My Background

This part of my blog is intended to provide info on my background, skills, and knowledge.

My first “real” IT job was at Immedia /ECA from November 2007 to Feb 2008. Unfortunately, I was not really given the opportunity to grow and use my full potential and so decided to focus on my studies at that time.

Still, I managed to learn MySQL, PHP, XHTML, CSS, and Javascript. I was also introduced to Joomla, WordPress, Ruby-on-Rails, and UNIX shell commands. Part of my duties was simple maintenence of a few sites such as ECR, Jacarandafm and HIV911. I also managed to develop the static part of the ALP website.

A few months later, I was under the employ of Prop Data from June 2008. What was really interesting was that I managed to get the job without even applying for it! Lucky me – my CV was floating around a few jobs websites and an agent managed to pick it up. After a very exciting and fulfilling experience at Prop Data, I knew it was time for me to move on and left in April 2009. It was defenitely the most exciting and self-enriching time that helped me solidify many of my skills listed above.

I managed to expand my PHP and MySQL knowledge even further to a very high level of mastery while maintaing over a dozen websites. The opportunity to do some system admin and advance my use *nix commands is invaluable.

Another programming language and web framework that I managed to master was Python and Django respectively. Together, using PostgreSQL, we managed to develop complex websites with backends in a matter of a few weeks! Not to mention development would be impossible had we not made use of  Subversion.

A few of the websites that I helped maintain was: News Cafe, Elan, Lighthouse, iGrow, Ballitoaccommodation, Ballito.net, The Mandate Company and Prop Values. And I certainly won’t forget to mention some of the websites that I helped develop: JustLetting, JustCommercial, JustFinance, North Global, Mc Props, DPA consult, Mandela Rhodes, Multichoice Props and Sinati.

As I continue my journey, the next chapter starts at the beginning of April 2009 where I started at MMSA as a BI Reporting Officer (fancy title eh?). Currently having lots of fun and learning a bunch makes time really go by fast. Some of what I have learnt and used include: Oracle PL/SQL using SQL* Plus and Oracle Developer, Business Objects Deski, and Business Objects CMC and InfoView.

There never is a shortage of projects that and thankfully this keeps me busy. The projects that I have worked on so far: HA Wellness Exception Reports, IT Stats enhancement project, and more to come.

My job would not be complete had I not maintained the KPI reports (managed to re-write the data load in Python and add enhancements to the reports and regular maintenance), keeping track and scheduling reports (migrated most reports from using vba to BO’s scheduler).

I am sure that there will be lots more exiting challenges over the horizon and that I will have a fun and fulfilling career