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Chris Abbott CV

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Chris Abbott

chris@detectright.com, 07545 619524

Summary 

  • I combine strong technical skills with analytical thinking, communication, and a dedication to delivering robust high-quality products that exceed expectations. I am driven to make an impact through technology innovation. Born in the UK, residing in South-East London. Looking for contract or permanent work, fully remote, London hybrid considered max 2 days per week. Senior developer level and Microsoft .NET stack preferred. 

 

Skills

  • System Architect
  • Software Development
  • Financial Modelling
  • Digital Assets, Security Tokens and Blockchain
  • Applied AI
  • SaaS
  • Analytics and Data Capture
  • Performance Analysis
  • Technical Diagnosis
  • Technical writing
  • Desktop Publishing
  • FinTech
  • PropTech
  • Image Processing/Analysis
  • Web5-Ready

 

Technical Skills

  • .NET Core/C#
  • .NET Foundation
  • Java
  • Linq/Language Integrated Query
  • .NET ASP MVC
  • WPF
  • .NET Maui
  • .NET Avalonia
  • OpenCV Image Processing
  • Windows Forms
  • Web API
  • Golang
  • PHP
  • Javascript and frameworks Azure Web
  • SQL (MySQL/SQL Server/SQLite)
  • NoSQL (Memcache/Redis)
  • XML/SOAP
  • Some Python/Ruby.

Legacy Technical Skills

  • BASIC, 6502 assembly, C, Statistical software (SPSS, Systat, STATA, RATS, Sawtooth), Paradox, Delphi, Visual Basic, MS Access/VBA, J++, Blitz Basic, Cakewalk CAL, C++

Note: my career is based around the existence of two companies with ongoing activities: High Technology Publishing Ltd (my personal service company that is also a publisher and IP holder), and DetectRight (which closed in 2020). I was employed by both, while engaging in other contract work as circumstances permitted. So any gaps in the contracts timeline were filled by core activities with one of those two companies.

Work Experience - Contracts

January 2023 -  July 2023

AgentWise

Contract CPO/Senior Developer/Financial Consultant

Skills: Greenfield, Solution architect, C#, .NET Core, JSON, Visual Studio, Excel, Financial Modelling, Adobe XD/Wireframe, Vector Database, Machine Learning, Real-Estate

  • Served as contract CPO for PropTech startup AgentWise during critical pre-seed stage, developing IP and validating product-market fit to drive successful fundraising.
  • Designed full modern tech stack and created interactive app prototype establishing credibility with investors and real estate partners.
  • Built a stochastic financial modelling tool providing VC-ready spreadsheets and scenarios giving data-driven validation of £17M revenue potential and 67% profit margins.
  • Drove business strategy as key advisor, assisting CFO with pitch deck generation, financial projections, and IP protection.
  • Laid technology and product foundations instrumental in pitch for $2.2M in pre-seed funding to drive future growth.

 

January 2023 – Present

Sibelius Services – Cross-platform application development

(Ongoing Personal project)

Skills: C#, .NET, Maui/Avalonia, MacOS and Windows app development, Kontakt and other synth engines, “Manuscript” programming language, documentation skills, performance analysis, extensive knowledge of music notation. Code signing and installer deployment experience to consumers was a big part of this, as was subsequent technical support.

  • The website (http://sibelius-services.itch.io shows my work, with downloadable Mac/Windows apps written by me – and shows my Mac development skills going from zero to release in less than six months. I have also used a plethora of audio and video products such as Adobe Encore (blu-ray production), Cubase, Wavelab, Reaper, Cakewalk/Sonar, and more.

 

January 2022 – December 2022

Herdl - SEO Blogging (DeFi, Personal Finance)

Skills: Finance, Cryptocurrency, business writing.

  • Generated engaging SEO content that drove 200% increase in traffic and pipeline for two DeFi companies.

 

Oct 2019 – Mar 2020

51Degrees –C to Golang device detection API port

Skills required: Legacy code conversion, Golang, C, Device Detection, API

  • Helped build high-performance Golang/C/C++ APIs powering device detection for 51Degrees, used by over 9,000 websites to provide responsive experiences.

 

June 2014 – October 2014

Thirty-Three.co.uk – Taleo development

Skills: SOAP/XML

  • This involved fixing and augmenting the Guardian’s job board, based on the Taleo platform. It involved sophisticated XML/SOAP/API experience.

 

2012 – 2014 (project-based)

ContentGuard  (USA)– Packet analysis/Content research/Patent Infringement Forensics

Skills: Hardware, Packet-Sniffing/TCP/IP, .NET/C#, Video streaming, forensic data analysis.

  • Patent holders of video streaming IP needed my help to forensically analyse video traffic for evidence of patent infringement. 

 

March 2008 – September 2008

Bach Technologies – Programmer/researcher

Skills: XML, MPEG-7, PHP

  • Programming tools for, and researching uses for, the MPEG-7 metadata standard.

