Panda T. G. Rushwood

panda@ticklethepanda.dev
ticklethepanda.dev
I am an empathetic lead developer with broad experience of the whole software development lifecycle and a wide range of technologies. I have grown my interpersonal skills and combine them with my technical experience and knowledge to successfully lead the delivery and operation of software and platform products.

Experience

  1. Freelance

    1. Wedding websites

      September 2022 to present

      Building custom wedding websites for clients with RSVP and guest management.

      • Delivered unique websites to multiple clients with 100% satisfaction.
      • Resolved issues with clients within 24 hours.
      • Minimised operating costs by using static sites, off the shelf tools, and serverless technologies.

  2. UK Research and Innovation (formerly STFC)

    1. Platform Architect

      October 2022 to present

      Leading the delivery and operation of the developer platform for multiple developer teams using standard technologies.

      • Replaced legacy VMs with Kubernetes for 30 services.
      • Saved engineers' time by making it easy to deploy and operate their software.
      • Reduced crisis response time by introducing centralised logging.
      • Reduced the security risk by providing tools and embedding best practices.

    2. Senior Software Engineer and Team Leader

      January 2019 to October 2022

      Led the delivery and operation of business critical products by creating an effective engineering team to provide maximum value for science facilities.

      • Delivered an open source product used by 1000s of scientists across the world to access scientific facilities.
      • Reduced cost to deliver and maintain software by estimated 30% by creating and maintaining an open collaboration with other research organisations.
      • Enabled delivery by creating a high performing agile team: hiring new staff, developing skills, and introducing continuous improvement.

    3. Graduate / Software Engineer

      August 2015 to January 2019

      Delivered key functionality used by thousands of scientists, internal and external, and operated existing web services for science facilities. Promoted to Software Engineer after 2 years.

      • Delivered key navigation and content functionality for public websites about the scientific facilities used thousands of current and prospective users.
      • Delivered analysis and implementation of changes for GDPR as part of a team.

Technical skills

  • Containers and orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker)
  • Cloud platforms (OpenStack, AWS, Google Cloud)
  • Monitoring (Elastic/OpenSearch)
  • Web fundamentals (HTML, JS, CSS)
  • Frontend frameworks (React)
  • Version control (git)
  • Languages (Java, Python, Typescript, PowerShell, Bash)
  • Agile software project management tools (GitHub, JIRA)
  • Continuos integration and deployment (Jenkins, GitHub actions)
  • Automated testing (Unit, Integration, System, Acceptance)

Education

  1. Royal Holloway, University of London

    2012 to 2015
    First Class BSc Computer Science (Hons)

  2. West Kirby Grammar School

    2010 to 2012

  3. St Anselm's College

    2005 to 2010

Additional qualifications

  • Professional Member of the British Computer Society (MBCS)
  • APM Project Fundamentals
  • Certified SAFe 5 Agilist
  • Highfield Level 2 Award in Safeguarding and Protecting Children and Young People

Hobbies

  • Enjoys tech meetups (like Remote Hack).
  • Building fun side projects: I'm most proud of Tartan-ify.
  • Film photography, board games, coffee, pizza, and hiking in nature.