Thomas Hockaday

Software developer with a background in design. Focused on user and developer experience. Building optimised, accessible, and testable systems. Working in small full stack teams since 2017.

Skills

Languages:

  • PHP
  • JavaScript/TypeScript
  • MySQL/PostgreSQL
  • HTML
  • CSS

Tools:

  • React
  • Node.js
  • Composer
  • Docker
  • AWS
  • Git
  • Redis
  • OpenAPI

Methodologies:

  • CI/CD
  • OOP
  • SOLID
  • REST
  • DDD
  • TDD

Experience

Intelligence Fusion / Sigma7

Tech Lead, 2023 – Present

  • Led a large optimisation project which resulted in a 13x increase in the performance of some endpoints. Co-wrote a case study with Sentry to highlight the team's achievements.
  • Invented a threat intelligence data cloning tool which boosted the reporting output of the operations team by 10%.
  • Implemented both PHP and Playwright end-to-end testing solutions to protect critical paths.
  • Automated code quality checks in CI with Prettier and ESLint. Patched a HTML validation bug in the open source eslint-plugin-react ruleset.
  • Migrated extensive Postman documentation to OpenAPI for easier developer collaboration and client integration.

Lead Software Engineer, 2022 – 2023

  • Upgraded API services through major PHP versions up to 8.3, reducing code execution time by more than 20%.
  • Automated static analysis in CI with PHPCodeSniffer, PHPStan and PHPInsights.
  • Cached time-based data with Redis to reduce database reads and rate limit login attempts for tighter security.
  • Hosted thorough quarterly performance reviews enabling rapid growth of team members.

Senior Software Engineer, 2021 – 2022

  • Refactored an event-sourced Lumen API into microservices for improved performance and developer experience.
  • Planned sprints for a small agile team.
  • Aided in interviewing and onboarding new team members.

Software Engineer, 2020 – 2021

  • Built REST API endpoints in PHP to serve threat intelligence data at a rate of 60 requests per second per client.
  • Defined CI/CD rules in GitLabCI for automated testing and deployment.
  • Collated Postman API documentation for easier team member onboarding.

Opia Ltd

Web Developer, 2017 – 2020

  • Built high-volume sales promotion websites with PHP, Vue, Blade, Sass, MySQL and Docker.
  • Commended by Microsoft for adherence to WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards, and Huawei for the rapid successful development of multiple campaigns - one of which won an Outstanding Partner Award.

Projects

Tag Connect

Design custom contact cards that can be instantly shared with others via URL or QR code. Featured a PHP 8.3 API, React Native app and React web platform. Used AWS, CircleCI and Expo for deployment. PostgreSQL database hosted on RDS. API hosted on ECS Fargate and web platform hosted in a static S3 Bucket accessed via CloudFront. Redis/ElastiCache used for preventing rate limiting issues. Fully testable local environments with Docker.

Education

New College Durham

Bachelor of Design, 2014 – 2017

Extended Diploma in IT, 2012 – 2014