John Finlayson

Profile

I have over 19 years as an IT professional, working in development and management roles in various commercial environments. Over the last few years I have been working as a freelance developer and architect.

Core skills

Employment

I worked on several teams at Standard Life. Initially I was involved in implementing business services using Java, XML and DB2 for the Standard Life's J2EE SOA. I then spent a short time migrating existing WAS 4 projects to RAD 6/WAS 5. Towards the end of the year I moved on to developing business services for document scanning and workflow management, integrating the standard SOA services with third party software (DST and Netserver), using Java, XML and Oracle.

My role at IF was initially to implement changes to the on-line banking system required by the introduction of new FSA mortgage regulations. This mainly involved designing and implementing XML and Oracle schema and related SOA (service oriented architecture) Java on the IF mid-tier, ensuring integration with both database and front tier. After the successful delivery of this project, I moved onto a redesign of the the IF product model, implementing widespread changes to the architecture. In addition, I was given the task of designing and implementing a standalone web-based tool (JSP's, servlets and DAO's) to allow business users to model and create new mortgage products.

Vebnet is a small start-up company, producing an on-line employee benefits facility to allow companies to out-source much of their HR work. I was involved in the complete lifecycle, with requirements capture, software and database design, specification and coding of virtually all parts of the system. This was an OO web application, designed using UML, and implemented as Java servlets and JSP running on a SQL Server 2000 database on NT (with the intention of moving to Oracle on Unix at a later phase).

My role involved the initial analysis of the requirements as provided by the domain specialists, and the choice and design of the architecture. The analysis and design were done using UML in Rational Rose. Once the proposed design and specifications were accepted, I coordinated the development team of contractors that implemented them (using a mix of JSP's and servlets, an object/relational JDBC layer, and SQL stored procedures). After the product was launched, the contractors (with the exception of myself) were replaced by permanent staff. At this point I took on the role of introducing the new staff to the product, while continuing to oversee further development. As the product became commercially established, I worked on new design and development, and provided technical input to third-party clients.

After joining Telelogic (formerly QSS) I was mainly involved in new product development, as the company moved on from its original DOORS requirements management tools.

Initially I participated in the design and implementation of a C-based conversion of existing software to allow it to run on Oracle, rather than its original proprietary database system. This entailed designing the Oracle table structure, changing the low-level database interfaces to use Oracle via RogueWave libraries, and writing a conversion utility capable of converting large customer databases.

Since the end of 1999 I was involved in the development of a completely new three-tier product, designed from the ground up. My main contributions were in the areas of designing the database structures, providing XML schemas to describe the database design, the Java software to convert these XML schemas automatically into Enterprise Java Beans, and the underlying EJB's that form the core middleware for application-specific servlets to use when communicating with the Oracle 8.1.6 database. As part of the beta program for BEA's WebLogic 5.1 application server, we were required to develop a good understanding of EJB/app server technology. We also took advantage of Oracle's SQLJ for simplifying JDBC interface code.

After joining Radius I was principally involved in the development of a leading retail system, OpenRSA, a configurable central and/or store system comprising all the major areas amenable to software control, from POS to warehousing.

I managed the Edinburgh office from the start of 1995, with a staff of twenty mainly technical personnel, reporting to the MD at the company's head office in Milton Keynes. On a day-to-day basis, I was involved in the recruitment and management of development staff in Edinburgh. I also organised and ran the company's Intranet, which I was responsible for setting up.

I was also responsible for the technical management of all areas of software development throughout the company, coordinating the efforts of several development teams at different sites working on different customer projects, both in the UK and abroad (Canada, Mexico and USA), and was personally in charge of a major project to implement GUI and database-independence for the entire OpenRSA product.

I was a member of the Product Strategy Group, with direct input into the future of the product, and of the Technical Committee, with responsibility for the definition and implementation of design changes and programming standards, and in ensuring that software was developed and released in a controlled manner.

I was in charge of a small software development team, responsible for all aspects of project development from initial specification and design, coding, testing and quality control, to installation, training and subsequent customer support.

General

Prior to starting in IT, I worked as a technical translator on a National Guard housing project in Taïf, Saudi Arabia (I was responsible for setting up and then running language courses for over 2000 French and Filipino employees, as well as technical translation and interpreting at all levels). I also worked offshore, leading high-pressure water blasting teams, mainly for oil and gas separators, on production platforms in the North Sea.

I have also had various other short-term jobs, including managing a café in Edinburgh's Grassmarket, developing and selling C graphics libraries, and writing a novel.

I have a MA Honours in Mental Philosophy from Edinburgh University.

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