Moray Macdonald

Key Strengths

• System design, database modeling, infrastructure and architecture
• Taking MVPs from idea to launch
• Solo or Lead developer roles
• Taking ownership of legacy systems to ensure their longevity

Core Proficiencies

Main Languages

Typescript, Python

Other Languages

C♯, Javascript, Java

Front-end technologies

React, Apollo, Astro, Vite. HTML5, CSS3 and SCSS. WCAG best practices and GDS (GOV.UK) design principles.

Back-end technologies

GraphQL, Express.js, ASP.NET, Pyramid, REST-ful APIs. Prisma ORM, SQLAlchemy and Entity Framework.

Databases

MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Cassandra/Scylla and Elasticsearch. Administration of MySQL and SQL Server.

Devops

AWS architecture and administration. Containerisation with Docker and Kubernetes. Git and TFS, CI/CD with Wercker, Drone, Octopus, Bitbucket Pipelines. Administration of on-prem Windows and Linux-based environments and networks.

Other

System architecture and design. Confident running Agile (Scrum and Kanban) software teams supported by Jira, TFS/Azure Devops and Trello.

Experience

Macdonald Technology Consultant

August 2023 – Present, Wiltshire/Remote

Alongside his long-term roles, Moray provides consulting and development services to a range of smaller clients and startups.

This includes advising on technology and architecture choices, analysing market fit and advising on project planning. He is also involved with developing prototype systems and full MVPs (supported by the latest AI tools) to demonstrate both market and technology fit.

EduTech ClientFull Stack Developer

January 2025 – April 2025, Remote

A short term contract assisting a digital agency startup to migrate a legacy ASP.NET Web API to a modern GraphQL API written in Typescript and hosted on Azure, while keeping the same underlying SQL Server database. This was a complex task as data and audit trail integrity was a core requirement of the system, and the variant of SCD2 used by the data model made even simple operations very intricate.

Professional Services Client ACloud Architecture Consultant

January 2024 – October 2024, Remote

To accompany their move from MVC to React, this client was also looking to move their mature and successful B2B product to Azure. The customer was also keen to remove this giant system's dependency on a single on-premise SQL Server instance, which had become a performance bottleneck.

Moray designed and prototyped a new event-driven architecture, making heavy use of Azure Service Bus distributing messages between microservices hosted in Azure Kubernetes Service as well as on-premise. In addition, the whole system was defined in Bicep which allowed the team to rapidly spin up and tear down test environments as needed.

Cat In A FlatFull Stack Developer

September 2023 – December 2024, Bristol/Remote

Moray was brought in to support the existing development team developing new features for and supporting users of Cat in a Flat's popular pet sitting app.

With pressure from customers at the start of a busy time for the company, Moray had to quickly switchs skillset from an API-driven React tech stack to Cat in a Flat's Python-based stack in order to quickly deliver value to the development team and their community of pet-sitting customers.

As well as new development, Moray also supported the application hosting on AWS, and their mobile app, built with Cordova (Ionic).

Professional Services Client ADevelopment Consultant

September 2023 – November 2023, Remote

This client had a very successful business developing ASP.NET MVC applications, but were looking to incorporate modern React-based frontends into their products. Moray was brought in to provide a series of React prototypes and boilerplate repositories displaying best practices to help their developers get started.

Digital Communities Ltd (formerly Groop)Lead Developer

September 2019 – Present, Corsham/Remote

See case study above for details.

BMT Defence and SecuritySoftware Developer

October 2015 – September 2019, Bath

Working with a wide range of Government clients including Home Office and MoD, Moray delivered many projects to production and provided 1st line support. Moray was involved with all stages of projects from requirements gathering and architectural design through development to testing and support, using whichever technologies suit the customer’s needs best, often having to learn new platforms quickly. Specialisations included front end development, GIS systems, graph database usage and DevOps.

IPL Information Processing (now Civica Digital)Service Engineer

March 2014 – October 2015, Bath

Moray was the technical lead supporting an IPL-developed platform for secure data exchange He handled systems, database and PKI administration, on-call 1st line support and managed all deployments.

IPL Information Processing (now Civica Digital)Software Engineer

September 2011 – March 2014, Bath

Responsible for building bespoke web-based solutions using ASP.NET, C♯, JavaScript and SharePoint. Other responsibilities included unit testing, basic UI design and requirements gathering with customers.

Education

Durham UniversityMPhys Physics with Astronomy

October 2007 – June 2011

King Edward’s School, Bath4 A-levels

September 1996 – July 2007