About Me

I solve problems and make things.

I've been writing software for over 40 years. I started back in the early '80s with a Sinclair ZX81 and over the years I've created software for desktop, web, mobile, embedded and real-time systems with a side order of high-performance clusters. My first paid programming gig was coding for CNC milling machines using punched tape and a proprietary byte-code language. Most recently I've been working with Julia as part of my MSc project porting a MATLAB model of Arabidopsis thaliana to Julia.

Experience

Aerospace

My first career designing & building aircraft engines was cut short when I, along with most of my colleagues, received a cunningly crafted invitation to work somewhere else. After studying software engineering I found a way to combine what I had just learned with my prior expertise in aeronautical engineering. I spent over a decade working in flight simulation, building devices, training products and tools to enable airlines to train pilots more effectively.

Highlights
  • Developed, deployed & certified Full-Flight and Flight-Training devices for a range of aircraft around the world.
  • Developed a range of simulation tooling including the auto-generation of system models from vendor databases and page generation tooling for instructor stations which are still in use to this day.
  • Developed tooling for testing, recording & collating results of simulation QA.

Mobile Development

I've worked with most of the major mobile platforms over the last 20 years. I got my start after encountering a PalmPilot in a Circuit City whilst installing a 777 simulator in Denver and became interested in the possibilities of mobile computing. Eventually I was lured away from flight simulation to work in mobile games development. Oddly enough, working on codebases that could exceed millions of lines of code on industrial computers with simple, text-based terminals, proved a remarkably useful grounding for the early world of mobile app development.

Highlights
  • I led a team responsible for the software QA on a cross-platform games SDK that enabled developers to build games for a variety of platforms including desktop & mobile OSes.
  • App development lead at one of the world's premier manufacturers of Hi-Fi & audio equipment.
  • iOS lead responsible for building out team for new business unit within one of the world's most popular wireless speaker companies.

Web Development

My first experience of working with the web was creating a website in the mid-90s for a campaign setting for an Ars Magica campaign set in Venice. Over the years I've acquired experience with full-stack development for a range of web apps including product training solutions, software configuration & management and code generation software.

Highlights
  • Created a SPA software configuration & management system for managing the assembly of reusable software components into a larger software system.
  • Created a web-based instructor station product training tool.
  • Consulted on developing mobile-friendly designs for major travel UK travel company.

Qualifications

I'm a life-long learner. There's always something new to discover and understand.

  • BEng Aeronautical Engineering [1994]
  • MSc IT Software & Systems [1996]
  • MSc Bioinformatics [2024]

Interests

Music

Music's a big part of my life and I have very eclectic musical taste which defeats every music recommendation service I've encountered thus far. Having a genuine interest and love for music puts me at odds with the modern streaming paradigm which is focussed on delivering "audio wallpaper" rather than a meaningful musical experience.

Radio / Podcasts

Growing up my family didn't own a TV till I was 5. My formative years were spent listening to the radio. To this day I still prefer to consume audio content to visual, although nowadays this is mostly in the form of podcasts.

Reading

I've been reading since I was very young. I normally have a couple of books both fiction and non-fiction on the go. Again I have very eclectic taste in what I read but I have a passion for late 19th / early 20th Century supernatural tales from the likes of M. R. James, Eleanor Scott, E. F. Benson, and others.

Software Development

Although I've been writing software for a long time it's still something I am interested in perfecting as a craft. Having lived through many numerous "revolutions" in software development I don't believe that there's "one true way of developing" or that there's a "the best" programming language or tool. As a consequence I'm always interested in trying out new languages and frameworks.

I'm a big believer in understanding what it is one is building rather than relying on a particular process or methodology.

Over the last couple of years I've become interested in the related fields of green and post-collapse computing.

I have a more development-focussed site at snazell.software.

Travel

I enjoy visiting new locations and learning about their culture. With the ongoing perma-pandemic and the climate crisis I'm travelling less than I used to.

I have been learning Norwegian as a gateway language to other Scandinavian languages.

TTRPG

Sitting around a table or a zoom session, rolling dice, portraying characters having adventures and having fun with friends. A welcome distraction from the real world, TTRPGs are interactive, improvisational, fiction where players portray characters in a world mediated by another player known as a game / dungeon master. It's a fun way to step outside of oneself and unwind. Playing a character is fun but I really enjoy being a game master, creating settings to play in, generating plots and then having to flex the plot to support unexpected decisions made by players.

In my spare time I'm currently reworking a game setting I created in 1995: The High Bank.