 

September 1999 – July 2002

Evaliant/LWA – Software Spider/Scraper Development

Skills: TCP/IP packet analysis, Visual Basic, HTML, Scraping, Bots

  • With AOL’s blessing, I reverse-engineered their proprietary binary protocol (that they used up until 2002, before switching to full HTML) so that ad exposures could be counted and verified. This was a major achievement, and notable enough to merit a small article in the Wall Street Journal (even AOL had no internal documents on how their legacy system worked under the hood).

 

February 1999 – August 1999

British Airways – Database Developer

  • MS Access work on an internal system.

 

August 1997 – February 1999

MW Kellogg Ltd. – Database Developer (Materials Management)

  • Converting legacy reports and data from a VAX mainframe to MS Access.

September 1994 – August 1997

City University, London (Department of Property Valuation and Management)
IT Network Administrator/Lecturer in Statistics/Database Developer

Skills: PCs, Networking, MS Access, Statistics

 

August 1992 – August 1994

Timberlake Consultants – Statistician

Skills: Statistics and Statistical Software, Support, PC, Mac

  • I was the sole UK software support rep for a variety of statistical software packages.

 

August 1991 – August 1992

IBM UK Scientific Centre, Intern Programmer

Skills: C, SUN, Image Processing

  • Working on a project to experiment with image processing to help radiologist find calcifications in mammograms.

 

Work Experience – Solopreneur/Full-time

May 1996 - present

High Technology Publishing Ltd - Managing Director

This is my personal service company, but it is also a publishing and e-commerce company in the area of retro computers and sound chips.

  • Launched several creative projects for C64Audio.com, raising over £500K via crowdfunding campaigns. Featured on BBC twice, once for a massive orchestral concert of computer game music scored by 80-piece orchestra (I organised the concert and arranged/co-arranged many of the tracks).
  • Service company for non-IR35 contracting work.

 

August 2006-December 2020

DetectRight - Sole Developer/CEO

Skills: REST, SOAP, Cloud, C#, PHP, Java, XML, Bots/Scraping, HTML, CMS, Node.js, finances, marketing, concurrent programming, web services, SQL, NoSQL, analytics, data processing, more.

  • Designed and built a highly scalable real-time database and API to power mobile device detection for websites, enabling responsive development and reaching millions of users worldwide. Architected a robust concurrent system and algorithms to handle 100K+ queries per second with sub-second response, ensuring stability at massive scale.
  • Delivered performant client libraries in 7 languages, empowering developers to build device-aware web apps and capitalize on the API’s capabilities.
  • Rapidly iterated database architecture weekly through seamless upgrades to support 20K+ device profiles, maintaining 100% uptime and enabling clients to innovate faster.

 

DetectRight – more detail

  • My core technical activity from 2006 to 2020 was DetectRight, with myself as a solopreneur from 2010 onwards (the company started off as a Norwegian company called “Mobile Phone Wizards AS”. My system (both the SaaS and the standalone deployable version) was sold to multiple telcos such as Nokia and Ericsson, ad-serving companies, web analytics companies and more. It was the world’s biggest database of mobile devices, combined with the world’s most accurate system for detecting them and serving device profiles in real-time.
  • During a time when websites were expected to adapt their content to the visiting devices, it solved the problem of knowing basic and detailed information about a device, based on analysis of HTTP headers transmitted by the browser.
  • A website would see a device, pass data to my DetectRight service, and receive a table of properties back such as IsMobile, IsTablet, ScreenX, ContentX, HasMP4, etc.
  • This started off as a REST and SOAP API connected to a cloud of servers running a high-speed web service. The service itself was initially written in PHP with a combination of MySQL and NoSQL and a number of light REST clients in languages such as Ruby, Python and C++. It soon expanded into high-concurrency multi-thread systems written in Java and C#.
  • I also maintained a searchable web database with images and profiles that grew to over 80,000 profiles. This was achieved by analysis from real traffic, combined with web scraping that performed a vast amount of the work. There was a manual data verification process at the end with a powerful query-driven front-end to allow one part-time database person to keep the system up-to-date.
  • To clients, the system offered weekly data updates in SQLite format that could be slipstreamed into a live environment, and involved minimal application updates, thanks to a flexible data design.
  • I also created white papers and gave presentations, and participated at W3C level as an invited expert.
  • In 2020, DetectRight was gracefully concluded – the market had decided to go with responsive design, serving multi-megabytes of data to every device and letting the device sort it out. Also, Google had decided to rewrite the ecosystem for its own ends. As the pandemic had hit, I decided to take time to work on personal projects including fulfilling Kickstarter obligations.

Projects and skills - addendum

Stochastic Startup Simulator

The proptech startup AgentWise, aiming at VC funding, needed an alternative method of generating SaaS funnel and revenue numbers related to the real world instead of Excel-generated static growth numbers, and connecting them dynamically to Revenue or Member/Subscriber numbers.

