I learned all I need to know about managing a team of developers from directing theatre. Live theatre is a collaboration, a labour of love, and the best directors bring out the best in every team member in order to deliver the best possible product by opening night. Of course in the agency world having over 19 years’ experience as a commercial developer always helps, along with a strong desire to nurture the talents and careers of those around me.
When I’m required to be a technical director I constantly seek to re-use all I’ve learned from the many industries I’ve worked in (finance, oil & gas, online education, healthcare) in order to deliver innovative technical solutions, whilst always focussing on human-centred design.
I love the agency life and find the pitch process to be very exciting. I feel privileged to have worked with some of the best in their fields, and to get to understand their fields in order that my solution best matches their needs and those of their users/customers.
Whilst producing the best work possible for my clients, it’s important not to forget my colleagues and company. I strive to collaborate across the different teams in my workplace, to act as the interface to the technology, providing guidance and mentoring as required; an evangelist, but not an extremist.
For more information visit linkedin.com/in/marcusjroberts.
References available on request.
May 2017 to present
At the moment I head up the Fintech development at JustGiving, a world class organisation that shaped the world of giving. Here I have been able to really shine again as a creative technologist, taking the existing donation checkout product and really striving for innovation both within the checkout process as well as throughout the other many products within the company. Here I am always pushing for growth by helping others as well as providing new ideas – at a recent internal Hackathon 3 of the 10 chosen products for development were mine, along with the eventual winner. I lead a strong dev team responsible for all donations through the platform, encouraging internal development, but have also been working with external partners on growing our products through strategic partnerships.
Keywords: fintech, payments, for good, product, management
October 2016 to May 2017
Checkout.com is an international FinTech company powering the most comprehensive cross-border payments solution for the Internet. Checkout.com offers all credit and debit cards as well as alternative and local payment methods through one single integration and one single platform. The Company also provides advanced payment technology, data encryption & risk management solutions to online merchants. Whilst at Checkout.com I implemented an Agile GitFlow development process and grew the development team 100%, both in London and with the remote development team in Mauritius. Working closely with the developers and product owner I oversaw the delivery of many new features and enhancements to the Checkout.com product, always seeking to implement new technologies.
Keywords: fintech, payments, scrum, agile, management, web api, angular, react
July 2013 to October 2016
Metia is a full-service digital agency and I have been managing a team of developers to create high-quality and innovative work for our clients, including Microsoft and Dell. The team consists of front and back-end developers, as well as UI/UX and QA. Whilst delivering some of the work myself (everyone should pitch-in), I am responsible for the allocation of work and resourcing of client requests across the team as appropriate. Metia delivers a wide-variety of work from corporate CMSes, desktop and mobile apps, as well as some more bespoke work such as online animations, lead-generation sites and savings calculators.
Keywords: digital, agency, Umbraco, team management, web, desktop, mobile, client liaison
April 2013 to July 2013
LDN Dance is a start-up dance company who needed a website. Provided design, sourced a professional logo, and created a website to enable them to take class bookings online. I enabled Facebook login for administration logins. I optimised the site for search engine results, plus consulted on Google AdWords and Facebook advertising, as well as print media advertising.
Keywords: MVC 4, Razor, Entity Framework, MSSQL, design, UI, Facebook API
March 2012 to March 2013
I initially started at JPMC to create a WCF service / Windows service to run on virtual desktops to enable remote management of those desktops, as well as the desktop tool to manage the service. Connections were made to the service from both the desktop tool as well as a central administration website. I was then extended by another team to provide website updates, touching on MVC, and then my main focus at JMPC was the creation of a WPF desktop tool and associated WCF services. This tool is to run on each desktop within JMPC and allow both external and internal messaging to employees.
Keywords: WPF, MVVM, MVC 3, WCF, Windows Services, MSSQL, design, UI/UX
January 2011 to March 2012
A leader in the market to produce medical equipment to analyse DNA, RNA and protein, Lab901 needed software to replace an existing third-party application which was no longer fit for purpose. We designed and created a complex WPF desktop application to read large image files from the equipment, analyse the data, and display the results. The application allows for altering the processing settings, displaying the results in a combination of core WPF controls, custom controls, and DevExpress controls. In the small agile team I was principally responsible for the UI design and implementation, making major design decisions.
Keywords: WPF, MVVM, UI, UX, Open XML, Agile, Scrum