Dominic Burford BSc (Hons)
Email:
dominic@dominicburford.co.uk
Web site:
www.dominicburford.co.uk
Burton Latimer, Kettering United Kingdom
Profile
I am a professional software engineer , technical architect and award winning technical author with over twenty years experience working with leading-edge,
innovative and emerging technologies. A strong focus on the design and development of web and mobile
applications with particular emphasis on integration with Azure cloud services.
I have extensive experience using ASP.NET Core, Web API, SQL Server, Xamarin, Azure and other Microsoft technologies.
A strong understanding of software architecture, Domain-Driven Design and SOLID design principles. I am passionate about building secure, scalable,
well architected and designed software systems. I design and build innovative and elegant applications. I write clean code and keep up to date
with new technologies and practices.
I am enthusiastic about Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Application Lifecycle Management having configured such environments using
CruiseControl.NET, Team Foundation Services, TeamCity and Azure DevOps. I enjoy working in Agile and Test Driven Development (TDD) environments.
I am highly proficient in using Azure to build applications and have extensive experience using Service Bus, Cognitive Search, Blob and SQL Storage,
WebJobs and Functions, Active Directory, ADB2C, Notification Hub and Application Insights.
I am a regular contributor / author on CodeProject. CodeProject is a community of software developers and designers to share and exchange ideas and solutions.
See my publications listed on my Links page.
I am certified in PRINCE2, ITIL and Software Testing.
Skills
- Visual Studio using C# the .NET Framework inc. .NET Core
- Azure cloud services inc. Service Bus, Queues, Functions, WebJobs, Identity Provision, Application Insights and SQL storage, Cognitive Search
- Service-Oriented-Architecture with RESTful Web Services and ASP.NET Web API
- SQL Server / Transact SQL
- Integrating .NET and Javascript applications with RESTful services
- Proven experience of working with Continuous Integration (CI), Agile and Test Driven Development environments
- Web development with JavaScript / JQuery, HTML, CSS, ASP.NET
- Mobile development with Xamarin
- Strong understanding of Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, SOLID design principles and Design Patterns inc. MVC, MVVM, architecture / enterprise patterns and Gang of Four
Achievements
Career History
September 2020 - present Technical Architect.
Gold-Vision, West Haddon, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
I work as a senior member of the Technical Development team on the award winning product Gold-Vision CRM.
This is a highly feature rich, flexible and completely customisable web application.
June 2016 - August 2020 Technical Architect.
Grosvenor Contracts, Kettering, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
- I work within a team developing numerous web and mobile applications for the Fleet Management sector supporting and enhancing internal and customer
facing services and applications.
- Introduced DevOps, unit testing and continuous-integration / continuous delivery using Team Foundation Server and Azure DevOps. Created a pipeline to allow
applications and services to be deployed into staging and production environments throughout the business whilst significantly improving their quality.
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Designed and developed apps for the Android and Apple platforms using Xamarin.
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I architected the core business services that supported the web and mobile applications. These were implemented using ASP.NET Web API using a micro-services
architectural approach. These formed the basis for many other applications and services used throughout the business. I migrated these
services to the Azure cloud platform which led to significant performance and efficiency gains from the vastly superior infrastructure.
-
Introduced and implemented an Azure Service Bus
architecture to allow for highly responsive, resilient and scalable services. All messages on the Azure Service Bus
were processed by an Azure Function, leading to high availability. I architected, designed and implemented this entire
process.
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I have made many contributions to the processes and practices employed by the development team which have led to increases in efficiency and quality.
These have ultimately added significant value to the business.
November 2014 - June 2016 Senior Software Developer.
Marval, Kettering, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
- I was part of the software development team where I made significant contributions to their award winning product MSM (Marval Service Management). This is a fully integrated, enterprise web application in the Service Management domain.
I was involved in the analysis, design and coding of new features and functionality in a loosely coupled and asynchronous manner, as well as re-factoring and re-architecting parts of the application in line with changing business and infrastructure
requirements.
- The application suite was implemented using ASP.NET / C# and made extensive use of Javascript and AJAX to ensure the web forms responded in a timely manner. The development environment consisted of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS).
The application has a global customer base so making changes without impacting existing customers was technically very challenging.
January 2014 - November 2014 Software Developer.
Equita Ltd (part of the Capita group), Northampton, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
- Introduced continuous integration using CruiseControl.NET to allow automatic building and deployment of software across the business. This included the ability to build, package and sign an Android application.