  • For me, the only way to legitimately model where a customer would come from and how they would interact with the system was to actually build channels and funnels, throw ad-spend at them, have them suck in customers with different personalities and have them experience the system (virtually), with both positive and negative experiences – effectively turning an advertising budget into a stream of signups ready for churning and processing.
  • So, this simulator ingests a business model (Revenue, COGS, OPEX, Tax, depreciation) and runs a complete month-to-month, customer-experience simulation over the initial lifetime of the company using ad-spend to generate revenue streams. Then, it spits out a VC-ready Excel sheet. It is both multi-currency and multi-region, and outputs AI-ingestible data. It can also ingest manually specific data, and a variety of funnels are planned.
  • The JSON settings for the model. [] indicates possible scenarios. Note the incredible array ot configurable settings.
  • I wrote this system in 6 weeks flat and it can also be run period-to-period interactively, which leads to gamification. This shows my playful and virtuoso approach to technology which often results in a next-level product to delight customers.
  • It was also an example where I saw an unacceptable situation that was being tolerated universally (using Excel to generate financial models, as opposed to merely hosting the output), changing the paradigm, and specifying up and programming a useful solution at lightning speed.
  • The simulator remains my sole IP, and plans for future expansion include creating an Azure Web/React version that allows companies to play their own business plan as an interactive game, while also allowing them to create VC-ready numbers when they’ve optimised their plan.

 

 

Technical/creative writing (Little Book of Sound Chips)

  • During the pandemic lockdown, I also used the time to write four books on sound chips and the games that use them: while the book looks technical, it combines accessible technical writing about CPUs, sound chips and microcontrollers with many screenshots and reviews of games to jog the memory. Additionally, it contains QR code links to online media, so readers can enjoy the sound as well as the book.
  • The first and second volumes are available in hardback with 5-star reviews. The third and fourth volumes are available in PDF from my own 26-year-old Web shop, C64Audio.com.
  • The chips covered in volume 3. Gotta catch 'em all!

 

Digital Archaeology

  • My writing work also involves renovating ancient skills in a process of digital archaeology.
  • For a while, achieving anything on computer hardware involved knowledge of CPUs, chip registers and assembly language. That gives you an intuitive knowledge of what goes on under the hood of modern computers, whatever the hardware and software is. It also gives you a working knowledge of microcontrollers and motherboards
  • Labelling 6502 assembly code that produces music, for a technical biography of the composer, Rob Hubbard, where I established his development timeline of his famous works by forensically analysing his work, while cross-comparing with known historical events. This was widely considered impossible.

 

Fundraising/crowdfunding

  • I have raised over £500,000 on Kickstarter for numerous ambitious C64 music projects from 2015 - 2022). This shows that I’m willing to put in immense amounts of preparation and put my reputation on the line time and time again for something I believe is worthwhile.
  • More importantly, when problems have arisen with Kickstarter delivery or political events massively impacting delivery, I have maintained high levels of communication with my backers, always treating them as my boss. My failures are in public – but thousands of people know that I deliver everything I promise.

 

Kickstarters I have run include:

  • Back in Time Live 2015, Back in Time Symphonic Collection, Project Sidologie, Project Hubbard, 8-Bit Symphony Pro 1, 8-Bit Symphony Pro 2, Ninja Musicology, C64 Rocks and Amiga Rocks.

 

Music composition/arrangement

  • I have had arrangements for 80-piece symphony performed in public and released on CD and have been the main artist on 9 well-regarded albums that have been occasionally featured in the national computer press. I am insanely dedicated, and I work hard and effectively at achieving excellence in new fields.

 

Live event organisation

  • This was a mammoth achievement that took decades to finally achieve and was only achieved because I created and executed a strategic plan to get from zero scores (and zero concerts) to a fully-fledged concert. I had to bridge the gap between my layers of experts and shoulder the hard work/drudge work that would normally demoralise or demotivate them. My projects have worked because of my ability to strategize, manage resources, and to lead (kindly and ethically) from the front.
  • 8-Bit Symphony was also a multi-generational project, with the composer and conductor in their 60s, the artists in their teens, and the audience having a surprisingly varied demographic composition.

 

Music publishing, legality and IP

  • I am a music publisher of old Computer game pieces and own the rights to hundreds of old tunes, which I administer through MCPS/PRS). One of them became the old 00s hit “Kernkraft 400” by Zombie Nation. I was also responsible for a generation falling in love with C64 music again by having it put into a Claymation game called “Platypus”.
  • Kernkraft 400 is actually "Lazy Jones - Stardust" by David Whittaker. Here's some of my other IP at MCPS/PRS.

 

Desktop publishing

  • I have laid up dozens of designs for newsletters, CD booklets, promotional material, concert programmes, and books (Aldus PageMaker, then PagePlus, now Adobe InDesign).
  • I’m also handy with a Photoshop and many other ancillary tools.

 

Education

 

University of Surrey (1988-1992)

Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Statistics (2:1)