Craig Farrell · Full Stack / Forward Deployed EngineerOpen to conversations

Forward thinking engineer, tinkerer, experimenter, learner.

Comfortable with change, happiest when the work is still a bit undefined.

Five years deep into product engineering at JustGiving - close to customer-facing domains, IAM migration work, internal tooling, and product surfaces that need to hold up in real use. Software engineer doing senior-scope product work across TypeScript, .NET, cloud services, and practical AI tooling.

View CVGet in touch
Based
Birmingham, UK
Role
Full Stack / FDE
Company
JustGiving
Since
2021
01 / EVIDENCE

Project deck

A stack of project cards. Shuffle the deck, change the lens, or open the front card for the full case study.

View as
Current lens

FDE

Prioritises customer-facing systems, agent operations, full-stack delivery, and work that made it past the tidy-demo stage.

agentstypescriptfullstack
PrivateStaffIn4/5
StaffIn dashboard showing redacted staff counts and room coverage
staff-in13 screenshots
AbilityPrivate build

Workforce sign-in and roll-call for nurseries: compliance, training, reporting.

FDE match4/5
next.jsreacttypescriptfullstack
CSF-STAFFIClick to inspect
In progressPomMon1/5
PomMon focus loop development plate
pommon9 screenshots
AbilityActive build

Gamified Pomodoro card-battler for Android. Unity C# + Python, offline-first.

FDE match1/5
unityc#pythonandroid
CSF-POMMONClick to inspect
PrivateMercury5/5
Mercury kanban dashboard with project columns and active tasks
mercury9 screenshots
AbilityPrivate build

AI agent orchestration platform: channels, kanban state, audit, and TDD. Solo build.

FDE match5/5
typescriptnode.jsreactmcp
CSF-MERCURClick to inspect
In progressNido5/5
Nido authenticated demo home dashboard with tenant health, spend, agents, and recent runs
nido10 screenshots
AbilityActive build

Ops layer above an OSS agent substrate: spend caps, replay, approvals, BYOK.

FDE match5/5
typescriptnext.jsaiagents
CSF-NIDOClick to inspect
Case studyAI-Tooling Guide5/5
AI tooling pattern example
ai-tooling4 screenshots
AbilityClosed source

Cross-team Claude workflow guide: prompt library, runbook, rollout.

FDE match5/5
aiagentsmcp
CSF-AITOOLClick to inspect
01 / 06 · ←/→ to flip · S to shuffle
The deck · click to deal
02 / ASK

craAIg - a CLI for my CV

A toy of the Mercury control-centre, scoped to me. Slash commands or plain English. Try /projects or just ask “what’s your testing approach?”

crAIg - ~/cv
crAIga TUI for asking my CV things.
welcome - type /info for how this works, /help for all commands, or just ask a question.
crAIg ›
⎇ craig/cv ⚙ opencode ◐ light3 lines · ↑↓ history
01 / STACK

Tools of the trade

A tower of tech, foundation-up - primary at the base (years deep, daily for years), dabble at the top (real projects, still learning).

Bricks outlined in ember match the lens above. Tap one for context - where it’s been used, what shipped with it.

Dabble
Comfy
Daily
Primary
02 / CAREER

Five years on one line

Scroll to draw. Sage = pre-JG, ember = JustGiving.

pre-2020
Commercial background
Sales, account management, small business ownership, team management
2021
School of Code · Birmingham
UK software-development bootcamp
2021
Software Engineer · JustGiving (Blackbaud)
First production role in payments / fundraising
2022
Domain mobility, campaigns + first reviewer year
GraphQL · Razor · ASP.NET MVC · TypeScript begins
2023
Frontend expansion + greenfield service work
Angular / SKY UX · data-retention service · first full personal SPA
2024
Breadth year, modernisation + framework work
Node 20 · Serverless V3→V4 · canary deploys · security cadence
2025
SME work + AI tooling patterns
Claims Service/API · IAM migration design · cross-team AI tooling
2026
Production cutover work + senior-scope ownership
Identity-service EKS migration support · Mercury · Nido · csFarrell.dev
Pre-JG · School of Code + earlier JustGiving · junior to senior-scope work
04 / SHAPE

Strengths, soft spots, side passions

What I’m good at, what I’m working on, and what I’d happily talk your ear off about.

