Mark Alexander Smith

Professional Profile

Senior Software Engineer with 9+ years of experience, mostly in Azure — document processing pipelines, Service Bus messaging, and more recently building automation agents with LangChain. Good at finding the failure nobody's noticed yet and fixing it properly rather than patching round it.

Professional Experience

Senior Software Engineer
Downing LLP (Remote)
October 2023 – Present
  • Rebuilt a document processing pipeline that was silently failing on around 10% of batches under load — moved it onto Azure Functions and Service Bus, got it to zero failures, and cut processing time for 10,000-document batches from 8 hours to 2
  • Take a feature once it's been prioritised — e.g. joint accounts — and run the stakeholder conversations to work out what's actually needed, then design the technical approach solo before presenting it to the team
  • Pushed test coverage from around 30% to 70% and added integration testing to make releases less nerve-wracking
  • Built LangChain-based agents that triage and route incoming requests automatically, cutting out a chunk of manual sorting
  • Currently introducing Event Grid to support a new pub/sub feature that didn't have anywhere to live in the existing architecture
  • Mentors other developers on design and testing decisions day to day
Technologies Used:
.NETAzure FunctionsService BusEvent GridLangChainSQL
Software Developer
Thinkproject UK, Cheltenham
January 2021 – October 2023
  • Helped move a legacy monolith to microservices so teams could deploy independently instead of everything going out together
  • Built out Azure infrastructure with Terraform — Function Apps, Azure SQL, secure networking
  • Migrated on-prem SQL databases to Azure SQL, with proper HA/DR in mind rather than a straight lift-and-shift
  • Worked across the stack — backend services plus modern front-end frameworks
  • Built event-driven integrations using Azure Service Bus and Blob Storage
  • Built an authorisation service using Auth0 and OpenID Connect
Technologies Used:
.NET CoreTerraformAzure SQLService BusBlob StorageAuth0Microservices
Developer
Assured Futures, Cheltenham
August 2019 – January 2021
  • Worked on redeveloping a high-traffic insurance platform, focused on reliability and making the workflows less painful for users
  • Built and maintained Angular and ASP.NET applications, frontend and backend
  • Delivered REST APIs and UI components in Blazor
Technologies Used:
AngularASP.NETBlazorREST APIs
Frontend Developer
Limegreentangerine, Cardiff
July 2017 – July 2019
  • Debugged and optimised web applications across several client projects
  • Brought legacy systems up to modern security, SEO, and accessibility standards
  • Built MVC-based CMS solutions
Technologies Used:
MVCCMSSecuritySEOAccessibility

Education

Aberystwyth University
BSc (Hons) Internet Computing and Systems Administration
Graduation: July 2017

Degree classification: 2:2

Technologies Used:
Computer ScienceSystems AdministrationNetworking
Bryntirion Comprehensive School
A Levels and GCSEs
September 2005 - July 2012
  • A Levels: Computing, Biology, Maths, and Welsh Baccalaureate
  • 11 GCSEs A*-C including Maths, English, and Science
Technologies Used:
ComputingMathematicsBiology

Technical Skills

Technical Expertise

Full-stack development with focus on modern web technologies, cloud architecture, and DevOps practices.

Frontend
React Expert
Modern React with hooks, context, and functional components
3+ years experience
Hooks Context Redux
Angular Expert
Angular 2+ with TypeScript, services, and RxJS
4+ years experience
TypeScript RxJS Services
JavaScript/TypeScript Expert
ES6+, TypeScript, modern JavaScript patterns
5+ years experience
ES6+ TypeScript Async/Await
HTML/CSS Expert
Semantic HTML, CSS3, responsive design, animations
7+ years experience
CSS3 Responsive Animations
Blazor Advanced
Blazor WebAssembly and Server, component development
2+ years experience
WebAssembly Components SignalR
Backend
.NET / C# Expert
.NET Core, C#, ASP.NET, modern .NET development
5+ years experience
.NET Core ASP.NET C#
SQL / Entity Framework Advanced
SQL Server, Entity Framework, database design
4+ years experience
SQL Server EF Core Migrations
Azure / Cloud Advanced
Azure services, cloud architecture, serverless
3+ years experience
Azure Serverless Functions
REST APIs / Microservices Advanced
RESTful APIs, microservices architecture, API design
4+ years experience
REST Microservices Swagger
Tools & DevOps
Git Expert
Version control, branching strategies, Git workflows
5+ years experience
GitFlow Rebase Merge
Docker Intermediate
Containerization, Docker Compose, container orchestration
2+ years experience
Containers Compose Images
CI/CD Advanced
Continuous integration, deployment pipelines, automation
3+ years experience
Pipelines Automation Azure DevOps
Terraform Intermediate
Infrastructure as Code, cloud resource management
2+ years experience
IaC Azure Modules
Other & Methodologies
Agile / Scrum / Kanban Advanced
Agile methodologies, sprint planning, team collaboration
5+ years experience
Scrum Kanban Sprints
Mentoring Advanced
Junior developer mentoring, code reviews, knowledge sharing
3+ years experience
Code Reviews Training Leadership
Stakeholder Communication Expert
Technical communication, requirements gathering, presentations
5+ years experience
Presentations Requirements Documentation

Personal Accolades

2023 - Elected Chair of Falco Employee Engagement Team at Thinkproject
2018/2019 - Treasurer of Sunday League Football Club
2016/2017 - Aberystwyth Full University Colours (for Sporting Excellence)
2016/2017 - President of Tarannau (American Football Club) Aberystwyth
Download CV

References Available upon Request