Merryn Hurley-Rawlins

I am an enthusiastic Rails developer and former teacher that loves learning new skills and sharing my knowledge with others. Aside from Rails, I have worked with various JS frameworks including Vue, React, and React Native. In September 2020 I left my job as an English teacher in Jakarta to focus on a career in programming. I had previous experience programming with R for my university degree, Human Sciences, but became particularly interested in e-learning tools and web development after my classes were moved online. As this interest grew I decided to return to the UK in order to pursue a career in programming. 

Over the last year my enthusiasm for programming and web development has reshaped my goals and planned career trajectory. I have hugely enjoyed creating various projects with Rails, including clones of both AirBnb and Twitter, a stock tracking app (hosted on Heroku), a real-time messaging app, and a tutoring platform. I have developed an excellent understanding of key Object-Oriented Programming concepts, and I have familiarized myself with database structure and CRUD operations. I am now keen to join a creative and driven team where I can put my Ruby on Rails knowledge to good use.

After graduating from Makers I took a work experience role with the frontend team at Global Initiative, an Oxford based digital agency. I spent two weeks working on a Laravel project where I was tasked with converting Blade templates into Vue.js components. Despite having no prior experience with Laravel or PHP, I was able to use principles learnt while working with Rails, and my knowledge of the MVC design pattern, to tackle the project head on. I greatly enjoyed working with Vue on the frontend, and was able to create differentiated views for admins, super admins, and regular users. Working at Global Initiative also gave me an insight into technologies that make for smooth and efficient project management. For instance, I was introduced to Liquid Planner by my project manager and also used Jenkins for continuous integration.

I am currently working with a small team of developers to create a React Native app, Acknowledge, with a focus on mental health and personal growth. My time with Acknowledge has meant working in an informal setting, requiring drive and initiative to keep up the rate of progress. Balancing various priorities, such as job hunting and work experience, while working on this project has also required careful time management and organizational skills. 

Makers Academy (May 2021 - Aug 2021) 

• Three months of intensive group based learning, with a strong focus on Ruby, taking me from keen amateur to well rounded junior developer.
• Weekly sprints, standups and regular pair programming. 
• Experience using Test Driven Development (RSpec, Jasmine, Capybara) to encourage DRY, well organized, and reusable code.
• Excellent understanding of key Object-Oriented Programming concepts, including inheritance and polymorphism.
• Experience with the Model View Controller design pattern enabling me to quickly and confidently make sense of new codebases, for instance when working with Laravel for Global Initiative.
• Working with databases to perform CRUD operations. 
• Working with security tokens and multifactor authentication. 
• Using Insomnia and Postman to test APIs.