Hi there!
My name is Des and I am a developer.
I like code, music, and using code to make music.
August 2018 — October 2020
Toggl Track is the leading time tracking platform for enterprise and individual clients alike. Working in the mobile team there I got to take part in pushing the envelope of Xamarin cross-platform development, along with getting proficient with functional reactive programming (Rx is ♥️). Later on I became a part of the dedicated iOS team, working with the latest iOS tech like SwiftUI and Combine. You can check the Toggl Track mobile app out here
November 2014 — August 2018
TOAD is a creative agency in the heart of Shoreditch, with a diverse portfolio of projects, ranging from app development to video production and everything in between. Working in such an environment means using a wide selection of tools, allowing me to work with both the trendiest JavaScript and NodeJS frameworks and plain old WordPress. During my time at TOAD I got into iOS development with Swift, creating and shipping several apps, most notable of which are OnBeat, a clubbing event discovery app, and Goalmouth, a brand new football betting experience.
July — September 2014
Overleaf is an online collaborative platform for scientific writing based on LaTeX. During my time there I worked across a full Ruby-On-Rails stack using Ruby and the latest HTML5, CSS3 and JS technologies at the time. I designed and implemented the referral awards system from the ground up along with other front-end and back-end projects.
2012 — 2015
This programme was a link between digital technologies and music, pretty much two of my biggest passions, which is why I chose it. It provided me with a strong programming foundation, with an emphasis on both group work and independent study and research, along with a firm grasp of real-time Digital Signals Processing.
For my final project I designed and implemented a tiny Virtual Analogue synthesiser. Using Vesa Välimäki's PolyBLEP algorithm, Antti Huovilainen's Moog Low-Pass filter model and lots of polynomial approximations, I successfully managed to run it on an ARM Cortex M4-based STM32F4Discovery board and get it to receive MIDI control signals. You can check out the source code at github.com/dshr/tinySynth.
2008 — 2012
This was a thorough course into the technology behind moving image and sound. With a strong shift towards analogue cinema, this degree gave me a solid foundation in engineering mathematics, physics and analogue electronics.