Philip A Senger

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Pioneered the use of Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), the company's first implementation, enabling clear, unbiased, and rational decision-making aligned with business goals.
• Developed and formalized Business Continuity Planning (BCP) documentation, ensuring actionable recovery plans for critical digital assets in case of failure.
• Authored detailed documentation in Confluence to standardize processes and enhance project visibility across teams.
• Deconstructed legacy Grails systems into modular requirements, features, and API specifications, leading a transition to a cost-efficient AWS-based Quoting Service:
  • Achieved significant cost savings by leveraging AWS resources.
  • Delivered clean, maintainable code, accelerating future product migrations to a fraction of the initial time.
• Collaborated with stakeholders to create detailed architectural plans and roadmaps, ensuring alignment with business and technical objectives.
• Designed and implemented proof-of-concept solutions to validate new approaches and technologies.

Major Development & Implementation

• Migrated two high-traffic websites (Compare Travel Insurance Australia and New Zealand) from Java Grails to NextJS, resulting in:
  • Improved scalability and maintainability through component-first design.
  • A foundation for rapidly deploying micro-sites, enabling faster time-to-market for new initiatives.
• Built multiple micro-sites using Markdown and MDX, transitioning content to transparent, adaptable formats:
  • Enhanced content management efficiency, reducing development overhead and empowering non-technical teams to make updates independently.
  • Enabled the business to react quickly to changing market needs with minimal technical intervention.
• Streamlined deployment pipelines with AWS CDK and Terraform, leveraging Amazon S3 and Lambda:
  • Delivered a cost-effective HEIC image conversion service, reducing manual intervention and improving image processing speeds.
  • Improved team-wide cloud infrastructure quality by providing actionable feedback on AWS CDK practices.
• Tracked and measured Google algorithm changes, resulting in data-driven performance improvements that:
  • Increased website traffic by optimizing content delivery and visibility.
  • Enhanced site load times and user experience, contributing to higher customer retention rates.
• Developed BCP-integrated pipeline tools, ensuring resilience and recovery readiness for critical systems.
  • Provided cross-functional support during team absences, maintaining seamless operation of Claims and Sales systems on the Engage platform.
  • Standardized onboarding processes for laptops and Microsoft accounts through comprehensive documentation, reducing setup time and increasing productivity for new hires.

Technical Skills & Tools

• Utilised ReactJS with JSX, MDX, StoryBook for component development
• Trained the Claims team and Product team in the use of Obsidian and Markdown
• Developed Java APIs using:
  • Spring Boot
  • Prometheus
  • Graylog
• Leveraged AI-driven tools to accelerate:
  • Documentation
  • Testing
  • Code development
• Established integration with:
  • Webhooks
  • BitBucket

Quality Assurance & Standards

• Implemented comprehensive testing using:
  • Jest
  • Playwright
• Generated and maintained:
  • SEO reports
  • Accessibility reports
• Initiated development of a Global Experience Language (GEL) using Storybook for component-first development
• Established coding standards including:
  • Lint tools
  • Coverage reports
  • Git hooks
• Developed standards for:
  • Code styles
  • Procedures
  • Documentation
  • Review processes

Team Leadership & Management

• Conducted technical interviews incorporating:
  • Technical assessment
  • Situational questioning
  • Behavioural evaluation
• Facilitated efficient developer onboarding through:
  • Creation of documentation
  • Development of tooling
• Maintained team stability and confidence during leadership absence
• Effectively organised stakeholder communications and presented risk-benefit analyses

Outcome:

Converted several legacy Grails websites into server-side generated Next.js and React websites, using a monorepo and component-driven design based on Markdown content. This resulted in a solution that is not only more operationally cost-effective but also enabled more agility.

Introduced Standard Agile Software Development Life Cycle operational behaviours, such as planing, design, and testing. A simple introduction, but significantly reduced chaos and confusion.

Introduced Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), BCP, test reports, code coverage, as well as tooling to help automate processes resulting in a simpler and more consist day-to-day operations.

