IsCoding

Hi, my name is

Stuart McHattie.

I bring software to life!

I’m a senior software engineer and solution architect in Oxfordshire, UK.

I’ve been designing, implementing, deploying and supporting software professionally since 2011, but I’ve written code since the late 1980s. I’m also an experienced technical team lead, and have been certified by AWS as a Solutions Architect: Associate.

On this site, I write about my experience, my hobbies, my knowledge, and any other thoughts I may have. If you find anything interesting here, please do get in touch as it makes me very happy to discuss and share.

About Me

I live and love software! I was born in Kent in the early 1980s and was fascinated by electronics of the time. Growing up, I learned how to write code for computers like the ZX Spectrum 128k +2. As I went through my education, my skills adapted to Microsoft Visual Basic and then Java.

However, despite all the above, I actually followed an education in biology, gaining my undergraduate degree in Zoology, a masters in Bioinformatics, and finally a combined masters and PhD in Systems Biology at the University of Warwick. I have been in my first career job since 2011 where I have grown into a technical team lead and a solution architect. I work with clients to determine their requirements and I design solutions that solve their business needs.

My primary interests in software development revolve around enabling the team to work smoothly and improving user experience so that the solution is loved by the end users. I have a large number of years experience in mobile app development and the services the app needs to function, and I have a particular passion for this type of development.

In my downtime I enjoy photography; reading fact and fiction books; electronics design and repair; as well as playing video games.

Here are a few technologies I've been working with recently:

Python
Ruby
Azure
Ansible
Docker
Generative AI

Experience

Capgemini Engineering

Senior Software Engineer - Capgemini Engineering

September 2011 - Present

I’ve spent the past 13+ years building myself as a professional software engineer in Oxford, UK. During my time with the company, I’ve developed into a technical team lead and a solution architect. I’ve been involved in dozens of projects for dozens of clients, becoming sought after by stakeholders when they need a competent engineer to coordinate their complex requirements.

Education

2006 - 2011

PhD Systems Biology

University of Warwick

I studied a combined masters and PhD in Systems Biology. My research project was on the gene-expression networks involved in the natural aging of plants. I was able to identify and verify at least one unknown interaction between genes involved in this process.

During this time, I developed an open source software package for R which helps to identify the correlations in microarray data. I used the data from those analyses to fit mathematical models for the expression data and used those to highlight candidate gene interactions. Experimental proof for the candidate interactions was gathered using techniques such as Yeast-2-Hybrid.

My PhD Thesis

2003 - 2004

MSc Bioinformatics

De Montfort University

Following my success analysing data for my BSc, I moved to Leicester to study Bioinformatics at a masters level. I achieved a distinction in this degree.

2000 - 2003

BSc Zoology

University of Liverpool

During my final project, I demonstrated my strength in software development by completing analysis of a research project’s data set in 3 weeks which had taken the supervising professor months to analyse due to inefficient processes.