Projects - Experience - Skills/knowledge - Education - Interests - Contact details
Product manager turned developer trying to stay out of my comfort zone. I started out as a website designer/manager before running a startup and then later as website product owner for large charity. I've learned to be a developer at Makers Academy.
I love being part of building digital products, so I want to continue doing that as a developer - challenging myself as much as possible by building complex and difficult things for ambitious companies.
There's more on my website
Email me
| Project/Summary | Technologies | Testing |
|---|---|---|
| Email Service | ||
| A project to mimic the basic functionality of how an email service works. This includes (nearly) all the basic elements you'd require for your own email service. | Node.js, Express. React. |
Jest |
| MakersBnb | ||
| Group project at Makers Academy. Built the basic functionality of AirBnb. Users can sign-up, add rooms and rent rooms. I focused on the data models, ensuring they all interlinked correctly. | Ruby with Sinatra. Semantic UI. |
RSpec. Capybara. |
| Alexa Skill - Dog Translator | ||
| A basic Alexa app that takes the user's command and 'whoofs' back at them. Very sophisticated. Has been used over 8.5k times! |
JS. AWS - Lambda. |
Before learning TDD. Sorry. |
| Data visualisation dashboard | ||
| A small project to play around with data files. It can import a CSV, manipulates and turns it into JSON and then visualises it. | Node.js. D3. Bootstrap. |
Pre-TDD - please forgive. |
| Bowling Challenge | ||
| Webapp that scores a single player game of bowling. The scoring of bowling (and where to put all that business logic within React) is annoying deceptive. | React. Semantic UI. |
Jest |
| Fishnet (Live) (GitHub) | ||
| Fortnight long four person group. Built the basic functionality of a social media platform and most importantly get it deployed. I focused more on the getting our continuous deployment setup on AWS, I also wrote a little about the 'fun' I had with it. | Ruby on Rails. AWS. Bootstrap |
RSpec for Rails. Capybara FactoryBot |
Senior Digital Channels Manager (maternity cover), Marie Curie (July 2017 - April 2018)
Digital Communications Programme Manager, Institute of Physics (March 2016 - July 2017)
Successfully managed the maturing of established digital products. Turning business needs all the way through the product development cycle. Establishing and running SCRUM teams as well as looking after design, analytics and user experience.
Founder, The Gifting Co. (Full-time: September 2015 - January 2016)
Turned my vision for a personalised gift buying service into a business. The plan was to automate the ideas process for recommending gift. Received an early stage investment from Forward Partners - a venture capital fund. I wrote this at the start of that journey and this at the end.
Consultant, main client Crimestoppers (November 2014 - September 2015)
Digital Communications Manager, Asthma UK (January 2013 - November 2014)
Digital Communications Officer, Trade Union Congress (September 2011 - January 2013)
Managed thriving large, content driven websites for non-profits. Twice project managed the rebuild and redesign of the Content Management Systems. Extensive copywriting/editing and campaign management.
Freelancer (December 2011 - July 2016)
Delivered the design and build projects (on Wordpress) for dozens and dozens of small clients. Often sub-contracted from agencies. Worked extensively on CSS frameworks like Bootstrap.
Having been part of so many big and small projects over the last decade I believe I've picked up a lot of lessons about how to be a good team member. I'm normally a calming influence and air on the side of over communicating.
From a product management prospective, I know how SCRUM works - turning business needs into user stories, discussing and amending those stories after discussion with developers and being part of daily, weekly and per-sprint ceremonies.
At the Institute of Physics I worked to set-up a small Agile team and then at Marie Curie I lead a larger and well established Agile team.
I've managed proprietary, open source (Wordpress, Drupal, Umbraco) and enterprise-level (Episerver) Content Management Systems. These websites have ranged from having barely any traffic to multiple millions of users a year.
Highly selective 12 week intensive coding bootcamp.
- Test driven development focused
- Object oriented programming & software design
- Full stack web development
- Building MVC framework pattern
BA in Global politics and international relations
Foundation certificate in public relations
Pretty much just food really. Eating it, cooking it, reading about it, staring at it on Instagram. Can I be friends with Jamie Oliver now?
Email - ben@fu.rber.io
Phone - 0770 416 3099
Github - @benfurber