Francesco Dimech

Welcome

 
Francesco Dimech
Dev Lead

As an experienced web developer with more than 10 years of experience, my tenacious and proactive approach in developing, maintaining and tackling several systems in different programming languages, resulted in numerous and important company successes. My excellent communication and development skills have provided vital information to help and improve the business. Most of this was achieved by automating systems to reduce workload; testing web pages, systems and increase revenue by optimising code; creating page layouts in A - B testing; automating e-mail sendout systems for payment renewals; creating new systems whilst monitoring older ones; creating API functionality; testing and deploying such systems and working closely with other IT and marketing people in order to finish a project.

Some statistics:

  • Page load time decreased by 3s on pages.
  • Scheduler system provided reports to marketing reducing around 20,000eur in costs per year.
  • Page optimisations increase in product sale revenue of around 3-5%.
  • Security fixes to prevent hacking of own systems.
  • Automated e-mail sendouts for renewals increasing renewal rates by 8%
  • AWS service costs reduced by 5% by changing server specifications
  • Code optimisations resulting in front-end developers to work more efficiently
  • Adding processes within the teams resulting in an increase in productivity and decrease in costs

Some of my characteristics:

  • A responsible person,
  • Know several programming languages,
  • Great knowledge in Object Oriented Programming,
  • Design and develop websites with creativity in mind,
  • Troubleshoot coding,
  • Document work,
  • Interest and drive to use the latest technologies,
  • Work in a busy environment,
  • Fast learner

Communication is key! Our work can get quite technical and one has to break down the most advanced and complex technical terms into small fractions of information so that every department can understand. Teamwork is also important when working with small and large companies. In these situations, working with multiple aspects of the product, from marketing, to seo and development one has to give out suggestions on what could be done to improve any aspect of the product. That's where I come in handy. I research, advise, develop, build and put my ideas in motion in order to finish the project with or without the help of fellow colleagues. I am always eager to learn new technologies, trends and meet new people.

Apart from my professional life:

I'm a car enthusiast, gamer, I'm always finding ways to modify, build or get my hands dirty in DIY projects and loves to travel!

Experience & Education

Experience
Dev Lead
Gambling.comNov 2021 - Present
Marketing Tech Lead
BlexrDec 2020 - Nov 2021

Marrying the marketing function with the technology that delivers it, marketing technology (Martech) is crucially important to understanding the needs of today’s digitally connected customer.

Think of me as the interpreter between the sometimes-disparate IT, marketing, commercial and sales departments; connecting all the dots between the frontend user experience and the marketing and IT teams that control their own tools.

- Responsible for uncovering & understanding stakeholder needs, providing recommendations, and translating them into requirements and user stories related to the use of the various tools within the martech stack.

- Work closely with multiple Development teams during sprints to ensure requirements are fully understood, acceptance criteria are met, processes are in place and go-live preparations are in place.

- Defining success criteria for testing and product acceptance and support pre- & post-release testing efforts with the help of developers.

- Gain a deep understanding of our management systems, including marketing systems, and infrastructure technologies together with other Dev Leads, in order to advise cross-functional stakeholders and answer questions regarding “what’s possible.”

- Identify technical gaps that are limiting our abilities to deliver an optimal user experience and assess and address technical risks in content delivery solutions.

- Stay on top of UX best practices to help spot opportunities to increase and improve tool engagement

- Provide new user training and pre-release training to existing users on new features and functionalities that have been added to systems.

- Facilitate the creation and maintenance of proper product documentation.

- Provide support and troubleshoot issues related to the web and other marketing technologies.

- Handle technical debt within our systems and provide opportunities by using internal tools to expand our system capabilities.

- Analyzing performance indicators and evaluating experiments.

Dev Lead
BlexrDec 2019 - Dec 2020

- Guide team development efforts towards successful project delivery.

- Provide technical leadership to teammates through coaching and mentorship.

- Maintain high standards of software quality within the team and establish good practices and habits.

- Identify and encourage areas for growth and improvement within the team.

- Assist in the collection and documentation of user's requirements, development of user stories,

estimates and work plans.

- Collaborate with other software developers, business analysts and software architects to plan, design,

develop, test, and maintain web applications.

- Prepare reports, manuals and other documentation on the status, operation and maintenance of software.

- Collaborate with Devs & QAs so unit tests are in accordance with established standards.

- Participate in peer-reviews of solution designs and related code.

- Discuss with DevOps to package and support deployment of releases and implementation of CI/CD Pipelines.

- Work with teammates in the migration of legacy code and monitor technical debt.

- Develop, refine, and tune integrations between the web applications.

- Analyze and resolve technical and web application problems.

- Assess opportunities for application and process improvement and prepare documentation of rationale to share with team members and other affected parties.

- Adhere to high-quality development principles while delivering solutions on-time and on-budget.

- Provide third-level support to our business users.

- Research and evaluate a variety of competitor applications to get a better understanding of the business as well as choosing the right application for the company.

- Combine revenue generating features with technical decisions to make sure the company is moving to the right direction.

- Orchestrate new features and architecture integration together with peer teams.

- Fully adhere to Corporate Values: Transparency, Leadership, Accountability, Collaboration, Passion, Advocacy

IT Product Owner
BlexrDec 2018 - Dec 2019

One must break down the most complex details into small fractions of information making it understandable to less technical people, keeping in mind the business goals. I handled the completion of 3 internal tools as well as launch of an igaming site, expanding Blexr's market.

