Summary
Overview
Work history
Education
Skills
Custom
Technologies
Timeline
Generic
Tom Watkins

Tom Watkins

Telford,United Kingdom

Summary

I am a senior/lead software engineer with 10+ years of experience, mostly working in web development with clients in a wide range of industries. I specialise in full stack development, with skill in multiple programming languages. As a programming hobbyist in my spare time I am also on a constant drive to improve as a developer and learn new technologies.

Overview

11
11
years of professional experience
2
2
years of post-secondary education

Work history

Senior Software Engineer

Made Tech
01.2025 - Current

Lead Software Developer

Start Software
Telford
02.2020 - 12.2024
  • Became responsible for code quality across the business
  • Achieved several sizeable cost optimisations on our AWS infrastructure
  • Actively began mentoring several junior developers
  • Started using Nextjs and React as software development tools
  • Moved several codebases from JavaScript to TypeScript
  • Migrated the majority of our source code from SVN to Git and implemented better code review processes
  • Developed a document production product written in Python to replace a long existing legacy product. This resulted in huge document production speed and reliability improvements for clients, as well as significantly cheaper hosting costs for us. This was also our first time hosting on Linux, as we had been primarily using Windows servers until this point.
  • Worked as the lead developer on our first AI applications, creating a tool to be used to enhance the onboarding experience at a large legal services business
  • Worked on significantly improving the documentation for our internal tools by building markdown sites using Astro

Software Developer

Start Software
Telford
11.2015 - 02.2020
  • Worked mostly on site with clients developing bespoke software solutions for their businesses, working in additional industries including legal services, archaeology and manufacturing.
  • Began to manage our AWS infrastructure and worked on cost optimisations
  • Developed and maintained a Node.js application responsible for pricing and production at £100m+ animal feed business
  • Inherited several legacy VB.Net projects and became the sole maintainer of these
  • Introduced and implemented Jira as a project management tool to improve our project management processes and issue tracking

Junior Software Developer

Start Software
Telford
08.2014 - 11.2015
  • Advanced Level Apprenticeship in IT Application Specialist
  • Learned the fundamentals of web development including HTML, CSS and JavaScript
  • Worked with SQL databases, primarily Microsoft SQL Server
  • Used Alpha Anywhere (a low-code tool) to build web and mobile applications
  • Gained experience working directly on site with clients in industries such as sales, recycling and animal feed production

Education

Computer Games Programming -

Staffordshire University
08.2012 - 08.2013

Advanced Level Apprenticeship - undefined

IT Application Specialist
08.2014 - 08.2015

TQUK Level 2 Certificate - undefined

Principles of Team Leading (RQF)

Skills

  • Customer communication
  • Technical explanation
  • Problem solving
  • Process improvements
  • Skilled in multiple programming languages

Custom

JavaScript / TypeScript (Browser and Node.js), Python, VB.Net, T-SQL, HTML5, CSS3 / SASS, Markdown, XBasic (proprietary server side language used in Alpha Anywhere), Go (hobbyist), Front End Frameworks - React, Next.js (including App router), Astro, React Tools - React/TanStack Query, Redux, Zustand, Web Frameworks - Express, Fastify, Hono, tRPC, Flask, ORMs - Prisma, Drizzle ORM, Mongoose, Build Tools - Vite, Webpack, Testing Frameworks - Vitest, Mocha/Chai, Jest, CSS - TailwindCSS, Emotion, CSS Modules, AI - Vercel AI SDK, LangChain (TS), HeyGen, Auth - Lucia, Supabase, UI - Shadcn, Bootstrap, Mantine, Other - jQuery, Zod, Celery, Microsoft SQL Server, Postgres, MongoDB, VCS - Git (GitHub), SVN, AWS - EC2 / S3 / RDS / SES / SQS / Elastic Beanstalk / CloudFront / Code Pipeline / CloudFront / ECS / Fargate, Atlassian - Jira / Confluence, Windows Server, Linux, Docker, GraphQL

Technologies

Languages


  • JavaScript / TypeScript (Browser and Node.js)
  • Python
  • Kotlin
  • Visual Basic .Net
  • Go (hobbyist)
  • T-SQL
  • HTML5
  • CSS3 / SASS
  • Terraform


Frameworks / Libraries


  • Front End Frameworks - React, Next.js (including App router), Astro
  • React Tools - React/TanStack Query, Redux
  • Web Frameworks - Express, Fastify, Hono, tRPC, Flask, Spring Boot
  • ORMs - Prisma, Drizzle ORM, Mongoose, JPA (w/ Flyway)
  • Build Tools - Vite, Webpack
  • Testing Frameworks - Vitest, Mocha/Chai, Jest, JUnit, testify
  • CSS - TailwindCSS, Emotion, CSS Modules
  • AI - Vercel AI SDK, LangChain (TS), HeyGen
  • Auth - Lucia, Supabase, Better Auth
  • UI - Shadcn/ui, Bootstrap, Mantine
  • Other - jQuery, Zod, Celery


Databases


  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Postgres
  • MongoDB


Other


  • VCS - Git (GitHub), SVN
  • AWS - EC2 / S3 / RDS / SES / SQS / SNS / SSM / IAM / Elastic Beanstalk / CloudFront / Code Pipeline / CloudFront / ECS / Fargate / Cloudwatch
  • Atlassian - Jira / Confluence
  • Windows Server
  • Linux
  • Docker
  • GraphQL

Timeline

Senior Software Engineer

Made Tech
01.2025 - Current

Lead Software Developer

Start Software
02.2020 - 12.2024

Software Developer

Start Software
11.2015 - 02.2020

Junior Software Developer

Start Software
08.2014 - 11.2015

Advanced Level Apprenticeship - undefined

IT Application Specialist
08.2014 - 08.2015

Computer Games Programming -

Staffordshire University
08.2012 - 08.2013

TQUK Level 2 Certificate - undefined

Principles of Team Leading (RQF)

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Tom Watkins