About
Hello World.
Innovative and results-driven Software Engineer and engineering leader with a Master's Degree in Computer Science from Durham University.
As Founding Engineer and Platform Team Lead at Fyxer, I was the first employee alongside the founders and have helped grow the company to
over 80 people, scaling our product from $30k to $30M+ ARR. I lead a team of senior and lead engineers, owning platform reliability for a
287TB database estate. Before this, I spent nearly 2 years at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer, overhauling and expanding key
features on Prime Video to significantly enhance user retention globally. Between employment and side projects, I have experience across a
diverse tech stack, including TypeScript, React, Firebase, GCP, Java, Python, and more.
I've contributed to best-in-class research, with a publication in the 2023 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy,
expanding the literature in acoustic side channel attacks on keyboards and novel applications of Deep Learning. My projects,
such as a Stock Headline Sentiment Accuracy Classifier and a Pegasus Image Generating DC-GAN, have both fostered an interest in,
and showcased talent for, Machine Learning and Data Science.
I hold certifications in SQL for Data Science and have a track record of success in both individual and collaborative projects.
Beyond my professional pursuits, I am a versatile individual with interests ranging from DJ-ing and fencing to obstacle course
racing and public speaking.
- Location: London, UK
- Relocation: Possible
- Employment: Founding Engineer & Team Lead at Fyxer
- Email: josh@jbfh.com
Skills
Throughout my experience in tech, I have attained a number of skills at varying levels of proficiency. Please see below for an example of some of the technologies I have had the opportunity to use. This is a list I'm always excited and eager to add to!
Resume
Below is a selection of my relevant work experience, please see my LinkedIn or Contact Me for further details.
Education
Durham University, UK
2018 - 2022
MEng Computer Science
Weighted Average: 74% (1st Class with Honours)
Modules studied include:
- Cybersecurity
- Recommender Systems
- Software Engineering
- Networks and Systems
- Natural Language Processing
- Virtual and Augmented reality
- Multimedia and Game Development
- Public Engagement in Computer Science
- Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning
- Advanced Computer Graphics and Visualization
- Computer Vision & Advanced Computer Vision
- Computational Modelling in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Bishop Vesey's Grammar School
2016 - 2018
A-Levels: Computer Science, Mathematics & Physics
Grades: A*, A*, A respectively
AS-Level: History
Grade: A
Experience
Founding Engineer & Platform Team Lead
04/2024 - Present
Fyxer (London & San Francisco)
- First employee alongside the founders; helped grow the company to over 80 people
- Led product engineering from $30k to $30M+ ARR, growing the user-base 700x in the process
- Managed and developed a team of 6 senior and lead engineers as Platform Team Lead
- Owned the database health program for a 287TB Firestore estate, cutting over 1 billion reads per week (a 65% reduction)
- Authored and implemented a $600k/year infrastructure cost-saving proposal
- Reduced third-party rate limit errors by 84% and increased draft feature adoption by 48% via a custom LLM fine-tune
Software Development Engineer
08/2022 - 04/2024
Amazon
- Retained over 504,000 subscriptions globally by overhauling and expanding the “Remind Me Later” feature on Prime Video
- Increased marketplace availability of retention initiatives by 100% through implementation of scalable Java classes
- Reduced team’s operational overhead by 49% by auditing AWS Cloudwatch Alarms using AWS CDK
- Managed in-house CI/CD pipelines featuring automated unit and integration testing
Risk, finance & treasury technology intern
06/2021 - 08/2021
Barclays
- Automated cloud resource usage reporting using VBA, reducing budgeting time overhead by 90%
- Utilized Agile methodology to perform resource management and reallocation on an in-house Cloud Data Platform
Risk, finance & treasury technology intern
07/2020 - 08/2020
Barclays
- Developed data quality checks for over 3,000,000+ records for reports to European Securities and Markets Authority
- Improved DevOps usage and project management by migrating team from JIRA to Rally.
Bar Staff, Gym Staff & Assistant Events Officer
11/2021 - 07/2022
South College, Durham University
- Worked within a diverse team to lead and support in-house events, create inclusive environments and regularly break bar revenue records while raising significant money for charity.
Young advisor & Youth lead champion
10/2015 - 06/2018
NHS & CYP-IAPT
- Assisted in re-centering the Derby University CBT training course to centre on the patient as an end customer.
- Presented at regional board meetings to update senior staff.
- Enforced quality service across hospitals in the midlands through audits, interviews and board meetings with NHS trusts.
Actor
07/2008 - 07/2016
TrEAD Stage School
- Performed within diverse casts to develop and perform musicals with professional west-end choreographers and directors.
- Acquired leading roles in venues across the country, most notably the Manchester Palace Theatre.
A Practical Deep Learning-Based Acoustic Side Channel Attack on Keyboards
As part of my MEng at Durham University (2018 - 2022), I performed an experiment in which I wanted to see if a deep learning (DL) model built for image recognition could apply it's state-of-the-art architecture to the relatively underexplored problem of keystroke acoustic classification. This paper went on to get some international attention...
Portfolio
Below are a few of my past projects both from personal interest and as part of my degree, keep checking back or follow my GitHub to see progress!
- All
- Machine Learning
- Web
Contact
Email:
LinkedIn:
