~/charliedavison_

👋 hello, world

I'm Charlie, a principal engineer.

Principal Engineer & Engineering Manager at PerchPeek. I build the systems that move money and people around reliably, and gadgets that don't need to exist.

currently: rebuilding billing▍

charliedavison@web: ~

Welcome! Type help to look around.

## about

I'm a Principal Engineer and Engineering Manager at PerchPeek, where we help companies relocate their people around the world. I lead engineering across the whole stack, from our PHP API to our TypeScript web app. A big part of the job is reviewing and shaping other people's work, not just writing my own.

I started programming around 2004, writing an MSN Messenger bot in VB6. After that came a Computing degree at Loughborough, and more than a decade of building and leading web teams.

## work

linkedin ↗

  1. PerchPeek

    May 2022 — present · London · Remote

    • Principal Full Stack Engineer & Engineering ManagerJan 2023 — present
    • Principal React EngineerMay 2022 — Jan 2023

    Relocation platform that helps companies move their people around the world. I joined to build out the web products and now lead engineering across the stack, from the PHP API to the React web app.

    • Rebuilt client billing from the ground up as an event-driven system: rate cards, a rules engine and an auditable event ledger
    • Moved the team to continuous delivery, with frequent, highly stable releases
    • Set up our AI-assisted, cross-repository development workflow with Claude

    PHPReactTypeScriptReact QueryViteLaunchDarklyCypress

  2. Common Surface

    Jul 2021 — May 2022 · London

    • Engineering Lead

    Joined at post-seed to lead engineering on a hybrid-workplace product that helped people decide when it was worth going into the office.

    • Led the team building the core web app, microservices and a Slack app
    • Introduced agile practices and release management, taking releases from monthly to several a week

    ReactNode.jsAWS Lambda

  3. LifeWorks

    Aug 2018 — Jul 2021 · London

    • Web Team LeadMay 2019 — Jul 2021
    • Senior Web DeveloperAug 2018 — May 2019

    Joined as a senior developer on the LifeWorks employee wellbeing platform and was promoted to lead the web team of 10 developers.

    • Localised the platform into 52 languages, and built the tooling to keep it that way
    • Launched a new internal admin tool and took our MS Teams app from proof of concept to launch
    • Moved the frontend off EC2 onto CloudFront and S3
    • Ran the team with the highest engagement scores in the business

    ReactTypeScriptGraphQLNode.jsAWS

  4. Warwick International

    Nov 2011 — Aug 2018 · Derby

    • Full Stack Developer & Team LeadSep 2015 — Aug 2018
    • Software DeveloperJun 2014 — Sep 2015
    • Senior Software Support EngineerApr 2013 — May 2014
    • Software Support EngineerNov 2011 — Apr 2013

    Where it all started. I began supporting the eOPAS occupational health software, moved on to developing it, and went on to lead a team building full-stack JavaScript products.

    • Owned our own build, test and release pipelines across Azure and IBM Bluemix
    • Set up automated unit, integration and UI testing with Mocha, Karma and Selenium

    Node.jsReactMongoDBC#ASP.NETSQL

  5. Loughborough University 🎓

    2008 — 2011

    BSc Computing and Management. My dissertation was an online peer-assessment system for group projects. I spent a lot of the rest of my time with the ski & snowboard club.

## side quests

things I build for fun