# Andrew McDowell - Resume

## About
- Name: Andrew McDowell
- Website: https://madole.xyz
- Tagline: "Leading teams to build innovative geospatial solutions that make a difference"
- Professional Identity: Technical Leader, Geospatial Expert & Tech Writer
- Roles: Full Stack Software Engineer, Systems Architect, Team Leader, Digital Cartologist, Samba Drummer, Whiskey Appreciator
- Engineering Experience: 15+ years (since July 2010, ~30,000 hours)
- Current Role: Senior Geospatial & Frontend Technical Lead at Kablamo (Firestory Technical Director)
- Location: Sydney, Australia

## Social Media
- GitHub: https://github.com/madole
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/madole.bsky.social
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/madole
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-mcdowell-0092649b/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madoliole/
- Blog: https://madole.xyz/blog-index
- Today I Learned: https://madole.xyz/today-i-learned

## Achievements
- SEP 2025: Google Cloud Certified - Generative AI Leader Certification
- MAR 2024: Completed NASA ARSET training - Introduction to Lightning Observations and Applications
- NOV 2023: Completed NASA ARSET training - Spectral Indices for Land and Aquatic Applications
- OCT 2022: Completed NASA ARSET training - Accessing and Analyzing Air Quality Data from Geostationary Satellites

## Core Expertise

### Geospatial Technologies
Mapbox, Maplibre, Turf, Leaflet, Cesium JS, Resium, Geopandas, GDAL, QGIS, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, Geoserver, WFS, WMS, Phoenix Fire Prediction Engine

### AI Technologies
Github Copilot, Cursor, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Vertex AI, AWS Bedrock, AWS Sagemaker, AWS Rekognition, AWS Polly, OpenAI Whisper, Ollama, MCP, Agentic AI, Mastra AI

### Frontend Development
Next, SvelteKit, React, Node.js, Bun, Deno, Jest, Vitest, Webpack, ESBuild, Vite, Styled Components, Tailwind CSS, Gatsby

### Backend, DevOps & Data Science
AWS, Step Functions, Terraform, Cloudformation, Python, Pandas/Geopandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, Tensorflow/DanfoJS

### Agile & Product
Jira, Confluence, Metabase, Redash, Intercom

## Professional Experience

### January 2021 - Present: Senior Geospatial & Frontend Technical Lead, Kablamo
- Promoted to Firestory Technical Director (January 2023)
- Promoted to Senior Tech Lead (March 2022)

#### Key Responsibilities
- Host fortnightly frontend catchup discussing emerging technology and trends
- Mentor frontend developers to reach their full potential
- Consult on geospatial projects
- Build prototypes for client tenders
- Architect and pitch solutions to clients during sales and development cycles
- Interview candidates for geospatial and frontend teams
- Champion lean agile practices
- Integrate AI best practices into software development process

#### Notable Projects
- Led technical integration of Firestory into ESRI's ArcGIS platform
- Worked with Office of the NSW Chief Scientist to develop software for Forestry Corp modeling Heavy Plant dry firefighting impact on bushfires (Natural Hazards Technology Program: https://www.chiefscientist.nsw.gov.au/rd-action-plan/natural-hazards-technology-program)
- Led team to deliver predictive capability for FRNSW for incident risk planning
- Architected and led team delivering Remote Fire Detection, Fire Prediction, Heavy Plant Response Planning and Fire Management for Firestory (https://firestory.io) using Event Driven, Serverless, Modular architecture with Node.js, Go, Typescript, React, Python
- Led team to deliver Automated Fireground Aviation Safety Assessment tool for NSW RFS integrating BOM and Airservices Australia data (became SME on Aviation Weather Forecast data)
- Led frontend team to deliver 3D fire prediction tool for NSW RFS (Athena) using Mapbox and React (https://www.kablamo.com.au/case-study/nsw-rural-fire-service)
- Exhibited at AFAC 2023, 2024 and the 2024 Office of the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer Commercialisation showcase

### 2016 - December 2020: Senior Software Engineer / Head of Visualiser, Propeller Aero

#### Key Responsibilities
- Built and maintained 3D drone mapping visualisation tool using React, Redux and CesiumJS
- Built and maintained backend service in Koa with REST and GraphQL endpoints
- Mentored junior developers on best practices and ran workshops on React, Redux, Node, Koa, Express, TDD
- Scrum master for small development team
- Maintained webpack and CI tooling for complex frontend builds
- Led hiring interviews for Software Engineers, QA Engineers, Head of Engineering, Product Owners
- Facilitated team retros and feedback sessions
- Ran one-to-ones with engineers
- Visited customers to understand needs and communicate back to teams
- Built technical roadmaps and documentation for modernizing aging codebase
- Built feature usage dashboards for data-driven decisions
- Wrote Infrastructure-as-Code using Terraform for AWS cloud infrastructure

#### Skills Demonstrated
Expert level React, Expert level Node, Strong mapping skills (CesiumJS, Resium, Leaflet, Mapbox), Tech/Team Leading, Developer Experience, Agile ceremony facilitation, OKR planning, Mentoring, Stakeholder management

### 2014 - 2016: Senior Software Engineer, Mi9/Channel 9
- Worked in scrum team to create and maintain Channel 9's network of websites
- Led teams to deliver websites
- Set technical direction ensuring adoption of best practices and new technology
- Delivered first webpack-built website in the network, transitioning from gulp and grunt
- Worked on component library for Channel 9 to share code across codebases
- Pushed for React adoption and led team building yourmovies.com.au in React

