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The Packed website replatform. From Gulp.js to Vue.js
Cheaply launching an iOS and Android app with React Native
Launching a Shopify store in a weekend
Tom Pain
I am a back-end Software Engineer at Midnite, a sport and esports gambling scale-up. Prior to Midnite, I spent five years building a travel start-up where I was responsible for technology and product. I am also finishing the research project for my MSc in Computer Science with AI, where I am building a hybrid CNN-LSTM deep learning model for programmatic high-frequency currency trading.
Work Experience
Website:
https://www.midnite.com/Midnite is post-series A ($32m raised) betting platform with a focus on user experience. Technical challenges arise from the large volume of live, risk-adjusted data; operations in 11 highly regulated countries with two distinct brands; and support for multiple languages, currencies, and rapidly growing scale. Since joining, wagering has grown from $1.3M in my first month to over $60M per month and up to $3.5M per day on peak days.
- I currently lead our first AI personalisation and recommendations product. This has now been rolled out on casino with an almost instant c. 20% increase in 7 and 30 day retention. I am now working on sportsbook personalisation. As part of the work, I refactored our content apis reducing home page latency from over a second to around 300ms while allowing clients to lazy load content.
- Designed and implemented a decoupled, event-driven data pipeline leveraging PostgreSQL's Listen/Notify feature to stream events to Kafka.
- Worked in a small team to design and build a casino and a virtuals product from scratch. Within two weeks of launch, casino more than doubled company revenue and virtuals added another 5%. Casino achieved $140M in wagering in its first 12 months and now has a run rate of over $1M per day.
- Built the back-end split testing framework.
- Full stack development for new welcome and sign-up bonus products to improve customer acquisition.
- Engineered an algorithm for dynamic pricing adjustments based on risk assessment and bet volumes.
- Built a prize allocation service for a free-to-play game, factoring in users’ predicted LTV, recent betting history, and reward accumulation to boost engagement via statistically driven prize selection.
Packed provided a marketplace of trusted and reliable holidays for groups.
- Featured in The Times, the Evening Standard, the Metro and Condé Nast
- Built the MVP product using Python / Django, GraphQL, Vue, and AWS integrating Twilio, Google Dialogflow, and WorldPay for payments
- Managed three overseas contract developers, a contract designer, and a mobile app development agency
- Designed and launched a React Native app with 10,000+ users across iOS and Android
- Responsible for the analytics stack and technical SEO, growing organic traffic to >10k users per month
- Achieved sales of up to £230k per month, amassed 2,600 customers, and generated £2.3m in sales before closure due to COVID-19
Website:
https://trueplatform.com/I worked closely with US and European tier-1 venture capital funds to help them strengthen the boards of their portfolio investments, regularly helping US technology companies scale into EMEA.
Website:
https://www.oliverjames.com/I built the teams from scratch, was promoted three times in two years and managed 14 people.
Website:
https://www.outgoing.co.uk/I was responsible for the department’s financial performance, delivering all aspects of the passenger experience, and managing six full-time staff and up to 110 seasonal staff. Increased passenger numbers from 1,600 in 2010/11 to almost 15,000 passengers in 2012/13.
- Sisu Capital Ltd - Intern, Distressed Debt and Operations (December 2007 - February 2008): Internship at a distressed debt hedge fund
- 3D Currency Management - Intern (September 2007 - October 2007): Internship at a hedge fund trading securitised debt in the FX market.
- Sigma Wealth Management - Intern and continued part-time work (July 2007 - August 2009): Developed a model to track fund-based renewal, researched investment opportunities and assisted with report writing and due diligence.
Education & Qualifications
- Current grade average: 75.5% (distinction) with only the research project remaining
- Modules: AI and Machine Learning, Applied AI, Algorithms and Data Structures, Advanced Programming, Big Data Analytics, Computer Architecture and Operating Systems, Computer and Mobile Networks, Software Engineering, and an AI-based research project. All modules are Java or Python based.
- Building a deep learning model for programmatic high-frequency Forex trading for my research project
- A 6-month course covering two modules using Python, JavaScript, SQL and frameworks like Django and React
- Part of the Wharton MBA, this is a six month assessed remote learning course
- Recognised by the CFA Charter, covering at least 70% of the CFA curriculum
- AWS - Cloud Essentials
- Udacity - Python Nanodegree (two-month assessed course)
- Microsoft - Azure AI Fundamentals
- Udemy - Vue.js The Complete Guide
- Codecademy - Web Development Path with React
Want to know more? Drop me an email. You can also download my CV below 👇