Christopher Clarke
-
Work Experience at SSW
-
Education
Christopher started education at the sprightly age of four happily
wandering next door to the local primary with his twin brother and
his older sister. He quickly got to grips with various classes from
his ABCs to complex maths. In Primary 5 he was faced with his first
real exam, his Cycling Proficiency test, which he aced first time
quickly following this success in such diverse fields as swimming
and the Magic Dragon colouring in competition.
People say "from small acorns, mighty oaks grow" and this is also
true with Christopher, after successfully graduating from Straloch
Primary in 1988, Christopher went on to bigger and further away
things, Pitlochry High School where he spent the next four years
acclimitizing himself to a world in which when you were asked to do
a painting it didn't begin with sticking your fingers in the closest
pot of paint. After getting over this initial setback the star that
is Christopher Clarke again began to shine but trouble was a brewing
and in the middle years, feeling disenchanted with a schooling
system that wasn't challenging enough for him he began to play up,
thankfully an answer to this turmoil wasn't far away and came in the
form of an extra curricular activity, kayaking. In the final two
years Christopher joined an after school kayaking class and between
focusing on learning to roll like an Eskimo and worrying whether he
would be able to navigate the lofty fifty miles from Loch Tay to
Perth he was suitably distracted from his frustrations at high
school to successfully reach Perth and pass a few exams!
From there Christopher's life took on a more run of the mill
appearance, leaving home for the first time with a tear in his eye
he left the relative safety of Glen Ardle and moved to the big
lights of Aberdeen to study Electrical and Electronic Engineering at
the Robert Gordon University. Three years later after being shown
the delights of "disco dancing" and surfing for the first time he
graduated with an HND in Electronic and Electrical Engineering in
1997. But even before he had taken that first step onto the career
ladder to find himself a job he knew his heart wasn't in it and
decided instead to move back home and try his hand at something a
little more hands on. Three long months of supermarket work later
and he found what he hoped would be his calling, accepting an
apprenticeship as a sparky (electrician) for a local company, he
soon discovered that once again he was on the wrong path, his body
just wasn't built for being squeezed into small and uncomfortable
spaces. With that new found knowledge he went off to find a new
career and with guidance from his younger twin set forth on the
bumpy road to becoming a software engineer by graduating from the
University of Highlands and Islands (Perth) with a BSc (Dist.) in
Software Engineering.
-
Professsional
Christopher began his professional career in a typically colourful
manner, after graduating he moved yet again, this time to Edinburgh.
After doing the usual round of Graduate Recruitment Fairs he felt
his career was in the lap of the Gods unlike his bank balance which
was severly in the lap of the Halifax Building Society. With all
this in mind he decided he quickly needed to diversify and after a
quick look at the jobs board applied for a job as a doorman. To his
(and his girlfriends) surprise he got it and within the week was
seen moving between bars removing ruffians and ne'er-do-wells whilst
simultaneously rejecting romantic advances from the bevvy of local
lovlies. It was while he was patrolling one of Edinburgh's local
establishments that he met another door steward who introduced him
to another employment opportunity, bar work at one of the local
hotels. Between these two jobs life in Edinburgh became affordable
and the following two months of summer literally flew by. In August,
sooner than expected, he received responses to his job applications
and suddenly had three interviews to go for with the last one being
successful. It was at that point that he joined BAE Systems as a
junior software engineer.
Life at BAE Systems began easily enough, to begin with he was given
maintenance work on a helicopter trainer using VB, it was a good
introduction to the company not only allowing him the opportunity to
display his coding prowess but also expose him to life on site,
something that was going to play a large part in his working life
over the next seven years. After completing his second round of
maintenance tasks on the helicopter trainer he was growing restless
for a greater challenge. Initially he thought that this sort of
challenge would have to come from outside of BAE and began applying
for other roles outside of the company but when Thales offered him a
position in their fledgling Synthetic Environment division in London
he considered things carefully, he liked his work and felt loyal to
his Engineering Manager so decided to approach him to see what he
could offer. A few weeks later Christopher was moved on to one of
the most challenging projects his site had seen, replatforming an
existing Air Navigation Trainer from a linux based Ada system to a
windows based VB and C/C++ system. The next two years saw turmoil,
long long hours and little recognition but between him and a couple
of his colleagues a system was delivered from the jaws of defeat and
Christopher knew what it was to be challenged and how it felt to
overcome it!
Unfortunately for Christopher, company politics had not been quite
so kind to the site he was based at, workloads had been reduced and
engineers were grappling for anything they could tap their software
feverish fingertips onto. Thankfully his dedication and work ethics
of previous roles had not gone unnoticed and a small opening was
made for him in the company's in house simulation environment team.
It was the first time that Christopher had been exposed to the
fabled C# and .Net environment and he was loving it but the happy
ending was not to be. Before he had really had a chance to fully
embrace all that is good with all things .Net he was taken off to
take over a C++ project that was at risk of not being delivered,
this would be Christopher's final project with BAE Systems. Two
months into what would become six months of onsite work Christopher
got the news he had been waiting for, he had been accepted for his
PR to Australia, with this knowledge the hum drum of weekly travel
and living life out of a suitcase became a little easier. One week
after delivery of his part of the project, Christopher handed in his
notice and for the next year or so he and his girlfriend turned
their backs on their careers and lived the lives of travelling
hobos.
-
Aspirations
When Christopher began his work experience at SSW he came hoping to
learn all there is to know about .Net, a week in and he realises
this would indeed be a mighty task and perhaps it would be best to
start thinking about specialising that a little partly based on what
he would like to follow and what technologies are available to him.
Which ever way the cards may fall he would love to become proficient
in the chosen language and move on to become an expert in that
field.
-
Other things you may or may not know about Christopher
Christopher likes to spend his spare time in the great outdoors
although he seems to have lost his slightly masochistic streak,
leaving the snow covered beaches of Scotland for the slightly warmer
beaches of Sydney. Along with the great outdoors, Christopher also
likes to spend a little time in the kitchen trying to recreate great
culinary master pieces and has even been known to get his cheese on
toast out of the grill before it burns! Away from the kitchen he
likes to read a good book or watch a really good film and dreams of
one day building his own house with his very own cinema room.
-
Dream Car: Ford Mustang (early model)
-
Previously Owned Cars: Ford Escort, Peugeot 405, Ford Sierra,
Peugeot 205 1.6 GTI, Peugeot 205 1.6 GTI (Converted to a 1.9
MI16), Peugeot 306 D Turbo, BMW 5 Series Touring
-
Popcorn Preference: Salty
-
Favourite TV Programme: Top Gear (not the non Jeremy Clarkson
ones)
-
Favourite Film: The Shinning (classic), The Departed
(current(ish))
-
Favourite Song: Foo Fighters - Everlong
Christopher may be contacted at
Christopher Clarke
Return to the
SSW Employee's page
.