Having spent a large proportion of my career with one company it might be appropriate to highlight the positive benefits of that experience and how I have developed a wide range of skills and experience continually enhanced for an ever changing landscape. Making the step into consultancy represents a culmination of several years planning, developing the appropriate knowledge base. to sustain new challenge I am fully ready to embrace.
In the beginning
I was born in Romford, Essex in 1961 and spent most of my formative years in Chelmsford. Education came via a comprehensive school leading to a selection of good GCE passes. Early jobs included a lengthy spell in an engineering production office, several stints as a tyre fitter and a period as a professional musician, something I continue to this day as an enthusiastic amateur.
In 1985 I began studying with the Open University initially studying Mathematics and Science. Without a firm conviction regarding career direction, I assumed that engineering would be my chosen path and began studying mechanics both solid and fluids. Whilst this was interesting and I still find mechanical engineering stimulating, it wasn’t quite hitting the spot as a future vocation. Something new was just about to appear over the horizon that would significantly change everything.
A brave new world
My first foray into computing came at the age of 27 which would be incredibly late these days but this was prior to the major personal computing revolution and most schools and companies still used manual methods for most tasks. Initial exposure was via a 3 month full time training course which taught programming first in Basic then moving to Cobol and the latter part of the training was in systems analysis leading to a qualification in SSADM methodology.
Out of interest the course was taught on Amstrad 8088 PC’s that had 512 KB of RAM, twin five and a quarter floppy disks, one for the operating system (MS Dos 3.0) and the other for programs and no hard disk. They were quite cutting edge for the day, how times change.
To say I was hooked by the course was be an understatement. Suddenly I felt that I could see my role in the future and the world was a brighter place. Nothing was going to stop me now or so I thought.
Nothing To See Here, Move on Sonny
Armed with my fresh new qualification I was ready to march boldly across the plains of information technology. Only one obstacle stood in my path; two years experience. At that time every computer related junior vacancy required the candidate to have 2 years minimum experience but of course the only way to get that was to have a job hence the IT career conundrum. This was a period just prior to PC’s reaching commodity status so still prohibitively expensive, the internet was the preserve of post graduate level academia, Mosaic browser was still five years in the future and Microsoft was just an operating system supplier. Self teaching to gain experience was not a feasible option for the average person at that point beyond magazine programs in assembler on home micros.
Some companies would interview you or put you through aptitude tests, which were always passed and other selection criteria but the result was inevitably the the same. Most applications met with no response at all.
The Nadir of this period came at an IT recruitment fair where following an aptitude test I was advised that I would make a very good IT professional but in reality there was little chance of that happening. In fact this became a seminal event in forging a future career, probably in spite of rather than because of the prognosis. Inspiration sometimes comes from unexpected places.
Then Came Salvation
Thumbing through a national newspaper the next day, an advert caught my eye for a government sponsored initiative known as HTNT (Higher Technology National Training). One year full time training course leading to an HNC qualification in computer studies, including a period of work placement was built into the course, so gaining valuable experience. After a rigorous selection process I was accepted onto the course in Chatham, Kent. An HNC is normally studied part time over a period of 2 years by people working in the respective industry so the single year version albeit full time was an intense learning period. Of the original 20 people inducted only 5 including myself managed to graduate.
Studying at Chatham brought my first experience of the C language and relational database management systems but arguably more important was the work placement component of the course. I was assigned to an organisation called the Medway Education Business Partnership (MEBP) which provided liaison facilities between schools and local businesses, particularly regarding work experience placements. I was commissioned by them to develop a database system that would match students to companies offering placements which was developed in a product called DataEase a pc based RDBMS product quite popular at that time. After the course was complete I returned as a volunteer to MEBP for a period of 3 months to complete the system and following a presentation to the local Training and Enterprise Council was retained by them on a paid contract basis to expand the system across the entire county.