- Responsible for Agile teams, leading them to achieve the team goal and ensuring that the product is a success.

- Engage stakeholders, learn their needs, understanding the business requirements and translating them into solutions.

- Setting a strategy by creating the product vision and mission together with the roadmap and feature definition.

- Setting OKRs to adhere to business value bottom up and top down.

- Responsible for managing the product from concept, design and testing up to delivery and providing support.

- Creating a plan for the teams' objectives, helping the business grow and ultimately help the company achieve a healthy ROI.

- Soliciting new ideas for the product by collecting information, analyzing and evaluating the product.

- Act as a proxy to the end user and customer by translating requirements into technical solutions for the team and vice versa.

- Maintain awareness of the market, carrying out a competitive analysis through identifying customer needs and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the competition.

- Serve as a "voice of the customer" by strategizing, prioritizing, acquiring, collaborating and evaluating the plan of delivery.

- Development of product requirements by creating a detailed assessment of stakeholders' needs.

- Work closely with the scrum master and the team, estimating and ensuring the workflow runs smoothly.

- Communicate the product vision, strategy and roadmap with the management of the teams.

- Coordinate and manage the product delivery, monitor the product performance including revenue, cost savings and customer feedback.

- Maintain the product life cycle by focusing on customer satisfaction, performance, quality and delivery.

Full Stack Developer
BlexrMay 2018 - Dec 2018

In this role I was tasked to research and execute the development of an iGaming tool within the company.

Being a Full Stack Developer involved the research of the product specifications, the technologies to use, the database structure and design, the server infrastructure together with the DevOps team and also the API data driven design of the product.

Working in an Agile and SAFe methodology also helped me understand how crucial it is to estimate correctly whilst also prioritising the tasks together with the team in order to succeed with the Product Owners vision & mission of the product. With this in mind certain functionality had to be prioritised within the business logic, making sure that functionality that brings more value to the business was of utmost importance.

Technologies used:

  • NodeJs
  • Laravel
  • PHP
  • VueJs
  • Templating systems
  • Html
  • Css
  • Docker
  • OAuth2.0
Internal Software Developer
Uniblue Systems LtdMar 2015 - May 2018

Following an internal position opening, I decided to take and move onto back-end systems as well as the whole infrastructure of the company. Working closer with front-end, software developers and the software architect, my job was to maintain several systems, create new ones and automate some of the infrastructure as well.

CRO & Front-End Web Specialist
Uniblue Systems LtdSep 2014 – Mar 2015 (7 months)

Conversation Rate Optimisation was something new for me, but with the required experience, I have learnt to work with several new technologies as well as learning new methodologies with regards to web development.


Web Developer
AV TechnologiesJun 2012 – Aug 2014 (2 years 3 months)

Maintaining current website as well as working on a custom new project for the company. My job was to research and develop a system for a social platform which had to include custom functionality, mobile compatibility as well as a fluid and user friendly user interface.


Sales Assistant
e-World (hp)Sep 2010 – Jul 2012 (1 year 11 months)

Shop upkeep and creating a good relationship with new customers whilst keeping old customers at heart to the brand as well as sales of various hardware and software items.


Web Developer
The Creative PartnersNov 2011 - Apr 2012 (6 months)

Maintenance of sites including back-end and front-end work.


Software Developer
Ministry of Foreign Affairs MaltaJune 2009 - Sept 2009 (4 months)

Designing and developed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Inventory System.


Web Designer and Front End Developer
AZ CreationsOct 2007-July 2008 (10 months)

My first experience in the web development sector.


Education
Game Development with Unity
ICE Malta2013

Distinction in Game Development with Unity. Used Javascript as well as C# and Maya Modelling

MCAST B.A. Hons. in Interactive Media & Graphic Design
MCAST2011-2012

2nd upper qualification B.A. Hons. in Interactive Media & Graphic Design

Higher National Diploma in Interactive Media & Graphic Design
MCAST2009-2011
National Diploma in IT & Software Development
MCAST2007-2009

Skills

Front-End
HTML / HTML 5
Tailwind CSS
Livewire
CSS / CSS3
Responsive Website Design
Javascript
jQuery UI
jQuery
AJAX
XML
UI/UX Development
ES6 / ES7
Template Engines
Twig
Blade
Jinja
Frameworks
VueJS
Knockout
Laravel
Flask
Django
Back-end
Python
PHP
Python Celery
API Development
AWS - Amazon Services
Linux Servers

Setting up; Installation; Updating; Configuration

Nginx & Apache
Software Security
ASP .NET
C#
Data Maintenance

Both large and small data cleanups, confidential data housing as well as optimisation

Wordpress
.Net Nuke
Hosting and Website setup

cPanel administration, database setup, DNS and Domain setup

Version Control Software

Git / Mercurial

Marketing
Reporting
Google Tag Manager
Google Analytics
Google Adsense
Cleverbridge

E-commerce platform

Salesforce - Exacttarget

E-mail Marketing

Databases
PostgreSQL
mySQL
Redis

Message Broker

Testing
Nagios3
Loggly
NewRelic
Media Tools
Photoshop
Illustrator
InDesign
Maya
Unity 3D
Other Computer Skills
JIRA
Mercurial & Github
Office Suite
Hardware Knowledge
Computer Technician
Networking
VMWare & Docker
Work
Team Player
Adhere to strict deadlines
Part of an Employee Committee

Promote wellness and organise company events

Documentation

Technical / Requirement / Research

Agile Development