Profile

I spent a lot of time alone as a child due to where I lived being somewhat isolated, this meant I had to entertain myself a lot.  Because of this I got into Lego and into the VERY early days of games consoles and home computers.  I have always played games since my early teens and still do now that I’m 50.  I also read a lot and watch a lot of movies and sci-fi TV series.

Right up until a short while before I started college though I wanted to follow my dad into horticulture (gardening and grounds keeping), but it was ultimately him who suggested I’d be better off taking an IT course, and the rest is history.

My first proper IT role was at company that repaired monitors for all the companies in the world that made them at the time.  I started working there as a temp doing data entry, they found out I had a background in IT and offered me an IT Junior role.  I wrote a lot of software for them for handheld devices called Psions that streamlined a lot of their processes and reduced costs.  18 months later I applied for a role at IBM and was lucky enough to get it.

10 years later I left IBM and over the next 15 years worked for several different companies as a contractor, such as:

• The BBC
• Fidelity
• DWP
• Unilever
• Aviva

I even went back to IBM twice over the years!

I now work for Legal & General as a Database Administrator (DBA) Lead, running a small team responsible for many databases.

My team and I are essentially responsible for “keeping the lights on” when it comes to databases.  We make sure they are running smoothly, available as required and it’s our job to spot problems, find out what’s causing them and then fix it as quickly as possible.

We are also responsible for updating and patching (applying fixes) to the software and the operating systems they run on for the databases we look after.

We also write code in the form of scripts or programs that produce reports, monitor our database platforms or perform maintenance tasks that we don’t want to do manually.

We work exclusively in Microsofts’ Azure cloud computing platform, but within that we run many different types of databases, running in different ways.

We also work with IT architects and developers to help design and build databases for new applications and projects.

When I logon first thing I tend to check my emails, a lot of the systems I look after send status emails checking various things early in the morning using scripts (code) written by me.  I check these emails looking for items that need my attention or issues I need to fix.

The wider team we are part of is known as Platform Operations and we have what’s called a “Stand-Up” call shortly after 9am where we give brief updates on what we’ve been up to, what we plan to do that day, and highlight any issues or key information we think the team as whole need to know about.

Then I if I think we need to, they’ll I’ll have a quick catch-up with my team either over Microsoft Teams or with a quick video meeting.

Then my day will be a mixture of meetings on all sorts of subjects, writing new code for various things, solving problems, teaching colleages how to do things, writing documents or how to guides.