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Collaborated directly with CTO and Engineering Manager to identify and mitigate risks for major business projects
• Spearheaded the transition from Jenkins and Bitbucket to GitLab Enterprise, presenting comprehensive cost-benefit analysis to CTO
• Established architectural standards for microservices and REST APIs, driving the transformation from monolithic codebases to manageable, SaaS-oriented components
• Led Architecture Decision Records (ADR) development and documentation, ensuring alignment with business objectives
• Implemented correlation ID logging using Async Hooks in NodeJS and downstream systems, dramatically reducing production debugging time

Major Development & Implementation

• Engineered and deployed a new Terminal Management System, acquiring proficiency in Erlang, Elixir, and Phoenix to understand and migrate the legacy ReactJS console
• Designed and implemented an n-tier system using Backend for Frontend (BFF) and API stateless architecture, delivering enhanced flexibility for partner integration
• Successfully integrated the system into GitLab pipeline SDLC, implementing automated artifact generation and security scanning
• Developed robust TypeScript and NodeJS modules while providing system-wide technical guidance
• Resolved complex issues related to NodeJS, ReactJS, security, and identity management

Technical Skills & Tools

• Served as primary contact for GitLab Enterprise implementation, leading pipeline development and standardisation
• Established comprehensive testing frameworks using Jest, including in-memory database environments for regression testing
• Implemented automated vulnerability scanning and quality reporting within the SDLC
• Demonstrated expertise in ReactJS, NodeJS, TypeScript, Erlang, Elixir, and Phoenix frameworks

Quality Assurance & Standards

• Instituted a scientific method for performance tuning, establishing baseline metrics and monitoring at key demarcations
• Implemented systematic performance improvement processes, enabling team members to identify and prevent issues proactively
• Established organisation-wide testing standards and frameworks, improving code quality and reliability
• Created full local regression environments with in-memory databases, initiated and seeded by Jest

Team Leadership & Management

• Led and mentored offshore and local development teams through regular meetings and one-on-ones
• Conducted code reviews and shared best practices, encouraging developers to expand their technical horizons
• Facilitated team adoption of new technologies through empathy, training, and ownership approaches
• Led daily stand-ups and planning sessions, connecting technical decisions to business objectives
• Actively participated in business product conception, planning, estimation, and maintenance processes

Outcome:

Transformed the organisation's development capabilities by modernising critical systems and establishing robust DevOps practices. Successfully led the migration of legacy systems while maintaining business continuity, resulting in improved system flexibility and partner integration capabilities. Implemented scientific performance tuning methodologies and correlation ID logging, significantly reducing debugging time and preventing performance issues. Fostered a culture of technical excellence through mentorship and standardisation, enabling teams to deliver high-quality solutions aligned with business objectives.

Qantas

• I led a team of two and contributed to several projects, including the COVID Boarding Pass, IATA App, COVID Safe Travel Hub, and backend systems serving a large user base. The technologies we utilised included React.js, Java 8-11, Kotlin, Swagger, and Node.js. For version control and project management, we employed tools such as GitHub Actions, Bamboo, and Jira. As the lead, my responsibilities extended beyond software development; I worked closely with the business to ensure expectations were set, goals were achieved, and both documentation and software standards were upheld.
• I successfully managed tasks with stringent deadlines and deliverables, ensuring all product expectations were met.
• A notable achievement was the creation of the React.js AEM Widget, a versatile tool integrated into various digital assets to assist travellers with COVID-related concerns. This widget was deployed across multiple AEM pages, providing country-specific COVID restrictions. It underwent extensive testing to ensure reliability and was easily adaptable for any destination through CDN and AEM DAM.

Outcome:

The resulting software supported travellers during the COVID pandemic by facilitating attestations, generating boarding passes, and enabling public-facing planning tools.

SiteMinder

• I worked on a Payment Platform, utilising Kotlin, Node.js, and various AWS services, including Kinesis Streams, Lambda, and IAM, implemented through Terraform. I incorporated new binlog event handlers to route events to different streams in Kinesis. Additionally, I developed new features and resolved issues related to REST APIs. I also assisted in the "Lift and Shift" conversion from Kotlin to Node.js.
• My transition to SiteMinder was necessitated by the expiration of the Qantas contract. However, ARQ required my presence during the warranty period with Qantas, subsequently assigning me to SiteMinder as a Senior Engineer.

Outcome:

Delivered new features integrating external systems with EDA via AWS Kinesis and SQS, enhancing the customer experience during checkout.

• Built CMS components and Interactive display used in the Bondi Pavilion Display
  • Used Node.JS, Vue.JS, Electron, and Story Book CMS with AWS Lambda, and Github Actions
  • Worked very closely with the business to create a seamless roll out and experience.
• Worked on the Interactive Triceratops Display found in the Melbourne Museum
  • Used Vue.JS and Electron
  • Created build and bundle process with electron apps.

Woolworths Loyalty Group

Working directly with our clients, WooliesX and Woolies Reward, I participated in a diverse range of projects, leveraging my leadership skills, extensive development experience, and proficiency in various cloud computing services, front-end, and back-end technologies.

