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Dominic Burford - Professional Profile



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I am a professional software engineer and technical architect with over twenty years commercial development experience with a strong focus on the design and development of web and mobile applications.

I have experience of architecting scalable, distributed, high volume web applications that are accessible from multiple devices due to their responsive web design, including architecting enterprise service-oriented solutions. I have also developed enterprise mobile applications using Xamarin and Telerik Platform.

I have extensive experience using .NET, ASP.NET, Windows and Web Services, WCF, SQL Server, LINQ and other Microsoft technologies. I am also familiar with HTML, Bootstrap, Javascript (inc. JQuery and Node.js), CSS, XML, JSON, Apache Cordova, KendoUI and many other web and mobile related technologies.

I am enthusiastic about Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Application Life-cycle Management having configured such environments using CruiseControl.NET, TeamCity and Team Foundation Services. I enjoy working in Agile and Test Driven Development (TDD) environments.

Outside of work I have two beautiful daughters. I am also an avid cyclist who enjoys reading, listening to music and travelling.

 

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GeneralRe: Performing Code Coverage for .NET Core 2.0 applications Pin
Slacker00723-Mar-18 5:12
professionalSlacker00723-Mar-18 5:12 
GeneralRe: Performing Code Coverage for .NET Core 2.0 applications Pin
Dominic Burford23-Mar-18 5:15
professionalDominic Burford23-Mar-18 5:15 
GeneralBuilding ASP.NET Core 2.0 web applications Pin
Dominic Burford21-Mar-18 5:39
professionalDominic Burford21-Mar-18 5:39 
GeneralObtaining the authentication token returned from Azure AD B2C in ASP.NET Core 2.0 Pin
Dominic Burford16-Mar-18 2:03
professionalDominic Burford16-Mar-18 2:03 
GeneralVersioning a .NET Core 2.0 application Pin
Dominic Burford13-Mar-18 2:34
professionalDominic Burford13-Mar-18 2:34 
GeneralThe next generation technical stack Pin
Dominic Burford12-Mar-18 4:43
professionalDominic Burford12-Mar-18 4:43 
GeneralWriting flexible code Pin
Dominic Burford22-Jan-18 23:58
professionalDominic Burford22-Jan-18 23:58 
GeneralA cautionary tale of over-confidence in your own opinions Pin
Dominic Burford22-Dec-17 1:57
professionalDominic Burford22-Dec-17 1:57 
I was talking with a friend a while ago, and he was lambasting his place of work for allowing a member of the team to ride roughshod over the rest of the development team. This particular individual had the final say in practically every technical decision and senior colleagues (managers) would hang onto his every word. They took everything that came out of his mouth as gospel. I asked how this could be. His reply was somewhat startling. He knew more than the managers, and by that token alone he was deemed a technical demagogue.

And that's all there was to it. By simply knowing more than those above him, he was afforded decision-making responsibility far above his station. If anyone else tried to criticise those decisions, they were undermined by either (or both) the individual in question or the managers.

The fault here lies with both the individual and the managers. The individual was overly confident in their technical prowess and didn't think they needed to seek the opinions of their peers. And the managers never bothered to ask if the opinions were representative of the group or just the individual. They were happy to simply go along with what they were being told. After all, he's the technical expert so he should know what he's talking about and we trust him implicitly to make those decisions.

Where this falls down, is that no one can know everything, so no matter how much you think you know, you don't know everything. There are always alternative ways of doing things, different ways of looking at the same problem. Hearing other voices and opinions is paramount to maintaining a healthy team. When one voice overshadows all the others quickly leads to a toxic working environment, not to mention bad decisions which may cost the business further down the line. Expecting a single individual to know everything (as the managers clearly did) is a dereliction of their managerial duty to both the rest of the team, and ultimately to the business.

You can't and don't run a highly performant business based on a few individuals. A business is analogous to a team, where everyone has a part to play. The combined knowledge and skills of a team will always easily surpass those of even the best individuals. A business succeeds by having strength in depth, and that strength comes in the form of the whole team, not just a selection of them (and especially not just one of them).

I have covered the topic of collaboration previously when I talked about software teams being either democracies or dictatorships. It is foolhardy in the extreme to take your opinions from mere individuals, no matter how talented you think they are. A good idea can come from anywhere and from anyone.

Instead of placing your trust squarely on a single individual, place it on the team as a whole. I guarantee you will see better results instantly.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare

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GeneralWhat lies ahead in 2018 Pin
Dominic Burford21-Dec-17 0:18
professionalDominic Burford21-Dec-17 0:18 
GeneralTemplated HTML emails using RazorEngine Pin
Dominic Burford30-Nov-17 4:49
professionalDominic Burford30-Nov-17 4:49 
GeneralSending emails using Azure Sendgrid service Pin
Dominic Burford29-Nov-17 11:18
professionalDominic Burford29-Nov-17 11:18 
GeneralBuilding native enterprise apps is (probably) the wrong approach Pin
Dominic Burford28-Nov-17 1:05
professionalDominic Burford28-Nov-17 1:05 
GeneralAppropriate vs Consistent Pin
Dominic Burford9-Nov-17 3:24
professionalDominic Burford9-Nov-17 3:24 
GeneralCreating Generic RESTful API Services Pin
Dominic Burford20-Oct-17 5:01
professionalDominic Burford20-Oct-17 5:01 
GeneralIs your software team a democracy or a dictatorship? Pin
Dominic Burford16-Oct-17 21:44
professionalDominic Burford16-Oct-17 21:44 
GeneralSimplifying updating data Pin
Dominic Burford21-Sep-17 22:46
professionalDominic Burford21-Sep-17 22:46 
GeneralWhen 100% code coverage is not always enough Pin
Dominic Burford21-Jul-17 5:11
professionalDominic Burford21-Jul-17 5:11 
GeneralThat's the app in the app stores Pin
Dominic Burford18-Jul-17 5:00
professionalDominic Burford18-Jul-17 5:00 
GeneralDefensive Programming Pin
Dominic Burford28-Jun-17 7:23
professionalDominic Burford28-Jun-17 7:23 
GeneralMy first year - How time flies Pin
Dominic Burford19-Jun-17 1:40
professionalDominic Burford19-Jun-17 1:40 
GeneralShould software architects write code? Pin
Dominic Burford16-Jun-17 4:22
professionalDominic Burford16-Jun-17 4:22 
GeneralEnsuring your data is safe with Azure SQL Database Pin
Dominic Burford2-Jun-17 2:24
professionalDominic Burford2-Jun-17 2:24 
GeneralWhat makes a Senior Software Engineer? Pin
Dominic Burford30-May-17 21:53
professionalDominic Burford30-May-17 21:53 
GeneralMore Software Interview Skills 101 Pin
Dominic Burford25-May-17 6:03
professionalDominic Burford25-May-17 6:03 
GeneralSoftware Interview Skills 101 Pin
Dominic Burford12-May-17 5:44
professionalDominic Burford12-May-17 5:44 

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