Gyer Design Ltd - Remote Support Engineer - Feb 2004 - Present

Placed at the Royal Bank of Scotland supporting nationwide operations. Dealing with Executive staff and support for the Coutts bank. Solving a variety of issues relating to Microsoft Office, NT, XP and Novell Netware network issues; Outlook, and Lotus Notes, mainframe access, RAS and hardware fault issues. Using SMS, Citrix VNC and a variety of other tools to solve user problems.

Computer Aid - Mobile Engineer - June 2003 - Jan 2004

Contracted to HP, travelling to Lloyds Bank sites to solve server and counter problems throughout their midland branches. Working against tight SLA's and a limited boot stock, facing customers in a pressurised financial environment, on mostly NT 4 servers and workstations, trouble shooting hardware and operating systems faults. Siemens took the contract from HP, TUPE'd the specialist staff and made most of us redundant, including me.

I.T. Net - Third Line Engineer - April 2003 - June 2003

Third line engineer on NT4, 2000 and Novell 4.x and 5.x systems covering laptops and desktops to a large user base in Bombardier, Derby. Developed automated package distribution through the ZEN Works system. Dealt with staff from shop floor to management. Also pitched in with second line support on the site when needed. Short term agency contract.

Driver Hire - July 2002 - April 2003

Agency contract driving to return to fitness after surgery. Left to re-enter I.T. contrating.

Allied Worldwide - Senior Engineer - March 1999 - October 2001

Senior Engineer employed to work on high profile customer contracts. Resigned position after company reneiged on training promises and forced me to remain in Europe. During my time with the company, my major placements were as follows ...

• Amdahl - March 2000 to October 2001 - Senior Site Engineer

  Responsible for the support of all laptop, desktop and printing operations in the offices throughout Germany, managing a hand full of other engineers, co-ordinating country wide support for nine offices and many home workers. Created various O.S. build scripts for the laptops and desktops. Investigated new hardware and software and reported to management on the appropriateness. Trouble shooting various hardware and software problems, organising external repairs where needed. Brought the asset tracking systems up to date and also created a centralised resource pool for engineers working on other sites throughout the country. Took over management and maintenance of the company servers and communications systems for two months when the IT Manager went on extended holiday. Resigned position - extended period working abroad with no scope for returning home. Used the chance to have surgery which had previously been postponed for work.

   

• Field Engineering - August 1999 to March 2000 - South East England

  Based at home in Folkestone, ranging to Oxford, Bournemouth and Chelmsford supporting a large variety of customers on a fault by fault basis. I occasionally covered for longer term, engineers on other prestige sites, such as Sony and Kimberley Clark. I carried a range of spares and had to deal with hardware faults as they arose, prioritising and planning my logistics as the day progressed. My level of performance for Kimberley Clark led them to request my presence on their European sites, feeling that my level of service was worth the extra cost.

   

• Telewest, First Line Vetting Engineer - March 1999 - August 1999 - Sheffield

  My first position for Allied saw me placed in Telewest in Sheffield, supporting Netware 3.x bindery and 4.x systems on NDS serving NT 4 clients. I vetted helpdesk calls, dealing with customers problems by remote control if possible, or dispatching an engineer if I thought it warranted a physical visit. The help desk took calls from company offices throughout England. This involved the use of Support Magic, which was later changed for Remedy.

   

Pfizer - Desk Top Engineer - July 1998 - January 1999

Placed with the Desk Top Engineering department to handle the roll out of the Shiva security package to the client's eight hundred laptop base, running various MS operating systems. I took over software development of the security package itself as well as managing two distribution engineers who visited customers desks. I prepared documentation for the trainers and brought them up to speed on the software, also supporting their active training sessions. Short term agency contract.

Synstar - Hardware Engineer - January 1998 - July 1998

Working within their customer, Pfizer, as a Hardware/Software engineer performing various support tasks as required. Main duties involved fixing hardware faults on the PC's, laptops and printers for the extensive user base of nearly two thousand. Other tasks included system evaluation and roll out preparation as well as providing telephone based support for the client's European users during a large migration dealing with updating the PC and laptop equipment used by the company both on site and for it's large home workforce. Short term agency contract.

Manpower - Driver - August 1997 - January 1998

Undertaking various driving positions with a variety of firms and a range of vehicles delivering various goods to customers. Returned to I.T.

I.C.T. - Support Technician - May 1997 - June 1997

Short contract fulfilling general IT telephone support role to client's staff throughout Europe.. Handling Novell printer queues and user accounts as necessary to fix the call there and then where possible. Short term agency contract.

Computer Aid - Technician - Feb 1997 - March 1997

Provided extra second line resource during a project work period where there was a drain on staff at Quest International's site in Ashford. Short term agency contract.

Holmes Caledonian - Temporary Driver - July 1996 - Feb 1997

Performed driving work during a lull in I.T. contracting in the area after moving to Folkestone from Sheffield. Left to return to I.T.

Pro Choice Applications - Programmer/Analyst/Tech Support - July 1995 - May 1996

Developing the DOS based version of the companies flagship software. Also provided telephone user support. Dealing with dBASE code compiled with clipper. Also handled regular monthly software updates mailed to clients. Resigned position - did not agree with direction of the company.

U.E.S. Steels - Programmer/Technician - June 1994 - June 1995

Adabas/Natural 4GL programmer developing reporting systems based on feedback from steel manufacturing equipment. Also responsible for evaluating a number of hardware and software products to see if they met the needs of the company. During my time on the project, I became an active participant in various Natural groups, and had one of my array handling programming solutions published by an American based support magazine which had world wide coverage. Placement from degree course.

Manpower U.K. Ltd - Technician - 1991 - 1992

Building PC's and loading them with various operating systems and bespoke packages ready for shipping to customers. Fault analysing returned machines, fixing and returning to customers as required. This included SCSI hardware, backup tape streamers and EPOS interfacing. Short term agency contract.

Ogwr Borough Council - Programmer/Analyst - June 1988 - Oct 1989

Programmer dealing with various small/medium sized database projects throughout the council's various departments. Duties took on board the full project life cycle from design, development and documentation to staff training and system maintenance. dBASE databases on small computers and Cobol and other reporting software on the ICL series 29 and 39 mainframes. I managed a work load which saw me split between important small projects in Personnel, Planning, Housing and DLO departments, training staff where necessary. Left to start degree course.

Redstone Computers - Technician - 1988 - 1988

Trainee technician board level building of PC's and fault diagnosis and fixing of returned PC's. I also had to build a small database to record and analyse sales contacts that were generated by a local show. It was part of the OND course and gave me the chance to put the theories I had learned in to practice, and see the results first hand. OND work placement.