Daily tasks including engagement with business owners and stack holders, working with BAs to identify tasks that and PMs to build deliverable time lines as well as write software while working and instructing other developers.

These projects encompassed Security, Reward Redemption, Identity Management, High-Speed Processing, Fault Tolerance, Multi-Tenant and Distributed Systems, Front-End Development, as well as API and Back-End Systems legacy maintenance across multiple languages and platforms.

Collaborating directly with platform owners, I established best practices for CI/CD, automated testing, NFR performance, forensic issue identification and remediation, and fault tolerance design.

This involved utilizing a wide range of domain knowledge, including writing Angular JS 1.2 solutions for Tealium and Node.js, Java, Python, and Apigee. Integration of various vendor-specific platform solutions such as Docker, Amazon Kinesis, ECS, Lambda, SQS, SNS, Apigee, Google, and Azure Compute and event and message queues was also implemented.

Outcome:

• OneLogin: Unifying login across all Woolworths digital assets by working with perimeter and distributed security paradigms, incorporating IDM/IDPs such as OAuth, KeyCloak, and SAP Gigya. Implemented critical event tracking, actionable messages, and remediation using Splunk and Elk Stack. Provided guidance to business and architecture teams and led solution development and deployment. Significant changes were made to Apigee Configurations and flows.
• Pos2Ctr: Developing AWS and Azure systems utilizing Event Hub and Kinesis streams to remove personally identifiable information (PII) via configurable first approach from non-sequential data before streaming to AWS Kinesis. Modified the reconciliation process to align with new business requirements before pushing data into the Data Lake. Solutions involved working with persistence frameworks and stored procedures, including RDS/Postgres, MongoDB, DynamoDB, Redis, Cosmos-DB, S3, and Parquet Data Lake Storage.

Working on a joint proof of concept with Lorica Health and Direct Health CRC using ReactJS, Java, and NodeJS in AWS, delivered ahead of schedule an application used to analyse clinician and facility metrics generated by Machine Learning models. This included complete end to end solution, from concept, UX, development, and deployment.

With my commercial knowledge of building scalable web applications, I gave both direction and insight into its development. This also included building Docker images used by the corporation, integrating static code analysis with Sonar Cube, setting standards for testing and building ReactJS applications, and setting up Nexus for NPM to drive library first development. The release of the product and the contract was halted as NSW State funding was retracted.

Deployed to Macquarie Corporate Operations Group (COG) - Monitoring on a fixed-term contract through Rubicor. Developed greenfield solutions using ReactJS, NodeJS, GoLang, Java, and gRPC with REST APIs hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the onboarding and self-management of a Splunk analytical and alerting framework, aimed at migrating from HP OpenView. Responsibilities included gathering requirements from business units, designing API interfaces, writing tickets, collaborating with stakeholders, and building the system. Additionally, I created Splunk dashboards and resolved issues with Splunk. Worked closely with four other senior developers to successfully complete the migration. The contract concluded as the project was completed and the team was disbanded.

I was solely responsible for the strategic technical direction of the company, developing solutions to meet business needs through bespoke or off-the-shelf systems. Reporting directly to the founders and general manager, I provided innovative, business-focused solutions aimed at expanding operations.

Outcome:

• Designed, developed, and managed a bespoke Student Management System (SMS) hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), leveraging fault-tolerant, highly available, multi-tenant architectures.
• Utilised AWS services such as EBS, EC2, API Gateway, Lambda, SQS, CloudWatch, SES, and S3, as well as open-source tools like MongoDB, Webpack, GatsbyJS, ReactJS, Node.js, PHP, and WordPress.
• Implemented software design patterns and products, including Progressive Web Apps (PWA), Server-Side Rendered ReactJS (SSR), CDN distribution, JavaScript ES6, scalable distributed systems, and serverless architectures.
• Integrated the SMS with external systems such as Xero, Stripe, and a WordPress-based Learning Management System (LMS) via message queues.
• I led a team of three engineers, combining agile development methodologies with tools such as Jira, automated testing, Git, and CodeShip. The team included interns, remote workers, and part-time staff, and I emphasised mentoring to foster growth, teamwork, and skill development. I introduced team members to DevOps, debugging practices, and testing methodologies, including TDD, BDD, regression, and unit testing.

Given the company's size and my diverse experience, I took on multiple roles, including developer, architect, project manager, DevOps engineer, tester, iteration manager, and acting CTO. My favourite role was as a technical lead, where I shared my passion for technology and encouraged growth within the team.

This position was unfortunately concluded when the company was sold, and all employees, including myself, were let go.

