Having realised that computers and the internet are infiltrating into ever increasing aspects of our daily lives, I decided to change career paths from investment banking, to learn how to code and co-found a tech startup in 2014.

Since the start of 2020, I have sold and exited my startup Peg, started a new company Robin, aiming to tackle food waste and climate change, and (sadly) ended my new company Robin after 6 months.

Examples of my coding work can be found on my Github. To find out more about me as a person, check out my personal website.

Bionic Julia (my personal website) is created & maintained with Ruby (ERB), SASS and Middleman. Deployed via Netlify.

I also enjoy playing around with different tools to try to automate tasks whilst learning new technologies. You can find a list of things I've made here.

Co-founder & Software Engineer / COO of Peg, a software company that helps global advertisers become influencer marketing gurus. (2014 - current)

After graduating from Makers Academy, I co-founded Peg with Nic, a fellow Makers graduate, and Alex, our lead coach at Makers. During the initial 2 months when it was just Nic and myself, we used our new-found coding skills to design and create an MVP using Angular, which we released to the market in just 2 weeks. We then continued to iterate on our app based on user feedback.

When Alex joined, I worked alongside him to re-build the product from scratch, to ensure a more robust and speedy web app capable for scaling. The initial main technologies used included Ruby on Rails 4, Angular, RSpec and PostgreSQL.

I continued in my role as the principal software engineer under Alex until 2018. Sroop joined us as our first developer hire after a year of starting Peg, and between the 3 of us, we covered all of the backend and frontend code base. As the company grew, I transitioned away from code and into the COO position. I resumed my software engineer role in Sep 2019, as the company's focus at that point was preparing for an impending sale and exit. Our software architecture has grown and evolved massively since the early days, and now involve technologies like Ruby on Rails 6, React 16, PostgreSQL 11, Redis, Vue, Node, Gatsby and Docker.

I currently remain on the board of directors, but am now searching for my next challenge in tech.

• Ruby
• Ruby on Rails 4 (a bit of 6)
• PostgreSQL (mostly 9)
• Angular 1 (a bit of 2)
• React 16
• Vue 2.6 (limited)
• Sidekiq worker
• Metabase (data reporting for internal team use)
• Integrations with Slack and Stripe payments
• Creating scrapers
• YouTube and Twitter API
• Docker (experience using, not setting up)

Highly selective, 12 week web development bootcamp in London (May-August 2014)

After leaving the world of finance (see below) and taking a 5 month solo travel trip, I made the leap into web development by immersing myself in code for 3 months at Makers Academy, where I learnt the latest web app technologies, techniques and best practices, in a project-based course with pair-programming and test-driven development at its core.

• Agile values, principles and practices
• Object­ oriented principles and design
• Pair programming
• Ruby
• Ruby on Rails 4
• Sinatra
• PostgreSQL
• Numerous Ruby gems including Devise, Bcrypt, Paperclip
• Object relational mappers like ActiveRecord and Datamapper
• Functional and unit testing with Rspec, Jasmine, Capybara and Poltergeist
• Factory Girl fixtures
• Version control with Git and Github
• Rapid deployment to Heroku
• JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX
• Websockets
• HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap 3
• Precompiled languages like CoffeeScript and SASS
• Mustache.js templating language
• API integration with Twilio, Stripe, Mailgun, Google Maps

5 day introduction to the fundamentals of building a website (October 2013)

• HTML5, CSS3
• Responsive design
• Grid systems
• Basic jQuery
• CSS Parallax

I have spent over 6 years as an Investment Banker in London, starting out in Mergers and Acquisitions in HSBC before moving into Debt Advisory at a boutique investment bank. I have therefore had experience of working in both large and small companies and teams. Past clients have mostly been UK and European private equity firms, as well as mid-cap companies with valuations of c.£150-200 million.

The vast majority of my past experience has been project-based, working in teams of around 3 to 4 people. I am used to delivering high quality work under tight, client-driven deadlines. My past roles have been client-facing, where I was expected to prepare and present project findings and financial models.

If you'd like to see my full CV, send me an email at [email protected].

MSc Finance (2005— 2006)

• Mathematical and scientific approach to studying the theory of finance.
• Applied mathematical techniques on empirical data to determine the valuation of financial synergies as part of my masters thesis.

MEng Chemical Engineering (2001— 2005)

• Graduated with First Class Honours.
• Developed an appreciation for good process design and management.
• Practical experience of working as part of a team to complete the design of an industrial scale oil refinery process.

• Clean code with practical uses.
• Continuous, lifelong learning.
• Learning to play the drums.
• Health, fitness & nutrition.
• Running marathons.
• Travel (and the great outdoors).
• Gaming.

• Email: [email protected]
• Personal website
• Github
• LinkedIn