Calling all software developers / programmers on this forum

[yorkie]

Do we have any software developers / programmers / DevOps people here?

If so, what sort of role do you do (you may not want to give away too much information such as who you work for!) and what sort of experience do you have?

What sort of projects interest you?

If you don't already work in the rail sector, if a relevant job cropped up that was in rail, would you consider it?

Also have any of you looked at fares or routeing guide data, and if not yet, is that something that might interest you?

 

[birchesgreen]

Yes i've been a web developer since 1995, nowadays i do e-learning for a distance learning college. In the olden days (late 90s) i built e-commerce platforms in perl.

I'd love to work for a TOC doing what i do though i tend to be very lazy career wise and only job hunt when i have to...

 

[Worm]

I’m a recent Computing graduate currently training to teach the subject in a College in the north west of England.

I have a postgraduate qualification in project management so I’d look at how IT can improve utilisation of stock mostly if that was a job, make it more agile.

 

[Peter0124]

I'm a Year 1 Software Engineering student at Strathclyde Uni and have been interested in using Python for 3-4 years.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

I am employed by a rolling stock manufacturer to write the software for their ETCS on-board unit. Before that I worked on various different data processing systems across multiple industries.

I can't say I have any interest in fares and routing guide data. It would have nice to play with the Network Rail Signalling data feeds, but back when I was a student and have the time and motivation to spend my evenings programming they didn't exist yet.

 

[higthomas]

I'm a software engineer for a fairly large, well known software firm. I'd consider something in rail, but I don't think there are many jobs which would be suitable/attractive.

I'm interested in looking into doing some playing with fares data, but n ever actually got around to it.

 

[Mike395]

(Whilst appreciating @yorkie knows this already!) I work in DevOps/Security for a well known third-party retailer for rail tickets. It’s a good industry to work in and if you’ve got an interest in rail, it does help keep the work you do interesting in my experience. (I’m also lucky to have a great team of colleagues, some of whom are also members here!)

 

[Yew]

I'm a senior software developer at a small consultancy, that has recently joined the engineering division of a CAC 40 company. My background is mainly in cloud-based web applications, with microservices architectures; however I've also had to deal with some self-hosted monoliths at a few clients. The technologies I'm familiar with include Javascript (Node, React & Vue) Golang, and Python.

As for devops experience, I've worked on a modern cloud system with infrastructure as code (using terraform) and am familiar with using tools such as Telepresence to help find bugs. More recently I've been working with a client to try and replicate a modern devops experience on a windows server with no internet access.

I've not played with any ticketing information, but am familiar with wading through 90's databases with interesting design choices.

 

[Adam Williams]

A few forum members will know all of this already, but figured why not post in the thread

I'm a SoftEng contractor - I've worked with a handful of different organisations both inside and outside of rail over the past few years. Prior to this, I worked in infosec as a consultant at F-Secure.

I currently do some work for two retailers in different capacities: one client has had me work on much more general, varied projects. The other client work has been much more tightly scoped to trying to improve an existing prototype WebTIS (to get it through RDG accreditation). I also do a few days of work each week alongside the rail stuff, with a client in the higher education sector.

Tech stack is JVM-based for the higher education work (Kotlin, Scala, Spring, Android.. + some React/Vue.js) and .NET 5 (C#, Postgres, ASP.NET Core + Vue.js) with a bit of PHP (Symfony, Laravel) thrown in too in rail land. I don't work with Windows

I like projects that solve interesting domain problems: my most memorable projects have been a visual seat selector, an automated self-service refunds web app for rail bookings, a logistics/parcel management system (with an Android app, and parcel label OCR) and a Covid-19 testing, result notification & contact tracing tool to manage the impact of Covid-19 at a University and support continued teaching/learning and social activities.

My fares data knowledge is a little rusty nowadays (still better than my routeing guide data familiarity!), but I do have to consult it occasionally and it comes in handy.

 

[takno]

I'm the developer and mapper of Traksy for a small portion of the week.

As such I've spent a lot of time working with the Network Rail signalling and schedule feeds. I've spent enough time with the fares data feeds to establish that they are super-hard I don't have time to do anything useful with them. I also keep meaning to look more into the national rail schedule feeds, which contain a wealth of interesting data, but come in an even more frustrating format than the network rail ones.