IAG - Coles Insurance

Responsible for a team of 10 developers and 2 testers, as a team technical lead. The entire team was new to agile development and commercial NodeJS and ReactJS. Responsibilities included building the culture of the team, mentoring, interviewing, and establishing best practices for Software Development, ReactJS, SCSS, CI/CD, NodeJS, Web Accessibility, and Basic commercial requirements of a revenue-generating website. In addition, to the hands-on technical aspect of leadership, I was expected to keep deliverables and testing on the track and meeting the expectations of the business. This included running scrums to support the PM, retros, and Interfacing directly with stack holders for the purpose of building estimations for eClaims, lodgements, and other forecasted products in the portfolio for SGIC SGIO and Coles. I performed iteration management, backlog grooming with the business, created stories and engaged vendors.

Built the deployment and testing pipeline from scratch. Following best practices, Introduced GitFlow with branching and merging, code reviews, and Integrated Bitbucket with Jira to link deployments to release notes.

Developed field abandonment tracking in the website, funnel progression and analytics with Adobe Tag Manager and Omniture. Integrated both the ReactJS SPA client and AEM Java server with New Relic for the purpose of tracking performance and outages with synthetic monitoring as well as performance monitoring. Conducted Performance testing and optimization from the client to the connections in the back-end servers. Worked with the infrastructure to optimize load balancing and DNS migration.

In addition to software development in Java on AEM and JavaScript with ES6 and React and Redux developed the accessibility guidelines and design patterns used by the team. Mentored, coached, and ran the brown bags. I also documented my design decisions with risk assessment matrixes and put together many videos for the team.

Due to negotiations between Coles and IAG, the team was disbanded, and the product was transitioned into operational status. My manager made a special effort to move me to the NRMA team; however, that team was also undergoing changes. I decided it was an appropriate time for me to explore other opportunities.

IAG - NRMA

Worked with the NRMA team to help them uplift digital assets accessibility functionality. Set standards and guided fellow developers.

Responsible for leading a team of four direct reports, including two developers, a system administrator, and a project manager. Oversaw the management of several bespoke products hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Daily activities involved collaborating with C-level managers, managing the team, product management, and developing go-to-market strategies for our product line and budgets. Additional responsibilities included troubleshooting, architectural design, and software development.

Outcome:

• Developed technical documents, specifications, and user experience documentation for external contractors and internal use.
• Established processes and procedures, collaborating with the COO to define the company's technical strategy.
• Designed and implemented an Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) system using SQS and Node.js microservices, deployed on EC2 and Lambda for high-volume, eventually consistent applications.
• Built a CMS in Node.js capable of handling several hundred transactions per second.
• Designed a voucher redemption system to support 500,000 registrations per day.
• Expanded functionality for the company's LMS and trade education platform.

This role concluded as the company faced significant challenges, which resulted in an exit of the technical side of the digital agency.

Woolworths Loyalty Group

Team Lead for SOA / REST applications deployed to the Apigee Edge platform located in Amazon Web Services for Woolworths Loyalty Group. The supported platform, a multi-tenant system, used for Mission Critical Mobile applications, Websites, Internal applications, and vendors and written in NodeJS, and used both BaaS / Cassandra, RDS / Postgres and Lambda.

Responsible for coordinating deployments, Communicating bandwidth and status to the Delivery Manager, running Scrums with a small team, planning deliverables, creating tickets and stories in Jira, working with Architects, formulating processes and procedures, Continuous Delivery with Travis CI and Github, and managing a small team of NodeJS Developers, Documenting, writing BDD Tests and writing software.

Using real-world experience with NoSQL, REST, BaaS, SOA, EDA, and software development life cycle, I quickly identified areas of concern, developed an engagement plan, got up to speed, and added value. Mentored developers, improved the process, developed CI and CD, and formulated and implemented best practices. Managed business owners' expectations and enhanced the delivery process.

Following the acquisition of Odecee by Cognizant, significant strategic changes in business objectives led to the conclusion of my engagement with Woolworths. I chose to apply the leadership skills I had acquired to new opportunities.

I was solely responsible for the strategic architectural direction of the group, developing responses to business needs and requirements with Java and JavaScript. Interviewed candidates, mentored team members, and performed monthly technology reviews. Used agile development to improve the workflow and policy of the group. Managed major upgrades and improvements. Worked with multi-disciplinary and international teams to develop applications deployed to countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Upgraded and improved continuous integration, delivery, and deployment of a web-based application to 11 countries using Jenkins, Puppet, and Virtualization tools.

