Chris Rimmer

I'm a programmer and general nerd in the UK who wants to write JavaScript.

Phone: +44 7990 031337
Email: work@rimmer.wtf
LinkedIn

Stuff I kinda know:

Javascript: Typescript (3y), React (4y), Preact (4y), Node (4y), Deno (1y)
GCP: Cloud Run (1y), Cloud SQL (1y)
Postgres (4y)
Redis (6mo)
Linux: Shell scripting, service management, system administration, all the other goofy stuff you have to know to daily-drive this disaster of an operating system
Agile philosophy / principles (not the cargo cult kind)
ISO 3103

Stuff I kinda don't know:

How to use Windows or MacOS
How to hire people

Work experience:

2023-Ongoing Adaptive Web Ltd - Architect + Lead prototype Engineer

Preact | Deno | Postgres | Google Cloud Run | Google Cloud SQL

Worked with stakeholders to specify requirements of a proposed security-as-a-service product to be prototyped
Selected suitable technology with which to build the prototype to test assumptions about hosting infrastructure, performance, and scalability
Developed a fully-working rules-based-security engine in 3 weeks with more features than any commercial offerings the company could find
Ongoing - Developing a crude but complete (in the spirit of being a proof-of-concept) administration panel and UI over the top of the RBA engine to trial with customers
Tested and selected a cloud-based hosting environment for the program, using Google Cloud Run as the execution environment and Cloud SQL as the data store to ensure scalability and reliability against potentially unknown and variable load levels of the deployed system

2021-2022 TK Events UK Ltd - System architect, senior full stack engineer, dev team lead, client technical contact, wearer of many hats

React | Deno | Node | Postgres | Elastic

Worked with client account managers and event designers to design and build a self-service interface that our clients' clients could use to manage their content at events. This reduced a process wherein data went through three handoffs across four different people at three organisations to zero handoffs, massively reducing both effort and latency involved in building an event
Got the dev team away from hand-writing HTML by designing and building a framework and an accompanying component library containing React implementations of all our virtual venue features as well as several new ones that were made feasible by the departure from hand-written HTML.
Designed and built microservices to handle various small and isolated pieces of functionality for each of several different venue services, including drop-in social video calls (intended to emulate the ad-hoc nature of social rooms etc found in live events), session attendance tracking for CPD points, and synchronisation of our attendee's registration data with our clients
Designed a self-service event management system with input from stakeholders in all areas of the business, capable of interfacing with several different registration platforms (starting with Swoogo and Cvent), with the intention of onboarding new clients who already run their own events through any of those services. Unfortunately this is still in-development as of my departure so I can't vouch for its effectiveness!
Coordinated on an ongoing basis with our most demanding clients to meet their needs at our virtual events, designing tools and systems based on continuous feedback

2019-2020 PCCW Global - Full stack developer, scrum master

Built another Storybook component library, apparently I seem to enjoy doing that kind of thing
Designed and built a custom domain-specific form builder that allowed junior devs and non-technical staff to build configuration forms for complex Broadsoft VOIP feature configuration based on ongoing consultation with front-end engineers elsewhere in the team
Worked with VOIP SMEs, POs, BAs and support staff to design and build a configuration management system for various VOIP hardware platforms

2017-2018 NIO Formula E Race team - Infrastructure engineer, trackside IT specialist

Built automation tools using Windows task scheduler and some batch scripts to handle telemetry extraction from the car whenever it was connected, easing the workload for mechanics and engineers
Deployed and managed Resilio to improve telemetry data sync performance from the very bandwidth-limited track environment to HQ for strategy analysis

2016-2017 Twogether Creative Ltd - Developer

Laravel | Angular

Built small + simple marketing landing pages etc using Angular JS, usually on sub-1-week timescales
Maintained + improved our internal SaaS product, PartnerMarketing, which was a Docker-hosted microservice-based (though I would call it a set of miniliths as the services weren't even remotely isolated or independent)

2014-2016 Multiplay UK Ltd (now Unity and Player1 Events) - Junior developer

Built a benchmarking suite to periodically produce matrixes of deployment times of different VM types across various different Azure regions, which we used in our automated autoscaling hybrid tin + cloud game server hosting platform
Built the automated deployment and provisioning system we used to order, provision, monitor, and deprovision Azure cloud instances based on current demand. Or rather, which we would have used if we actually ended up hosting on Azure.
Collaborated on a tournament management system that would manage player + team entries into tournaments and handled ranking + bracketing etc to try and maintain a fun competition for our LAN party attendees
Implemented numerous custom features including a proprietary SSO system for various vBulletin based forums we operated for Telefonica

Non-work stuff I've done that I think is cool:

2016 - Robot Wars - Team Doomba

Worked with a bunch of friends to design and build a combat robot from scratch in 5 weeks ready for Robot Wars
Wrote a low-level digital signal processor to convert conventional RC control signals to some weird proprietary chinese motor controller input signal format
Wrote all control logic for the robot, converting twin-stick inputs in both car-steer and tank-steer control schemes (to suit different drivers' preferences) into raw control signals for the electromechanical drive system
Designed the power system for Doomba's control electronics, propulsion system, and primary + secondary weapon drives
Welded. A lot.

2016 - Monte Carlo Or Bust charity banger rally - The Nerd Herd

Decorated a car (full paint job and decals) in 2 days with team colours etc
Took care of team fundraising (we managed to get attention from the actual cast of the show we were dressing up as!)
Prepared the car for a 2,500 mile road trip in unfamiliar territory with no support once we left the UK

2018-2023 - PedalBox on Youtube - Building a car

I don't really know how to turn this one into bullet points so I'll just say a buddy and I are literally building an entire car from scratch to our own design in his driveway.

2020 - ZF 8HP transmission control computer

Designed and wrote an entire control computer for the ZF 8HP 8 speed automotive transmission
Built prototype breadboard circuits and a simulator test harness that pretended to be an actual physical transmission, simulating sensor outputs to the computer based on various control signals and real-world behaviour

Other notes about me:

I'm a nerd. I like learning new stuff.

I once built a 2D orbital motion simulator just to see if the 3D equations from the real world compressed to two dimensions properly. Turns out they sorta do but there are some weird singularities, so I wrote new versions of some of the equations so they wouldn't explode.

I've decided it will be smart to retrofit fuel injection and a turbo on a 40 year old Rover with known cylinder head problems, and am currently working on a way to use 1990s BMW M3 parts to make that work.

One day I wondered what might go into making rocket fuel so I destroyed a wok making solid rocket propellant in my kitchen. I never made a rocket with it, but I did encase an iPhone in the stuff and light it. The iPhone did not survive.

I think that just about covers everything. Thanks for reading!