Craig Farrell

Full Stack / Forward Deployed Engineer

969 PRs authored
599 PRs reviewed
97 repositories
5 yrs at JustGiving

Profile

Full-stack / forward-deployed software engineer doing senior-scope product work across React, TypeScript, C#/.NET, cloud services, and practical AI tooling.

Previously ran Redwood Telemarketing as director and sales manager, managed SDR and sales teams at Click Travel, and owned client campaigns at Oaktree TM. I bring customer discovery, clear communication and delivery coordination to engineering.

Looking for senior full-stack, forward-deployed, or founding-engineer roles where ambiguous product problems need to become shipped software quickly.

Experience

JustGiving / Blackbaud

May 2021 to present

Software Engineer, Senior-scope Full Stack Work

Associate Software Developer, May 2021–Jul 2023; Software Developer, Staff, Jul 2023–present.

Grew from junior engineer to SME for the Claims Service and API.
Designed and led IAM migration work from a legacy service to a newer service, including architecture input, staged delivery thinking, rollback planning, and delivery coordination.
Maintained product and platform areas with the team, including Campaign Pages, AWS to Azure Message Bridge, Fitness and Timelines, User Anonymisation, and production support.
Worked across React, TypeScript, C#/.NET, GraphQL, Service Bus, serverless systems, integration testing, code review, and operational debugging.

Earlier commercial leadership & client work

Click Travel

Jul 2018 – Jan 2021

Inside Sales Manager (Jul 2019–Jan 2021); Business Development (Jul 2018–Jan 2021)

Managed SDR and sales teams, secured national SME-to-Key Account business, and coordinated bid, implementation and account-management teams around customer goals.

Redwood Telemarketing

Nov 2012 – Jan 2015

Managing Director

Ran a technology-focused telemarketing business as director and sales manager.

Oaktree TM

Oct 2009 – Nov 2012

Account Manager

Owned client campaigns and communication, supported telemarketers daily, and briefed and trained teams on client propositions.

Education

BSc Physics

Open University / Loughborough University. Three years online study while travelling, with second year completed at Loughborough University.

School of Code

Software development bootcamp, Jan–May 2021.

Selected projects & client work

Halesowen Day Nursery

paid client delivery · ongoing retainer

Delivered and maintain a Next.js site for a real local business, with a private area for families, staged deployments, and a paid retainer for updates.

csfarrell.dev/projects/halesowen

Cockpit

hosted portfolio tracker · personal production use

Built and moved my API-first Python tracker to Vercel/Turso, with owner sign-in, audited revision-guarded edits, CLI/MCP access, and verified backup/restore.

csfarrell.dev/projects/cockpit

Train Mate

AI SDK workflows · human-approved changes

Integrated Vercel AI SDK with OpenCode providers, structured proposals, Zod validation and repair, durable queued jobs, and explicit diff approval. In real use by two athletes.

csfarrell.dev/projects/train-mate

StaffIn

nursery operations · controlled one-nursery pilot

Built staff and visitor sign-in, kiosk and manager workflows around attendance, rota exceptions, TOIL review, and weekly exports. Wider rollout remains separate.

csfarrell.dev/projects/staff-in

Mondoro

unreleased Flutter/Flame focus RPG

Rebuilt an earlier Unity prototype around a testable Dart game core, focus-session rewards, and a 98-creature roster, with a companion Dart multiplayer server.

csfarrell.dev/projects/mondoro

Recall

shared local memory for coding agents

Implemented and extended Python/SQLite memory with CLI/stdio MCP, project namespaces, local hybrid retrieval, provenance, guarded writes, and encrypted backups. Current runtime is local; hosted experiments are archived.

csfarrell.dev/projects/recall

Curio

agent runtime viewer

Shows the skills, MCP servers and plugins installed across six agent runtimes, flags drifted copies with a diff, and browses Recall memories. Its companion skill library, Forge, was retired in September 2026.

csfarrell.dev/projects/curio

Mercury

earlier agent orchestration · maintenance-only

Built a TypeScript/SQLite control plane with kanban state, audit logs, Telegram and Slack gateways, per-task worktrees, and approval gates. Its lessons shaped Cockpit.

csfarrell.dev/projects/mercury

Selected skills

Core engineering

TypeScript, React, Next.js, C#/.NET, Node.js, Angular

Cloud/data

AWS, Azure, Service Bus, DynamoDB, Cosmos DB, Docker, SQL, SQLite, Postgres

AI/dev tooling

Vercel AI SDK, local models, opencode, Codex, Claude Code, Anthropic SDK, Gemini, GitHub Copilot, MCP

Ways of working

TDD, code review, stakeholder discovery, delivery ownership

Personal

Family life with three children comes first. Outside work I make time for bike rides, playing and watching football, gaming, and long-running side projects.