintaining our server's IP reputation. I also created a PHP plugin to communicate with the Frontapp API (shared inbox solution) that eases the workflow of our support team and makes some repetitive tasks quicker.

  • 2012 - 2014

    Community Therapist (Technical Support)

    Mad Mimi LLC, Brooklyn, New York (Remote)

    We were a team of people that would handle all email and chat technical and marketing support for the email marketing platform Mad Mimi. I would advise on opt-in, list collection, layouts and generally helping make peoples email marketing efforts mor successful. Part of my duties included abuse monitoring and making decisions based on the users history and industry standards as to whether we could continue sending for them.

  • 2011 - 2012

    Web Developer

    Rightbrain Technologies, Knysna, South Africa

    This was much the same as duties as Sourceline however, it was more involved and I would work a lot more on web applications, as well as websites

  • 2008 - 2011

    Junior Web Developer

    Sourceline, Cape Town, South Africa

    Cutting up PSD files and creating HTML templates for custom websites. I would integrate them into an in-house CMS called Fibre which was built in PHP. There was also some database design which was mostly handled by the CMS but did require some knowledge. Also had the opportunity to work on the front end of a Web application that would allow users to remotely control industrial air conditioning units.

  • 2006 - 2008

    Technical Consultant

    World of Windows, Cape Town, South Africa

    Maintain IT infrastructure, email systems and server administration for Cape Town and Johannesburg offices. Also worked on setting up industry specific software (Window Maker) which was used to estimate costs, inventory and to give production floor specifications.

  • 2005 - 2006

    Trainee Estimator

    World of Windows, Cape Town, South Africa

    Cost estimation for window and door in large developments such as shopping centers, business parks and housing

  • 2003-2005

    Technical Sales Consultant

    Mimic Crafts, Cape Town, South Africa

    Sales consultant for industrial electical and electronic components such as Pilot Lights, Factory Mimic's, PLC's

Education

  • 2018

    Certificate of Completion

    Building Applications with React and Flux, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    Build a frontend application using React Flux

  • 2018

    Certificate of Completion

    Getting Started with Kubernetes, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    Configure and setup a Kubernetes enviroment locally and on Gcloud/AWS and containerize and application

  • 2018

    Certificate of Completion

    Docker getting started, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    More detail on Docker and containerization

  • 2017

    Certificate of Completion

    Testing Ruby Applications with RSpec, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    How to write specs using RSpec correctly!

  • 2017

    Certificate of Completion

    Centralized Logging with the Elastic Stack - getting started, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    How to setup an ELK stack and use centralized logging and Kibana

  • 2017

    Certificate of Completion

    Cassandra for Developers, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    How Cassandra works and the basics of denormalizing data in Cassandra

  • 2017

    Certificate of Completion

    Docker and Containers - The Big Picture, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    Understanding how Docker works and how to use containers for web applications

  • 2017

    Certificate of Completion

    Meet Sinatra, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    Learn the basics of a light weight web application platform

  • 2017

    Certificate of Completion

    Applying Real-Time processing using Apache Storm, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    Use Apache Storm and it's multi-lang API to do Machine Learning sentiment analysis on a Twitter stream using Python

  • 2017

    Certificate of Completion

    Building and Enterprise Grade Distributed Online, Analytics Platform, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    Building an analytics platform using Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Java and Kafka

  • 2017

    Certificate of Completion

    Ruby Fundamentals, Pluralsight, (on the job training)

    The basics of the Ruby language

  • 2002- 2003

    National Certificate

    N2 Industrial Electronics, Western Province Technical College

    I have done 3 of the 4 N3 subjects, however I swapped Radio and Television theory for C Programming

Skills

Ruby on Rails

PHP

Python

Bootstrap

Javascript

jQuery

Agile

React

MySql

Cassandra

Elasticsearch

Kibana

Docker

Kubernetes