Nearly There
When changes in government policy brought an end to the contract in Kent I was once again looking for work. This time I had some good general experience but still lacked a bankable skill. I recall sending out 57 application letters and received one interview with GEC Marconi in Chelmsford. They were looking for a Progress 4GL developer which was proving hard to find so they were prepared to train. Fortunately I was successful and began a period of 4 years working for them. Eventually the companies fortunes began to wane and it was time to jump ship. In contrast to my previous change I sent 4 job applications, received 4 interviews and was offered all 4 jobs as a Progress developer.
Furnishing Belief
Having selected the offer from Harveys Furniture, I began working there in 1997, initially tasked with upgrading the existing software to version 7. The core business systems were written in a 4GL product called UserBase running on VMS. This was a tightly coupled product that used a Basic derivative language and wrote to RMS flat file databases. The plan was for all the systems to be rewritten in Progress with existing development staff porting their programming skills, but difficulties migrating to a relational and strongly type environment caused the project to be halted. Progress development continued in parallel to the main system but eventually fell out of favour.
Move or Move
Progress was not the way forward at Harveys so the choice was to move somewhere else or upgrade my skill set. I began working on the in house developed EPOS system which was written in C++. I had exposure to both C and C++ in the past so was happy to move over to help roll out the next release.
All aboard the merry go round
With future development in Progress having been abandoned, the company invested in Cognos Powerhouse as it’s new BI platform. After training I assisted in the development of an ETL system which loaded data into a Cognos Powerplay front end for multi dimensional analysis.
Diversity is the key
As the wintel platform gained traction in the corporate world with a plethora of client server applications and maturing technologies such as NT and SQLServer, there was an increasing need to support business areas in the transition. After training in SQLServer and Visual basic 6 I began developing interfaces for the accounts department to post data files into the CODA financials system they were using. These made use of the CODA API and I began using techniques to create DLLs in VB that were wrapped into Excel Add Ins so the users had a menu option in Excl to select journal data on the screen which would be validated and then posted via the add in. CODA themselves made a similar option available to users several years later.
I began developing applications to automatically send text messages depending on system values, still quite novel back then, produced detailed sales figures on mobile devices of the day using the WAP protocol and began dabbling with web sites. I produced a web site for a division of the company called Kitchen Studio which not surprising sold kitchens. The site used classic asp and was non transnational but did have some dynamic elements. This represented the first on line presence for the company, I did develop a dynamic site demonstration in classic asp for the main Harveys range but the on line market was yet to reach maturity.
Casting the net
As Microsoft released early versions of the .NET framework I used visual studio to produce utility applications for automatic e-mail redirection and file moving and implemented a system for the warehouse that used windows mobile devices to scan deliveries in and out and using synchronising technology via a SQL server database to store locations that could then be visualised on screen. I also began attending regular design workshops to discuss replacement of the in house EPOS system with a contemporary windows version. Working in collaboration with our web site provider to specify a version of the site that could be used in store, with the associated sales tender functions incorporated.
Here we go again
A Replacement for the core systems used a product called Navision which later became Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Designed to be in 2 phases, replacing the sales components with a web front end to be used in stores, followed by the core order processing functions. Working as part of the project team I was responsible for producing a data migration process for the operations department to switch stores to the new system in groups of 5, allowing the new hardware infrastructure to be put in place by engineers. Involving a number of steps to retrieve the data and set system indicators to certain states, the application used a series of VB.NET routines and ran successfully migrating approximately 300 stores over a period of several months. Subsequently there were no data errors in the new system.
