Mark Abbott
Head of Application Development
Profile
Mark is an Application Developer and Head of Application Development, with over 17 years of development experience, and 5 years experience of delivering applications of high business importance to internationally recognised brands.
As well as having a proven track record of delivering application development projects to time and to budget, and which help the business to improve overheads; Mark also has experience in improving process, and introducing complex toolsets to developers to achieve these improvements.
Links
Skills
moreDeveloper Management
I have experience of managing teams of different sizes, from 2 to 10 members; including off-shore and far-shore resources. My experience includes working in Waterfall and Agile environments.
From June 2015 until present, I am the Head of Application Development, managing teams of developers and testers based in the UK and overseas; including 3rd party team members and fixed-price statements of work.
My work involves the planning of development tasks and the management of a development pipeline; working with test teams and test leads; and the personnel management of the development team.
My experience covers the creation of a toolset to cover the complete software development lifecycle, including Continuous Integration and Delivery tools, SCM, static code analysis, issue management, ITIL processes, coding standards and workflows.
Design & Modernisation
I have produced, and implemented, technical and architectural design for in-house ERP systems for a large multi-national Business Service organisation, including devising strategies and technologies for modernisation efforts and cloud migration.
Recently, my work has focussed on the modernisation of the company's in-house ERP system, working with system architects to rebuild the application and to devise strategies and technologies; and to do this without significant down-time and whilst reducing risk to everyday availability.
Modernisation strategies have been used to rebuild the application in a cloud environment, changing application architecture, database technologies, and implementation languages.
Project Direction
Proven ability to lead and manage a wide variety of design and development projects in team and independent situations, including working with Project Managers, Business Analysts, 3rd party suppliers and internal customers.
Over several years, I have worked as the development lead and development manager on application development and deployment projects. This has involved working in both Agile and Waterfall environments, working with team members with different skill sets; such as project managers, testers and business analysts.
Technical
more- Google Cloud Platform
- Progress 4GL - 9.1D
- Progress OpenEdge - 10.2A
- Progress OpenEdge - 11.6
- Progress PASOE
- SOAP Web Services
- RESTful Web Services
- HTML5 & CSS
- Terraform
- PHP
- CakePHP
- Angular v10
- jQuery
- SonarQube
- Unit Testing
- Ant & PCT
- Subversion & Git
- Roundtable TSMS
- iOS Development
- Bitbucket Pipelines
- Jenkins
- Atlassian Bamboo
- Linux
- Mac OS X
Non-Technical
more- Google Workspace
- Jira Cloud Administration
- Confluence Cloud Administration
- Bitbucket Cloud Administration
- Microsoft Office
- Agile & Scrum
- SAFe Scrum Master
- Product Ownership
- Developmer & Resource Allocation
- Release Planning
- Public Speaking
- Developer Training
- Coaching & Mentoring
- Process Improvement
- Change Management
Qualifications
Experience
moreRentokil-Initial plc
Head of Application Development and Test
Head of Application Development and Test, working with teams of developers on back-office and field applications for global sales, servicing and customer billing.
My main focus has been the modernisation of the company's global in-house ERP system, re-engineering its user interface into a modern web application; devising technologies to allow existing functionality to be repurposed; and working with architects to devise strategies for moving server side logic and APIs into the cloud.
Quru Ltd
Application Developer
Application Developer working on the company's main retail product in the Auction business. My role was to work as an Application Developer, analysing User Specifications, writing Technical Specifications and implementing development changes; as well as ensuring the quality standards of my work, and that of my team members.
Rentokil-Initial plc
Application Development Manager
Application Development Manager for the company's global Customer Contract Administration system. I was responsible for 10 permanent developers, and 6 contract resources, in multiple locations world-wide, including teams in Malaysia, India and the USA. My role involved the work-allocation for the developers, as well as Development Pipeline planning and management; Release Planning and Coordination.
Rentokil-Initial plc
Application Development Team Manager
Application Development Team Manager for a team of six developers working on the company's global Customer Contract Administration system. My role involved the personnel-management of six developers; and the work allocation of a further 13 developers world-wide.
Rentokil-Initial plc
Analyst Programmer
Application Developer working on the company's global Customer Contract Administration system. My duties involved designing and implementing new functionality, as well as interfacing with internal customers and being a Technical Lead on several projects.
Futuremedia plc
Computer Support Technician
Provided Home Computer technical support to customers of the company's, government backed, Home Computer Initiative scheme. Coordinated the work of other technicians on the help desk.
Shorephones / 101Mobiles.com
Computer Support Technician
Whilst studying for my BSc in Computer Science, I developed and maintained the website for a mobile phone company. My role involved site design, copy writing, banner design, PHP and MySQL development, and linking to the company's online sales package, Actinic Catalog (v5 and v6).
Education
moreUniversity of Reading — Reading, UK
BSc in Computer Science — 2:1 degree
- Compiler Design
- Computer Architecture
- Operating System Design
- Genetic Algorithms
- Artificial Intelligence
- Functional Programming
- Formal Methods
- Logic
- Computer Vision
Kings Manor Sixth Form Centre — Shoreham By Sea
A-Levels
- Electronics
- Grade: B
- SMP Mathematics
- Grade: C
- Spanish
- Grade: C
Kings Manor Secondary School — Shoreham By Sea
9 GCSEs — A* to B
- >
- English
- Grades: AB
- Mathematics
- Grade: A
- Science
- Grades: AA