Michael P. Jones

# Current Status

Consultant at Nordic Semiconductor.

# Bio

I have years of experience leading teams, creating software and developing web applications. I am a passionate developer with a love of programming languages.

I am enthusiastic about team organisation, structuring meetings, group culture, 1-on-1s and retrospectives.

# Career

  • # Consultant, Nordic Semiconductor

    June 2021 - Present — Rust, Typescript

    • Developing user-friendly tooling to facilitate working with Nordic Semiconductor's chips and embedded devices.
    • Automated product release process reducing friction and leading to more regular releases and better feedback cycles.
    • Initiated team 'Tech Chats' to work through technical debt, discuss development strategies and explore new technologies.
    • Enhanced user experience by optimising initial load time through refactoring of asset management approach.
    • Championed increasing linting checks and Typescript strictness to improve product reliability.
    • Mentored junior team members through regular 1-on-1s to explore team practices, development techniques and new technology.

  • # Senior Software Engineer, Raytheon

    September 2020 - June 2021 — Typescript, AWS

    • Senior member of a cross-functional team providing cloud-based web development services within a high security environment.
    • Full stack work from Terraform-driven serverless deployments to single page applications using the Node.js ecosystem, React & Typescript.
    • Integrated team updates from tools and services into our primary communication platform to maximise developer awareness of progress and issues.
    • Established updates and communication patterns to help onboard new hires and assist in platform training.
    • Completed three separate cloud certifications: AWS Certified Developer Associate, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner & Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals.
    • Mentored junior team members through regular 1-on-1s to better integrate with team-based development strategies and approaches.

  • # Personal Development

    January 2020 - September 2020 — Elixir, Phoenix, Postgres, Stripe

    • Set up & run contact-stack.com as an independent business and end-to-end learning opportunity. Designed, implemented & marketed the full product.
    • Self-driven work, independent learning and product focused prioritisation.

  • # Senior Engineer & Team Lead, Zaptic

    April 2015 - January 2020 — Typescript, React, Elm, GitLab, Postgres

    • Fast paced, quick iteration start-up environment scaling from four people to a company of sixteen - gaining several rounds of investment in the process.
    • Part of customer facing meetings, training days and on-site visits to upskill users and enhance the feedback loop for product improvements.
    • Led team of four developers, coordinating work and providing support, 1-on-1s, learning opportunities and guidance.
    • Pioneering the adoption of Typescript & Elm in a stack with server side development, database interactions and AWS infrastructure.

  • # Web Developer

    October 2013 - April 2015 — Python, Django, Typescript, React, Elm, Docker, Postgres

    • Sole developer of tangotimetable.com.
    • Designed and implemented community solution for dance event coordination & scheduling to reduce conflicts in the scene and improve visibility for all organisers.
    • Django-based Python web application with React & Elm front-end.
    • Responsible for the full stack from Linode hosting with Docker containers deployed via Ansible to the application code and front end design.
    • Web Developer at Radius Payment Solutions.
    • Lead development of analytics focused web dashboard for a vehicle telemetry product.
    • Implemented caching system to improve dashboard page load times and reduce dependence on the 3rd party API.
    • Championed workflow improvements around code review, linting and technology adoption (React).

  • # Software Developer & Team Lead, Weta Digital

    September 2010 - October 2013 — C++, Python, OpenGL

    • Lead developer designing and architecting a natural tree growth system for use in the Peter Jackson Hobbit films.
    • Coordinated team and developer resources to manage requirements from various departments and hit deadlines as needed.
    • Close collaboration with key artists to guide and respond to workflow requirements.

  • # Research & Development Technical Director, Animal Logic

    February 2010 - August 2010 — C++, Python, Shell

    • Implemented a command line navigation and shortcut system in Python which was adopted company wide leading to productivity improvements for artists and managers alike.
    • Delivered technical presentations on source control and workflow improvements to a cross-company audience.
    • Debugging and improving legacy particle rendering and visualisation tooling in C++.

  • # Research & Development Programmer, Double Negative

    October 2007 - January 2010 — C++, Python, Flask, Sqlite

    • Took the initiative to conceive and implement a packaging solution with database support, commandline access and web interfaces to resolve long standing problems with distribution of internal tools and assets across projects.
    • Planned and delivered courses on Python programming and use of the shell to onboard new hires and upskill artists in the company.
    • Worked closely with teams across the company and liaised with decision makers for core tooling to help develop and guide internal workflows.

  • # Technical Director, Framestore

    November 2006 - October 2007 — C++, Python

    • Visual effects and pipelining on Oscar & Bafta winning film The Golden Compass.
    • Designed and architected a C++ spring-based fat dynamics system with intuitive texture driven controls.
    • Rapid turn around on collaboration with the users from other teams and departments, providing support and extending the application based on feedback.

# Education

  • # National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth

    2005 - 2006

    Distinction - MSc Computer Animation. Masters Project: Evolving Behavioural Animations using Genetic Programming.

  • # Lincoln College, University of Oxford

    2002 - 2005

    1st Class Physics Degree (BA) - Top Student in the BA class. Recipient of Scott's Prize for Best Performance at BA and Stansbie Prize for achievement at finals.

# Certifications

  • 2020-10-29 - AWS Certified Developer Associate
  • 2020-09-24 - AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
  • 2020-09-30 - Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals

# Talks

  • 2024-10-16 - Leptos @ Rust Manchester
  • 2021-02-02 - Git Internals @ Raytheon
  • 2020-11-03 - Getting Started with Elm @ Raytheon
  • 2018-03-19 - Getting Started with Elm @ Lambda Lounge
  • 2015-06-15 - Introduction to Rust @ Lambda Lounge
  • 2015-02-16 - React from a Functional Perspective @ Lambda Lounge
  • 2014-12-05 - Programming in Visual Effects @ University of Bolton
  • 2014-10-18 - Programming in Visual Effects @ BarCamp Manchester

# Posts

# Videos

# Profiles

# Websites

# Contact Stack

Stay in touch with your friends through regular reminders over time frames that you control. Built with Elixir & Phoenix.

# Dance Timetable Network

Community calendaring websites built with Django & React.

# Open Source

# Sphinx

Breathe

A Doxygen-Sphinx bridge.

An extension to reStructuredText and Sphinx which is able to read and format the contents of Doxygen XML files. It extends Sphinx's support for displaying language & API documentation to all the languages support by Doxygen. Development has a strong emphasis on supporting C++.

Language: Python

Docleaf

A Doxygen-Sphinx bridge powered by Rust

A re-write of Breathe to use Rust for the majority of the parsing and logic with a thin compatibility layer to Python writing using PyO3.

Languages: Rust, Python

# Other

Matcha

Text template system for Gleam.

Rust project parses a basic template format and outputs Gleam modules with 'render' functions that can be imported and called to render the template with different parameters.

Language: Rust, Gleam