With the sales data flowing into a SQLServer database I began developing management sales reports using reporting services (SSRS) and also used analysis services (SSAS) for interactive multi dimensional querying based on an ETL layer using integration services (SSIS)
Lets Integrate
It became apparent that running the IT departments of Harveys and its sister company Bensons as separate entities within the group was not conducive to efficiency, so a plan to implement a single system for both companies was produced. The first stage was to add a product information management (PIM) system that would serve both companies and data would be transferred to and from this via and ESB. After various evaluations which I attended, Talend was chosen as the ESB provider. Working with a partner agency a series of routines were developed to transfer XML data produced by the PIM via a message queue into csv files for import to the legacy systems. By implementation time the agency had moved onto another project and I took sole responsibility for the completion and implementation of the interfaces. Talend itself is an open source implementation built on a number of Apache projects including: Camel, Karaf, Tomcat etc. Couple that with technological concepts such as JMS, XSD/XSL, XPath, Apache Simple, Java Beans and so on, makes for an intense learning experience, exactly the kind I embrace.
Following the successful integration of the PIM, development moved onto the implementation of a new EPOS system. Provide by a company called Enactor, this was a java based N tier system running in a Docker environment, using SQLServer centrally and MySQL for local storage. User interface was via iPads accessing a local server in every store which in turn communicated with the central estate. Communication to and from the system again used file transfer rather than APIs which would have given more flexibility.
Throughout both phases I maintained a close relationship with external partners.
Then the horse bolted
The original plan of the system integration was to initially transfer orders from each company i.e. Bensons and Harveys, back to their respective order processing systems. A new ERP system would gradually be brought on line for both brands and the data fed into this in a phased replacement. The new system would probably be Dynamics 365 based but that was never finalised. Stories of severe financial irregularities within the parent company of the group began to emerge. Ninety five percent of the companies stock value was lost overnight and stories of illegal money spent on a stable of racehorses by the corrupt chairman soon emerged. The UK arm quickly became an autonomous unit but had to seek external funding to continue and projects such as ERP replacement were scrapped. Still wishing to combine into a single system the decision was taken to move Harveys data into the Bensons system. Twenty years on from the original plan to replace it with Progress 4GL, Userbase was finally switched off.
Talend integration work was actually simplified by this as there was one less target but this was offset by the continual enhancement of the EPOS system specification to fit established business practices.
See no evil
A major issue with the Talend routines was identifying what was happening when things didn’t go to plan. The log files would quickly fill up and recycle after 10 copies so quite often by the time the problem was spotted most of the evidence had gone. To solve this I developed a set of library routines to drop into Talend jobs or routes that error messages information or predefined warning conditions to a database and an MVC5 application using VB.NET to categorise and display this information and generate e-mail alerts based on the contents. Subsequent versions extended the functionality to allow it to serve as a knowledge base which could be integrated with issue tracking services such as Jira or Freshservice. Full documentation was provided to the external agency and our operations department.
Beginning of the end
After financial problems with the parent organisation, the autonomous UK company tried to battle on but was frustrated by a resource shortfall and finally sold to venture capitalist investors in late 2019. The intention was to close the Harveys business and restructure Bensons, retaining key staff myself included. The onset of the pandemic changed plans considerably however and after a period of Furlough my association with the company ended in November 2020 after a period of 23 years. My final development just prior to lock down was the generation of a slider based finance calculator for Bensons, incorporating their business rules regarding duration, quantity and minimum payment. This was developed in JavaScript with the standard bootstrap library. I am told it was well received.
Onwards and upwards
So what will the future bring. After a long time with one company it may be more mobile career wise and my current thoughts are in the direction of consulting. I believe my wide skill set and adaptability coupled with a specialisation in Talend DI and ESB will bring value to the relevant clients.
Throughout my Furlough period and now into redundancy I have maintained a rigid schedule doing on line training courses and working with community editions of product to sharpen new skills. Although my previous employer had a virtual environment it was a private cloud administered by an external supplier so I have been looking at AWS and am working towards the system architect associate exam which gives a good grounding. I am also porting my VB.NET skills to C# and will combine this with the above to look at Lambda programming for Talend. A LinkedIn learning subscription is proving invaluable in this respect. I also hope to look at the other products in the Talend range such as MDM, QA Big Data and Talend Cloud.
