About Galen
As a full stack developer with 10+ years of experience across a range of sectors and technology stacks, I'd be delighted to jump in with your latest project!
I believe that software is as good as the people who make it, and so I always work with a close eye to detail and to accuracy, making sure that systems I work on handle the unexpected as well as the expected "happy case" scenarios. I'm currently also experimenting building projects to use locally-running and external Large Language Models, using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to incorporate custom knowledge within AI responses, and have also built client projects to interface with ChatGPT programmatically. I have a track record for digging into existing code, looking for bugs and potential refactoring/code quality improvements.
Languages and frameworks I am most comfortable working in include:
- .NET
- Java with Spring Boot
- Python, including with RAG techniques (LangChain etc)
- PHP
- JavaScript & TypeScript
- WordPress plugins
- SQL, including direct SQL or ORM-based data access
- CI/CD, including good Linux knowledge, serverless deployment setups and Dockerised deployments
- Mapbox, for geospatial applications
I also have significant experience with payment services providers, especially Stripe (but also with in-person card payment operations).
My company is based in Edinburgh, and I myself am between Edinburgh (where I have also taken part and presented at events hosted by Technology Scotland) and Madrid. I can't put two locations on my profile but am happy to visit your office in either location. I also have contacts in Belgium - where I lived for several years - and would happily take a trip there too.
I love developing software of all kinds and exploring how we can solve problems in innovative ways. I am personable and bring energy and enthusiasm to my work - I would love to have a chat with you about your project.
English
Native or bilingual
Spanish
Conversational
Italian
Conversational
French
Basic
Remote only
Primarily works remotely
Experience
- Leave It In The Ground Initiative (LINGO) (Germany)WordPress Plugin for Data Analysis and PresentationENVIRONMENTALFebruary 2023 - October 2023 (8 months)Radebeul, GermanyI developed a WordPress plugin to regularly synchronise dynamic data from Google Sheets and present it to the public.The project numerically and visually summarised the existence of carbon (fossil fuel) deposits beneath legally protected areas across the majority of countries in the world, as well as summarising any current and future planned extraction in these areas, with the aim of identifying fossil fuel extraction projects that are relatively easy to prevent. The various 'country summary' pages have been presented by my client to policy-makers and members of Government in a variety of countries around the world. This project may continue in future, as my client would like to build significant additions to the current country pages and is currently securing funding to do so.See for example protected-carbon.org/germany (or protected-carbon.org/countries for a full list)
- Leave It In The Ground Initiative (LINGO) (Germany)Spring Boot Web Application DevelopmentENVIRONMENTALAugust 2023 - Today (2 years and 10 months)Radebeul, GermanyI developed a web application to map and highlight "Fossil Free Zones" (places around the world that have committed to ending the use and/or extraction of fossil fuels) for a climate NGO. In addition to the public-facing side, there is a large administrative area that was built for authenticated members of the team to manage the list of fossil free places, as well as a public "Create a zone" feature to gather submissions from the public.The application was developed in Spring Boot (using Hibernate & PostgreSQL in the persistence layer). It was originally developed in 2023 and was presented by my client at COP28. Additional feature development is still ongoing following successful completion of the original version.
- Dubbelpunt Commv (Belgium)Cloud-based deployment architecture and NestJS software development and supportTECHApril 2024 - Today (2 years and 2 months)Antwerp, BelgiumI have provided ongoing support for real-estate virtual presentation startup 'Presendoo'. The support has been wide-ranging, but includes:
- Initial cloud-based set-up of development and production environments using various Azure services
- General software development towards the main project
- Set-up of payment options for Presendoo's customers (including software integration with Stripe)
- Building a Zapier integration for the project's data
- Ongoing advice to the client
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Education
- Advanced Computer ScienceUniversity of St Andrews2018I graduated with merit from the University of St Andrews' Advanced Computer Science MSc programme in 2018, having carried out the degree in order to solidify and certify skills that I had otherwise previously self-taught. The degree covered general technical software development skills (both primarily through use of Java), non-technical software development skills (such as agile and other development methodologies), software architecture, computer security, critical systems engineering and artificial intelligence. Studying for my MSc in St Andrews was a fantastic experience - at the time it was named the best place in the UK to study Computer Science - and I had previously completed a BSc there in Sustainable Development (I always love to try to pull these two together when I can, carrying out programming and IT work for sustainability-driven applications and organisations).
- Sustainable DevelopmentUniversity of St Andrews2015One of the early courses in Sustainable Development on offer, St Andrews' Sustainable Development course took an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the related subjects of Geography, Ecology, Social Anthropology and International Relations. My time on this course was wide-ranging and enjoyable, teaching me to think in a multifaceted manner about the converging environmental and human-centred problems that our society faces. Some of the more major topics covered include climate change, ecology, governance systems, and theories and methods of inducing change in systems. My final dissertation looked at the environmental and social aspects of rural transport and assessed whether Demand Responsive Transport, if employed on a wider scale, would have potential to improve the transport situation and reduce its environmental impact in rural areas.