Sabbatical

I've enjoyed spending more time with my kids (even teaching them some programming!).

Twitch (Justin.TV), California

I was Twitch's first engineering hire.

I created many of the first versions of several Twitch products, and worked on a diverse range of the technologies that the company created -- from the original chat backend (Python/Twisted, scaled to 500,000 concurrents) to the company's first iOS app (Objective C).

Macrovision, California

The first startup I worked for (NetPD) was acquired by Macrovision in 2003, and we were given the task of building from scratch Macrovision's new internet antipiracy product. I was responsible for a wide variety of work including:

• Architecture, design and implementation of large distributed systems written in Java
• Large amounts of network programming in Java, particularly NIO (non-blocking I/O), for servers that were each required to maintain and service upwards of 25,000 simultaneous connections
• Various novel solutions to difficult problems, for example writing a very fast cache for a database server when our SQL queries (on about 14 million rows) were taking several minutes

NetPD, London

As the first employee at London-based startup NetPD, I was responsible for anything and everything from Java, C and C++ programming to UNIX administration and reverse engineering of network protocols.

During my employment at NetPD I co-designed and co-wrote a program that would match a given clip of audio against a large database of music recordings. The matching was sufficiently robust that it could cope with the distortions introduced by mp3 encoders, loudspeakers and microphones.

Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Nottingham.

• Three months spent as a Guest Researcher at Brown University, USA
• Presentation of original research at International Banach Algebra Conference in California, 1999
• Weekly lectures given to undergraduate students

• Python, JavaScript, Java, C, and Common Lisp programming, all to a reasonably advanced level
• Some Ruby, C++, Actionscript, Bash, Objective C and Scheme programming
• Extensive use of Emacs, including some ELisp programming
• Working in a UNIX environment since 1995 (originally Sun Sparc and, from 1999, Linux)
• The L^AT_EX scientific typesetting language, and the HTML and CSS markup and presentation languages
• A little Linux kernel module programming

My formal education is in Mathematics:

• Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics. Nottingham University, September 1997 - March 2001.
  Thesis title "Properties of Banach function algebras"
• B.Sc. in Mathematics. Nottingham University, 1994 - 1997

• "Completions of normed algebras of differentiable functions", Studia Mathematica 170 (2005), 89-111.
• Patent 20050216433: Audio Matching
• Patent 20070143405: Techniques for measuring peer-to-peer networks
• Patent 20050091167: Interdiction of unauthorized copying in a decentralized network