Interactive Development specialist and Technical Leader with 13 years experience working with digital agencies, game studios and start-ups.

Working with a range of tools, processes and technologies, I specialise in ambitious creative projects with a current interest in Data Visualisation, VR and 3D.


Skills


Employment history

Key: specialism, research/non-public-facing, oversight/management.

Hive Innovation Unit - GSK - 2018

Creative Technology Consultant (Virtual Reality)

9 week Immersive Technology research project working in the Hive Innovation Unit of GSK.

Details of the project are confidential, however the high-level goal of the project was for a small specialist team to assess and advise on the use of VR against the goals of one of the key business units.

Produced a Best Practice 'VR Playbook', High-level Unity prototypes, Cost Estimates and facilitated a series of ideation workshops.

Project resulted in a successful final presentation to senior stakeholders.

Technologies:
  • JS (ES6)
  • Unity
Clients:
  • GSK

Adobe Consulting - 2017/18

Lead Front End AEM Developer

Working as a Lead Developer on a on full platform rebuild of Center Parcs UK using Adobe AEM.

I joined the project 1 year into its development, supporting the delivery of the first phase and design and definition of the second.

I was formally responsible for two front-end developers and proactively assumed project-level responsibility for the full team of 9 developers, working to raise the standard of the existing codebase by improving development workflows, arranging fortnightly discipline meetings and agreeing and documenting coding standards and best practice.

This was a client facing role, working directly with Product Owners to plan, prioritise, develop and support the project.

Technologies:
  • HTML5
  • JS (ES6)
  • CSS3
  • Gulp
  • Jest
  • AEM
Clients:
  • Center Parcs

Digitas LBi - 2016/17

Lead Interface Developer/Technical Architect

Working in the Interface Development team of Project Helios. Helios is a component driven platform for Nissan and Renault that serves 276 websites across six automotive brands.

Produced complex Technical Architectures for JavaScript applications and lead multiple teams of onshore and offshore developers concurrently.

Responsibilities included Development Leadership, Technical Architecture and hands-on development.

Technologies:
  • HTML5
  • JS
  • CSS3
  • Backbone/Marionette
  • Grunt
  • Jasmine
  • AEM
Clients:
  • Nissan
  • Renault

Riot Games - 2015/16

Creative Technologist

Responsible for providing in-house Creative Technology expertise to the European marketing, community and events teams.

Contributed to the ideation and delivery of the League of Legends World Championship event in October 2015 that sold out stadiums in Paris, London, Brussels and Berlin and drew 334 million unique online viewers across the world.

Oversaw the pitch process for multiple partners and contributed my own development skills to deliver a social experience used by 150,000 players.

Extended Riot's global user-interface components to support European requirements.

Technologies:
  • HTML5
  • JS
  • CSS3
  • Gulp
  • Browserify
Clients:
  • League of Legends/Riot Games

AnalogFolk - 2014

Head of Development/Technical Lead

Joined AnalogFolk to support a period of rapid growth during a leadership transition for their technical department.

Responsibilities included department and project strategy, task management and day-to-day support of the development team. I also lead the technical team for Chivas Regal personally.

The contract culminated in the successful delivery of the first phase of a 6 month project championing social entrepreneurship.

Technologies:
  • HTML5
  • JS
  • CSS3
  • PHP
  • Symfony2
  • SASS
  • PhoneGap
  • Grunt
  • Jenkins
  • Git
  • Vagrant
Clients:
  • Chivas Regal
  • Sainsburys
  • Seat
  • AkzoNobel/Dulux

Razorfish - 2013-2015

Lead Creative Technologist

Working primarily on the McDonald's account, I was responsible for the technical output for an incredibly active client. I was a client-facing member of the leadership team with responsibility for new briefs, maintenance and long-term technical strategy.

Worked on over twenty projects, with permanent staff, McDonald's IT, freelancers and trusted third parties, earning 9 FWA awards over twelve months.

Technologies:
  • HTML5
  • JS
  • CSS3
  • Adobe CQ5
  • Grunt
  • Pixi.JS
  • Vuforia
  • iOS
  • Android
  • Python
  • OpenCV
  • Ember
  • Amazon AWS
  • Git
Clients:
  • McDonald's UK
  • Unilever

Mindshapes - 2010-2012

Technical Lead

Mindshapes were an online learning and social gaming company formed by the founders of Playfish after their acquisition by Electronic Arts.

I was responsible for the technical team for our flagship online learning product including oversight of interaction design, user-experience, front-end and back-end development.

Working with Adobe's Alpha release of Flash 11 our team produced a custom online gaming platform comprising a browser-based 3D game-engine and a bespoke toolset.

Technologies:
  • ActionScript/Flash
  • RobotLegs
  • Away3D
  • Signals
  • Flex
  • FlexUnit
  • Jenkins
  • Maven
  • Nexus
  • Adobe Air
  • Java
  • Spring
  • MySQL
  • SVN
  • Git

AKQA - 2005-2010

Lead Creative Developer

Joining as a Junior Developer in 2005, my responsibilities grew to include leadership of Creative Technology for a sector focused client group.

I lead the development of countless European and global digital marketing campaigns. My work involved scoping, planning, resourcing, development and team management.

Highlights included leading 7 freelance developers in the delivery of an award winning game for the Warner Brothers Sherlock Holmes movie, launching a new Ferrari at the Geneva motor show, working with Adobe on improving the tooling for Flash and consulting on Microsoft Silverlight in Redmond ahead of its initial release.

Technologies:
  • ActionScript/Flash
  • HTML5
  • JS
  • iOS
  • Jenkins/Hudson
  • Ant
  • CruiseControl
  • SVN
Clients:
  • Coca-Cola
  • Nike
  • Ferrari
  • Heineken
  • Warner Brothers
  • Xbox
  • Microsoft
  • Sky
  • Unilever

Education

University of Plymouth: 2001 - 2005

BSc Digital Art & Technology ("MediaLab Arts"), 1:1 First Class Honours Degree

References

Dave has a great attention to detail, raises concerns early to obtain clarification and has shown great leadership in mentoring others throughout [...] I can only highly recommend him to anyone looking for a very skilled individual.

Cord Plasse, EMEA Project Management Practice Lead, Adobe.

Has a fantastic mind for finding solutions to the most difficult problems. He provides creative and innovative recommendations for campaigns, large or small [...] a highly enthusiastic, smart and experienced Creative Technologist.

Stuart Hood, Marketing Manager, McDonald's UK.

An amazing Creative Technologist, always pushing boundaries and energetic in his work to make sure that what we created was of the highest quality. Insight, tenacity and hard work were his hallmarks and could be counted upon even under extreme pressure to deliver for our clients.

John Cunningham, Chief Technology Officer EMEA, Razorfish.

An exceptional technical leader with a lot passion for his work

Sami Lababidi, Founder and former Chief Technical Officer, Electronic Arts/Playfish.

A cornerstone of the team both in terms of technical skill and ethos. [He] has an eye for detail that means you know his work will be of the very highest standard.

Andy Hood, Creative Research and Development Director, AKQA.

Some of the work I'm most proud of being a part of has Dave's fingerprints all over it. He is considerate and professional [...] and I'd have no hesitation in recommending him.

Rick Williams, Executive Director Business Transformation, R/GA.

His core strength is his team leadership of a breadth of technical disciplines. Through an intense, high pressure project, David was able to keep the team well briefed, focused and motivated on a clear delivery path.

David Begg, CEO, Mindshapes.