### 2013 - 2014: Software Engineer, Pace International (Sydney office)
- Worked in small remote team to deliver Foxtel iQ3 UI software (HTML, CSS, JS)
- Delivered software demos to customer stakeholders
- Worked with other vendors to align on API delivery and usage
- Worked with set top box hardware to diagnose and solve issues

### 2010 - 2013: Software Engineer, Asidua (Belfast)
- Worked in scrum teams on various projects across the business
- Worked onsite with customer teams to deliver software projects
- Communicated progress with external stakeholders on behalf of the business

#### Notable Projects
- Built testing framework from scratch for set top box hardware in Perl + HTML/CSS/JS
- Rebuilt BTVision set top box UI software focusing on reducing memory footprint in JS
- Worked on high speed communications ordering tool for telecommunications company in Java + Angular JS

## Education

### 2005 - 2010: Queens University Belfast
- Bachelors of Engineering in Computer Science
- Java Demonstrator at Queens University Belfast
- Database Administrator at Central Services Agency Northern Ireland

## Hobbies & Interests
- Samba drumming (Bateria 61: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSLcPmbKSxM)
- Photography (https://www.instagram.com/madoliole/)
- Blogging (https://madole.xyz/blog-index)
- Whiskey tasting
- Skateboarding
- Cycling
- Cooking
- Baking bread
- Cats

## Side Projects
Full portfolio available at: https://madole.xyz/side-projects

### Recent Projects
1. **Band Wrangler** (https://band-wrangler.net/)
   - Tool to manage community band membership and gig schedules
   - Built with Tanstack Start, Shadcn UI, and Supabase

2. **Recipe Deguffer** (https://recipe-deguffer.madole.deno.net/)
   - Transforms recipe websites into clean, readable formats
   - Deno Fresh project with Tailwind CSS

3. **Layered Earth** (https://layered.earth/)
   - Geospatial toolkit for visually comparing geospatial datasets on the web

4. **Fuel Charts** (https://fuel-charts.madole.dev/)
   - Visualisation of fuel prices in NSW, Australia using government open data

### Geospatial & Data Visualisation Tools
5. **Bounding Box Utility Kit** (https://bbox-util.madole.dev/)
   - Draw polygons, get bounding boxes, visualize in various formats

6. **GEOJSON Editor** (https://geojson-editor.madole.dev/)
   - Visualize and edit GEOJSON files with drag'n'drop support

7. **KML Editor** (https://kml-editor.madole.dev/)
   - Visualize and edit KML files with GeoJSON export

8. **GPX Editor** (https://gpx-editor.madole.dev/)
   - Visualize and edit GPX files with GeoJSON export

9. **Mapbox GL Bounding Box View Bounds Comparison** (https://mapbox-gl-bounding-box-view-bounds-comparison.madole.dev/)
   - Comparison tool for Mapbox GL bounds and view box

10. **Mourne Walks** (https://mourne-walks.madole.dev/)
    - 3D tour of Slieve Donard walk in Northern Ireland
    - Built with Preact and Mapbox, configurable through GeoJSON

### Cesium & 3D Experiments
11. **Moon Bananas** (https://moon-bananas.madole.dev/)
    - Cesium experiment dropping bananas on the moon from a UFO using Cesium Moon Tileset

12. **ISS Banana Tracker** (https://banana-iss-tracker.madole.dev/)
    - Real-time International Space Station tracker with banana visualization

13. **Every Plane as Bananas** (https://banana-planes.madole.dev/)
    - Real-time visualization of all planes in the sky as bananas

14. **NSW Covid Bananas** (https://nsw-covid-bananas.madole.dev/)
    - COVID location visualization with proximity detection

### React Three Fiber & 3D Graphics
15. **3D Colors** (https://3d-colors.madole.dev/)
    - Processes images to create 3D visualizations using React Three Fiber

16. **Gravity + 3D Text** (https://hardcore-murdock-e30d02.netlify.app/)
    - Physics experiment using cannon library and React Three Fiber

17. **Earth and Mars ThreeJS** (https://objective-yalow-40b72b.netlify.app/)
    - ThreeJS experiment displaying Earth and Mars with UV and bump mapping

18. **360 Panorama Viewer** (https://360-panorama.madole.dev/)
    - Interactive panorama viewer using React Three Fiber and React Dropzone

19. **House Tour Panorama** (https://greens-drive-pano.madole.dev/)
    - Specific implementation of panorama viewer for virtual house tours

## Content & Writing
- **Blog**: 59+ technical articles covering JavaScript, geospatial technology, React, Node.js, webpack, performance optimization, testing, and software development best practices (https://madole.xyz/blog-index)
- **Today I Learned (TIL)**: 25+ short-form technical learnings and tips (https://madole.xyz/today-i-learned)

### Featured Blog Posts
- "Efficiently Querying Large Geospatial Datasets with DuckDB, GeoParquet and S3"
- "GDAL Evolved"
- "A Mentor's Guide to Effective 1:1s"
- "From Node.js to Deno"
- "How to Move a Whole GeoJSON Feature Collection in QGIS"
- "What if You Could Draw Your AI Prompts"
- "A Day in the Life Of"
- "Dropping Bananas on the Moon from a UFO"
- "Real-time Transport Data Visualisation with GTFS"
- "How I Stress Tested Mapbox's Handling of Many Polygons"
- "Spectral Indices"
- "Finite State Machines and XState"
- "JavaScript Interview Questions"
- "How to Visualise Weather Stations on a Map"

## Resume Page
Full interactive resume available at: https://madole.xyz/resume