Coached the team in software development patterns and life cycle. This included the introduction of AngularJS and workflow tools such as Grunt, Gulp, Node, Bower, and Yeoman.

Successfully managed multi-discipline teams for the conversion and software changes needed to integrate the consulting team in Pune, India with the back office T&M and Finance Systems in the USA and APAC regions. Successfully managed multi-discipline teams for the conversion and software changes needed to integrate the consulting team in Pune, India with the back office T&M and Finance Systems in the USA and APAC regions.

Operated as assistant manager when needed for a multi-disciplinary team often. This included project planning, running scrums, and resolving issues. Upgraded continuous integration. Development and deployment policies bring the team into a more industry-standard Software Design and Life Cycle.

My primary responsibility was as an Architect and Developer for a new multi-tenant and multi-facet Software as a Service (SaaS) system. Responsibilities included coordinating the design, release, and development in multiple languages for multiple platforms, creating, and managing support documentation. As a proponent of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), was the main contributor to the adoption and development of services in the organization. Additional responsibilities included evaluating, documenting, supporting, and promoting new supporting technologies. Provided educational material, mentored, interviewed candidates, and conducted presentations on new technologies to the team. As both a team member and a team leader, participated in and ran Scrums, an Agile Software Development Methodology. Because of my diverse experience in different frameworks, platforms, technologies, and languages, was repeatedly called into separate projects to either provide support, insight, or guidance.

Our final SaaS system ultimately resulted in significant savings by reducing duplicate work effort, introducing a consistent, simplified design, and consolidating business intelligence. Increased resilience and brand perception by utilizing on-demand hardware in a cloud-based configuration. It also allowed members to opt in and out based on demand with fault tolerance. The solution addressed both the marketing needs and internal requirements.

The architectural design included both multi-tenant and multi-facet beans requiring the standardization of interfaces, data transfer objects, and exceptions all to support multiple disparate client technologies and sources of data. As part of the SaaS architecture, designed a Write-Once-Deploy-To-Multiple-Facet architecture, allowing one java class (a service) to satisfy multiple facets (SOAP, RMI, AJAX, and HTTP Invoker RMI over HTTP). Resulting in significant savings in Total Cost of Ownership.

Responsible for the authentication and permission design of the SaaS system including the development of a Token-based system integrated with Acegi, that allowed access to the system based on location, date, and identity. Leveraged the power of Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) in the permission layer, the first of its kind in the group, which performed introspection on in and outbound objects. The design resulted in alleviating developers from making costly permission mistakes by intercepting calls and in a non-obtrusive manner applying permissions. When deployed to production, the system prevented several events of embarrassing cross-contamination of data and was recognized by management.

Successfully introduced two products to the vernacular of the team, Direct Web Remoting (DWR, an AJAX framework) and Spring Http Invoker (a Java Remote Method Invocation replacement). DWR integrated into the Service framework and met the needs of the Front-End Development team for a JavaScript data service. While Spring Http Invoker resolved a bug with RMI that undermined the Big Pipe F5 an OSI layer 3-4 Multilayer Switch. Responsible for successfully planning, testing, and converting all the Services RMI Clients to Http Invoker without impacting the development or the release dates of the product or team.

As SaaS module owner held the highest level of quality for a module in the entire team by designing and implementing the department's first automated test suite. Used Test-Driven Development and Domain Driven Design to continually test and improve the product. Prevented multiple occurrences of potential bugs to production created by back-end changes or careless development.

Increased performance by utilizing caching and introduced the concept of declarative caching with inline Metadata to the team. Developed "Self-Healing" and System Health architecture for Cloud members, which allowed members in the cloud to opt-in or opt-out of our Cloud SaaS system dynamically without impacting existing connections (elastic design). Developed Open JPA persistence components, and drawing upon experience with Hibernate, directed the team in solving issues with some of the ORM designs, saving expensive mistakes. Developed components in Disturbed Worker Framework (DWARF), part of Apache HADOOP framework. This required understanding of Java synchronization, threads, and RMI. Called upon previous use of J-Profiler to prove out and avoid harmful performance issues. With DWARF we were able to reduce search time through terabytes of data significantly and increase the user experience.

Designed components in ExtJS JavaScript, which were re-used in multiple systems, resulting in saving costly development. Prototyped a Portal, which was later, adopted as the final solution.

Lead developer of a four-member team responsible for converting the existing Portal into a mobile version with Sencha Touch. Utilized existing resources by introducing Mobile Spring and simply "Re-Skinned" the existing system in such a manner that it was suitable for a mobile device. The end product was delivered on time and exceeded the expectations of our product owner.