Strengths

Systems thinking across fundraising, identity, messaging, and operational toolsCustomer and stakeholder comfort from sales, account management, and management work before softwareTesting habits: local validation, integration tests, Given/When/Then structure, and follow-through after releaseSelf-directed learning through shipping, notes, check-ins, and real projects rather than passive readingAI tooling craft for workflows, plugins, agent orchestration, and patterns other engineers can useSolo end-to-end shipping discipline across client sites, SaaS tools, agent systems, and game work

Working on

Deep .NET delivery experience, but still growing deeper framework-level C# internalsMobile native depth is early: Android and Unity are active learning areas, no production iOS work yetKubernetes / EKS is newer than serverless and Terraform experience

Interests

AI agents + agent runtime architectureGame dev (Unity, Android)Family life with three childrenBike ridesPlaying and watching footballGamingLong-running side projects

Known growth areas

A CV that admits gaps is more credible than one that doesn’t. Here’s what I’m honestly still building toward.

  • Testing-framework public ownership is light: individual fixes routinely, no headline "introduced X to Y" story
  • Kubernetes / EKS: 2026 is the first hands-on year
  • Cross-org OSS contribution: mostly employer + personal repos; addressing via public Claude plugin repos and Cloudflare Workers public tools
  • Formal AI-tooling credential: DataCamp Associate AI Engineer track in progress
04 / EXPERIENCE

Work, traits, code

Where I’ve been, how I think, what I ship.

Work history

pre
2020
Sales, account management, small business ownership, team management · Commercial background
Customer-facing background before software: sales, account management, running a small business, and managing people. That shows up now in discovery, stakeholder conversations, customer empathy, and building tools around real operating problems.
2021
School of Code
UK software-development bootcamp, Birmingham. Team projects, modern web foundations, pair-programming, Git, React, JavaScript, and delivery habits.
2021
present
Software Engineer, senior-scope full-stack work · JustGiving (Blackbaud)
Five-year continuous tenure across Claims Service and API, IAM migration, Campaign Pages, AWS to Azure Message Bridge, Fitness and Timelines, User Anonymisation, testing, review, and production support. Work includes domain SME ownership, event-driven integration, staged migration planning, DLQ triage, Grafana checks, and delivery coordination across affected teams.
Junior (2021)→Mid (2022)→Claims Service/API SME→Senior-scope ownership

Strengths & soft spots

Strengths

Systems thinking across fundraising, identity, messaging, and operational tools
Customer and stakeholder comfort from sales, account management, and management work before software
Testing habits: local validation, integration tests, Given/When/Then structure, and follow-through after release
Self-directed learning through shipping, notes, check-ins, and real projects rather than passive reading
AI tooling craft for workflows, plugins, agent orchestration, and patterns other engineers can use
Solo end-to-end shipping discipline across client sites, SaaS tools, agent systems, and game work

Working on

Deep .NET delivery experience, but still growing deeper framework-level C# internals
Mobile native depth is early: Android and Unity are active learning areas, no production iOS work yet
Kubernetes / EKS is newer than serverless and Terraform experience
05 / SAY HI

Get in touch

Always up for a good conversation.

Let’s talk.

AI-agent work, platform engineering, mentoring, or just a good football debate - all welcome.

Emailcraig2812@gmail.com
GitHub@craig2812
LinkedInin/craigfarrell
BasedBirmingham, UK

Outside the terminal

AI agents + agent runtime architectureGame dev (Unity, Android)Family life with three childrenBike ridesPlaying and watching footballGamingLong-running side projects
Family life with three children comes first. Around that I make time for bike rides, playing and watching football, gaming, and side projects that usually start small before getting ideas above their station.