My name is Kirsty and I used to make computers do as they are told, most of the time they listen to me and sometimes they don't. Developing is a passion for me, whether its a paid piece of work or a personal project I enjoy and take pride in what I do.
I recently changed careers to work within the Ambulance service and I am planning on continuing on that career path. With regard to developing, I do maintain my skills as a hoby and do occasionally take on work when I have the time.
Roles
London Ambulance Service: Emergency Ambulance Crew
I joined LAS as a Trainee Emergency Ambulance Crew in 2019 and spent my first 6 months in a classroom followed by 12 months responding as a 999 ambulance alongside a qualified EAC or a Paramedic.
Following my qualification in February 2020 I have worked with trainees myself and in late 2020 as part of the response to the COVID pandemic I worked on a covid support line with a police officer responding to 999 calls as the sole clinician.
Each shift I attend to patients in a variety of settings and assess them before providing appropriate management ranging from direct PPCI pathways to referrals to primary care. Most patients I attend can be managed by myself
but some required advanced clinical care which involves working as part of a multidisciplinary team in a high-pressure environment to provide the best medical care to multiple casualties or time-critical patients.
I am currently studying for my Paramedic Science degree whilst remaining employed with the trust.
Feed it back: Software Engineer
Shelter UK: Backend Developer
In my time at Shelter I have been involved in everything from refactoring old code to dealing with a large amount of technical debt. My main focus is around a few internal api servers which provide the backbone of our online services. One of my responsibilities was to reach feature parity with these new servers so we could decommission old and insecure infrastructure.
I have been involved in a wide range of projects within Shelter across all our product teams including projects involving the following:- Automated scripts to bridge the gap between systems.
- Compiling data exports & reports using Python.
- Building monitoring tools for internal & external infrastructure.
- Developing internal apis using Laravel & Lumen.
- Helping design & implement new systems.
Diverse Interactive: Full Stack Developer
Most of my role consists of building Laravel based applications to help manage Apps and Systems. I have also been working more with Linux based servers and AWS cloud hosting.
Mintedbox: Web Developer
I was initially employed alongside my apprenticeship and then I stayed on as a full stack developer.
Whilst my role is a fullstack developer, my projects mainly consist of websites requiring bespoke systems or admin interfaces. I have gained experience in building mobile apps via Cordova as well as PHP based APIs to go with them. I have built many sites ranging from ecommerce sites with third party inventory management integrations to booking systems for hotels.
Personal Projects
CAD
CAD is a web based computer aided dispatch system for a Fivem based roleplay community. It comprises of a VueJs based frontend with a PHP backend that utilises Slim and Eloquent which is attached to a MariaDB database. It is designed to give upwards of 50 concurent users a live updating management system which utilises websockets to rapidly update users when information changes.
Whilst the code is currently closed source, I am looking at making a open version in the future.
Screeps
Screeps is a RTS game that is powered by javascript code that runs in a constant loop. Players use their Javascript code to control little figures (screeps) in an attempt to fight other players, develop land and eventually form an empire (not that I got that far).
For me, Screeps was an adventure into attempting to build a Javascript based bot whilst also allowing me to learn Typescript. I never did get far into the game but I enjoy the time sync it gave me. The bot can be found here.
Clevergirls was an online gaming community and news site dedicated to promoting and informing players about online games that interest its audience. Content included articles, podcasts and streams. I worked as the sole developer on the project and was tasked with building both the front and backend of the site.
The frontend was customer facing and displayed articles and other content that was written by authors on the site. The backend contained a simple system for content authors to write articles and upload content. This was then proof read by editors who would make edits before submitting the finished pieces to the site.
- Backend with multiple user levels.
- Management of users and groups.
- Author interface to create and draft articles.
- Editor interface to edit and release articles.
- Streamer interface to schedule streams for display in the timetable.
- Tag system for filtering articles.
- Article categories to allow for podcasts and blogs.
- Streamer timetable with links to twitch and other streaming services.
- Commenting on articles with Disqus.
Polaris was an automated assistant for an intelligence network for the game EVEonline, it ran and collected information from automated relays and external sources.
Components of Polaris include:
- Management of 4 linux servers.
- Desktop Python programs to collect specific program log files.
- EVE single sign on and REST api integration.
- Discord bots on a Python framework to output important information.
Above is a interactive list of some of the technologies I have worked with and my thoughts on them.
Click an icon to read about it
Volunteering
St John Ambulance: Ambulance Technician
After the BRC stopped its Event First aid department I along with many other volunteers moved across to St John Ambulance where I continue to volunteer my time to assist at events.
British Red Cross: Medical volunteering
I volunteered with the BRC before I joined the ambulance service at a wide variety of events and achieved several in house qualifications in relation to resusitation.