David Young

Software Engineer

Why Me?

Over 10 years building software across consultancies, startups, and government, with Ruby on Rails at the core. I came to development from a business management background, so I think about the problem and the people as much as the code.

These days I lead technical delivery across teams, but I still write code every day.

Skills

  • Ruby on Rails ⭐️
  • Ruby ⭐️
  • Technical Leadership ⭐️
  • System Architecture
  • HOTWire
  • TDD
  • Javascript
  • PostgreSQL
  • Git
  • Typescript
Book time in my calendar

Work Experience

  • -Present

    Ruby Technical Lead

    at Department for Education

    Leading technical delivery across 10 Ruby on Rails services within the Schools Digital Recruitment Programme, working across seven teams to bring services in line with GOV.UK standards. Day-to-day this spans architectural design, technical leadership across teams, and hands-on contribution, from designing API rebuilds and standardising tooling to identifying infrastructure cost savings.

  • -

    Head of Engineering

    at Supercycle
  • -

    Staff Engineer

    at Juniper Education

    Brought in by the CTO to build the engineering organisation from the ground up. Designed the core application platform, led technical discussions on what was feasible to build, and set the standards for code quality, testing, and performance. Built the hiring process and grew the development team.

  • -

    Senior Developer

    at thoughtbot

    Client-facing Ruby on Rails consultancy. Built test-driven applications across government, finance, and e-commerce, including loan processing software for government-backed COVID business recovery programmes and a drive-thru system for a major restaurant chain using Hotwire for real-time updates across multiple interconnected services.

  • -

    Senior Software Engineer

    at Impero Software

    Full stack Ruby on Rails development for child safeguarding software used in schools. Led a complete frontend redesign, launched a free version of the platform during COVID-19, and took the codebase from MVP to enterprise-grade software. Won a major enterprise contract as the sole technical person in the room.

  • -

    Software Engineer

    at Intellicore

    Agency software development for oil and gas and social enterprise clients. Built custom Angular screens for Dynamics 365, developed mobile apps with Ionic Framework, and progressed into full stack work on a Laravel PHP backend. Went on-site with clients to scope out what they needed and turn that into working software.

  • -

    Junior Developer

    at Iomart
  • -

    Duty Manager

    at JD Wetherspoon

Education

  • Interactive Media & Web Development

    at New College Lanarkshire
    Motherwell

    Interactive web products created to a high standard, normally above and beyond the scope of the assignment.

  • Hospitality Management

    at Glasgow Caledonian University
    Glasgow

    Business based degree with a focus on the Hospitality industry. Many transferable business skills gained.