All build scripts were written using Nant (my Android build script is published on Github
- Developed Nant build scripts for all applications including Android and Web Service based solutions.
- Installed and configured a defect tracking system called BugTracker.NET and integrated this with SVN to allow full traceability between code being checked in and the defect it fixes. It is published on Github
- Developed applications that integrated with the back-office debt recovery system. This required knowledge of Web Services, WCF, XML and SQL Server utilising .NET / C# / MVC
- Worked on a project that allowed civil enforcement officers to receive notifications from and send updates to their Android tablet devices. This included working on a multi-threaded Android application developed using Xamarin.Android / MonoDroid plug-in for Visual Studio implemented using MVC / C#
- Responsible for architecting the replacement to their existing legacy system. This was an SOA enterprise system using the .NET Framework and made extensive use of WCF services. All services had corresponding unit tests that exercised the functionality during the build process.
May 2011 - December 2013 Senior Digital Developer.
CDS Global, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
- Production of technical documentation including class and interaction diagrams, distilled from functional requirements documentation
- Involved in the design and development of their e-commerce web sites inc. online shopping cart / basket, secure online payment inc. PayPal integration and integration of analytics and e-commerce tracking tags inc. Google analytics.
- Part of the development team that implemented a fully functional web store for purchasing magazine subscriptions online. Written using DotNetNuke and utilising WCF for communication with the backend purchasing system. Media queries allowed for optimum display on mobile devices.
- Mobile web application development using .NET and 51Degrees.mobi mobile platform
- Developed solutions using ASP.Net / .Net Framework (VB.Net) including web pages, web services and windows services in collaboration with SQL Server. Also utilised JQuery, Javascript, LINQ, XML and JSON.
- Development environment consisted of continuous build and integration (Nant and CruiseControl.Net), unit testing (Nunit), test coverage (Ncover) and version control (SVN) in an Agile environment.
April 2007 - April 2011 Senior Web Developer.
East Northamptonshire Council, Thrapston, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
- Technical responsibility for two local government web sites and Intranets. Involved in all bespoke development (inc. integrating embedded maps into web pages) and
integration of the web sites with back office systems (purchasing system, Revenues and Benefits system, Customer Relationship Management system)
- Hands on development of all web sites, Intranets and online systems
- Proactively identified integration and collaboration opportunities and designed and implemented appropriate solutions utilising Sharepoint,
ASP.Net / .Net Framework (C#) and XML
March 2005 - April 2007 Senior Software Engineer / Project Manager - Third Party Developer Program.
Pegasus Software Ltd, Kettering, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
- Full technical responsibility and ownership of the integration tools used by the Third Party Developers
- Production of high quality technical documentation using a commercial HTML help authoring tool
- Project Management duties responsible for driving software projects to completion
- Introduced new processes and procedures within the business to support the infrastructure required by this position
December 2000 - February 2005 Software Engineer.
Pegasus Software Ltd, Kettering, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
- Involved in the full software lifecycle including requirements analysis, software modeling, test plan documentation and implementation
- Identified and investigated new tools and technologies
- Involved in the development of their key products Opera II, Operations II and Payroll
March 1999 - November 2000 Analyst Programmer and Project Leader.
System Corporation plc, Nottingham, United Kingdom
- Substantial input in technical direction at project and company level and which formed the basis for many key initiatives and strategies
- Proactively introduced the Rational Unified Process as the process for software development
- Responsible for the lifecycle of customer projects from requirements analysis through to deployment
- Technical and Project Leader
July 1998 - January 1999 (Liquidated January 1999) Analyst Programmer.
Delta Business Computing, Derby, United Kingdom
- Hands-on training to customers on the use of the Crystal Accounts Developer Toolkit
- Developed and maintained custom software applications
- Second line technical support
Qualifications
- BSc (Hons) Computer Studies, Nottingham Trent University (1994 - 1998)
- City and Guilds 4400 levels I and II Business Studies and Information Technology, Horizons Training, Lincoln (1993 - 1994)
- 3 'A' levels, North Lincolnshire College, Lincoln, (1986 - 1988)
- 7 'O' levels at grade C or above (including Maths, English , Physics), Homefield School for Boys, Bournemouth (1983 - 1985)
Certificates
- ISEB Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management (ITIL V3) (4 March 2016)
- ISEB Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management (ITIL V2) (8 August 2007)
- ISEB Foundation Certificate in PRINCE2 Project Management (11 July 2007)
- ISEB Foundation Certificate in Software Testing (17 May 2006)
Professional Memberships