Leigh Thomas Dyer

Introduction

My interest in computers stems from a fascination with technology and science that has been with me since my early childhood. Through self-learning, structured education and on-the-job experience I have developed a broad range of skills in fields such as game and application development, system administration, and web design and development. My ideal job would see me working in a bright, energetic team, solving complex problems in an environment that fosters innovation and encourages learning new ideas, techniques, and technologies.

Employment History

Bandcamp (March 2011 - present) -- Software Engineer/System Administrator

I presently work as a remote employee for Bandcamp, a service that allows independent musicians to sell their music to fans directly, in both physical and digital forms. I have continued to work in a combined development and administration role, with responsibilities including:

• Software developemnt on both web-based and backend systems, using Ruby
• Provisioning, configuration, and management of several dozen Linux servers in a 24/7 environment
• Automation of server configuration and management, using Puppet
• Configuration and management of various server applications, including nginx, haproxy, MySQL, memcached, Tomcat, exim
• High availability (HA) and horizontal scaling for web and database layers, using nginx, haproxy, MySQL replication, keepalived
• Android software development, using Java

Healthscope Limited (December 2009 - March 2011) -- Senior Developer/System Administrator

eClinic (see below) was purchased by Healthscope in December 2009; current work is a continuation of work completed at eClinic.

eClinic Pty Ltd (November 2000 - December 2009) -- Senior Developer/System Administrator

At eClinic, as lead developer and sole system administrator, I had a very broad range of responsibilities, including:

• Lead developer of a small team responsible for web application development, working with Python (incl. Webware, Django, Cheetah, SQLAlchemy), Java (incl. Tomcat, Spring, Hibernate, Velocity, Axis), and PostgreSQL
• Management of complete software development lifecycle, from collecting requirements and writing specifications through to design, implementation, testing, deployment, and ongoing maintenance
• Configuration and administration of 24/7 web services, with a mixed network of Linux and Windows servers running in a co-located data centre.
• Management of a variety of applications and services, including Apache, Tomcat, PHP, ColdFusion, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Microsoft SQL Server
• Installation and management of server hardware and networking infrastructure
• Implementation of Xen virtualisation to enhance server utilisation
• Implementation of various high availability (HA) tools, including DRBD, Heartbeat, Apache/Tomcat load balancing, and PostgreSQL warm standby replication
• Configuration and administration of office network, with a mix of desktop systems, development servers, and production servers for local and external services, including mail, DNS, and proxies
• Maintenance of legacy systems based on PHP, ColdFusion, Perl, and Microsoft SQL Server

Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University (1999-2000) -- Developer/System Administrator

Organisation of developed content into multimedia CD-ROMs for Swinburne's online courses in astronomy, visualisation programming in C++/OpenGL on Linux and Compaq Alpha workstations and general administration of Linux workstations.

everything below here still to be revised

Freelance/consultancy roles

In addition to my field experience, I also work as a freelance technology journalist, specialising in Linux. From late 2003 until 2009 I wrote a monthly Linux column for the "Real World Computing" section of PC Authority magazine, and since 2004 I have contributed over 20 Linux tutorials to Atomic: Maximum Performance Computing magazine. In these articles I have discussed a wide range of subject matter, from configuring 3D desktop effects through to installing specific server tools, complete servers, and even high-performance clusters. I have also covered more academic issues, such as software licencing, DRM, and the potential effects of new technologies.

My success in this field has lead to critical acclaim, with nominiations in two categories in the 2006 Sun Microsystems IT Journalism Awards. I received a high commendation in one of these categories.

Education History

Programming experience

Much of my early experience includes projects developed at home - I am an avid hobbyist programmer, and a contributor to the open-source movement. Also, nearly all of my programming experience has been in a UNIX environment (typically Linux) - I am familiar with standard UNIX development tools, as well as version control systems such as CVS and Subversion. I also have experience in developing for hobbyist small or embedded systems, such as the Lego Mindstorms system.

Operating System/Server Administration Experience

• Linux/Unix systems:
  • High level of experience with configuration and installation of several flavours of Linux (primarily Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat and SuSE) on x86 hardware
  • Some experience with installation/configuration of FreeBSD on x86, Tru64 on Alpha and Solaris on Sparc
  • Experienced in the installation and configuration of various services on Linux/UNIX platforms, including:
    • Apache (including PHP, mod_perl, and mod_ssl)
    • Apache Tomcat
    • Samba (including configuration of Samba as a Windows NT Domain Controller)
    • BIND and djbdns DNS servers
    • MySQL and PostgreSQL database servers
    • ProFTPd and vsftpd
    • Postfix, Dovecot, and qmail mail servers, with spam and anti-virus plug-ins
    • Squid
    • Adobe ColdFusion Server
  • Experienced in the implementation of virtualisation on the Xen platform
  • Experienced in the installation, configuration, and use of network, server, and performance monitoring tools, such as Nagios and Cacti
  • Some experience with HA tools, including DRBD, Heartbeat, Apache/Tomcat load-balancing, and PostgreSQL warm standby replication
  • Experienced in building Linux-based firewall systems
• Windows systems:
  • Experienced in the installation and configuration of several flavours of Windows, including desktop systems from Windows 95 through to Windows XP, and server versions of Windows NT and Windows 2000
  • Experienced in the installation and administration of the following servers on Windows NT systems:
    • Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
    • Adobe ColdFusion Server
• General experience:
  • Experienced in building local area networks (LANs), both in their physical construction (switches, cabling, network card installation/setup etc.) and in the software configuration of client and server computers, using services such as DHCP and DNS.

Web development experience

I also have a good knowledge of HTML and CSS, as well as experience with XML parsing and technologies such as XSL, SOAP and XHTML.

Other Activities/Achievements

Active member of the Linux Users of Victoria.

Heavily involved in the Linux/OSS music producion community, and particularly the Open Source Musician Podcast and associated community.

My hobbies include listening to and writing/playing music, computer programming, gaming, and writing.