Matthew Higgins

About Me

I’m software engineer and I've mostly worked with startups using Ruby on Rails, and more recently with React. I started self-teaching programming before I had left school. I have experience with every element of the stack and at designing and building robust, scalable apps that make business sense. I also enjoy focusing on web accessibility.

As I've mostly worked with startups, my typical approach tends to involve getting a big-picture view of the company, products and approaches, and finding the ways software can deal with the pain-points.

Outside of work, I am studying Finnish and Swedish, running, occasionally teaching first aid (I worked in healthcare for a while) and self-studying programming-related things I don't get to use at work.

Work Experience

Invesdor October 2018 - Present

I joined at a time when the company was reinventing parts of it's work, and have worked on projects around how investors interact with Invesdor, including a good amount of user experience and service design.

rubyrailscireactjavascriptawsdockerservice-designa11y

Freska April 2017 - November 2018

I was responsible for all backend work. One of my biggest tasks has been giving the platform a way to allocate work which it is realistically acheivable for cleaners to travel to.

I was also extensively involved in recruitment, and keeping a 'big-picture' view of the whole company to influence technical decision-making.

rubyrailscielasticsearchgoogle-cloud-platformansible

Leadfeeder June 2015 - April 2017

As an early employee, I wore many hats and later focused on data quality. I also took the lead on projects, and mentored new team members.

One of my biggest pieces of work involved creating software to quickly check the validity of and enrich the information the software provided about customers' leads.

mysqlrubyrailsamazon-web-serviceselasticsearchcassandrachefsoftware-as-a-service

Language Skills

English NativeNative
Finnish A2, Target: B1 in around 2 monthsA2
Swedish A2, Target: B1 in around 6 monthsA2

Recent Projects

  • Slush 2018 - First Aid Leadership Volunteering
    prehospitlal-careleadership
  • Slush 2017 - First Aid Volunteering
    prehospitlal-carefirst-aid
  • Web Accessibility Meetup
    accessibilityspeaking
  • Docker Migration
    dockeramazon-web-services
  • Helsinki City Run
    running

Recent Courses

Elements of AI MOOC July 2018
University of Helsinki and Reaktor
Completed2 ECTS
Data Science Professional Certificate May 2018
HarvardX via edX
In Progress8/9 modules