The software stack on Traksy is a mix of typescript and Java, which is constantly being rewritten without any of the rewrites ever quite getting finished and out into production.

In career terms, I've considered getting into the rail industry ever since I finished uni. Unfortunately with an arts degree and being unable to drive I wasn't able to get onto the graduate scheme with whatever the former BR systems company was at the time, so I worked for a bank instead. I'm now in a position in management where I'd struggle to fit into the rail industry as it stands.

The open feeds certainly provide access to some interesting toys, but I worry that anybody developing on them full time may struggle to make a living - the public in general don't seem willing to pay a lot, and selling into the fairly cash-strapped industry is a challenging proposition. I guess if you are at the right career stage then it's worth a go though.

Outside of that there are some fascinating things happening in signalling and operations, and some brilliantly obscure niches to get into. One of the companies I shared an incubator with at one point was developing tech which could precisely locate trains by taking pictures of the ballast underneath, which is slightly mind-blowing.

Exciting times.

 

[Adam Williams]

which is constantly being rewritten without any of the rewrites ever quite getting finished and out into production.

Oh this is so relatable (though with me, it's half-finished side projects that I promise myself I'll eventually finish at some point in the future)

 

[eoff]

I did have a look at what data was available some time ago (hoping data would be as accessible as with Open OS map data) but just for personal use in the context of developing an application to assist with known multi-segment journeys. Some data was hidden behind logins and at least one had a chilling comment that it could be charged for in the future, that comment alone stopped me in my tracks. I don't remember the details.

 

[dakta]

Day job doesn't involve much developing (the odd python script?) - Sec Analyst

Run a weekend/freelance gig which touches on it depending on what problems get fetched to my door and ranges from desktop stocks tracking and analysis software (which getting feeds can be fun and we tend up aggregating from multiple sources), Vehicle OBD data logging software through to embedded turbocharger control systems (inc pcb design)

Still find it fun

I smile because if you'd asked me if I wanted to work in IT a few years ago I'd have told you to foxtrot somewhere

 

[splashoutradio]

I've been in a very fortunate position to be actively making railway software for a number of years now.

Publicly, I make the software behind railwaydata.co.uk, but I'm also responsible for business management software at a railway maintenance company, covering things like automatic timesheets, job management, finance reports, fleet management, and anything in between.

Fares data is an interesting one. Having worked with it on a number of occasions, I'm always surprised by how it appears to be the least user friendly rail industry data out there! My latest forage with the data is at railwaydata.co.uk/fares, but can't say I'm too happy with the outcome and have plans rewrite it in due course. Routing data is something I've never used, although having looked at the RDGs data specification file, looks interesting, and now considering it's viability as a basis for a mileage search feature.

Got to love the world of programming. There's always a way to make what you (or a client) want. It's just a case of learning and working out how to do it

 

[D821]

Currently working for a small tech company. I've worked as a software dev since the late 90s, though I've been managing software devs the last 8 or 9 years.
I've not done any rail related work, I tend to go for whatever that us out there that looks interesting. I'd certainly consider it if the role looked interesting.

 

[yorkie]

Do we have any more developers here?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm curious where @yorkie's questions are leading. But I'm also a software developer.

If so, what sort of role do you do (you may not want to give away too much information such as who you work for!) and what sort of experience do you have?

Self-employed. Extensive experience in Windows/.NET coding, mainly in C#.

What sort of projects interest you?

Oh, almost anything. Basically anything where I use an app and think, I don't like this app. There are things about it I could design a lot better, makes me interested

If you don't already work in the rail sector, if a relevant job cropped up that was in rail, would you consider it?

Tricky. On the one hand I'd love to be working in the rail sector. On the other hand I already enjoy what I do, I love the freedom to manage my own time and determine my own working hours that being self-employed entails, and I also have various ongoing commitments and other life plans which would make taking on a full time job difficult.

Also have any of you looked at fares or routeing guide data, and if not yet, is that something that might interest you?

Not quite sure what you mean by routing guide data. I've looked at train schedule data, and indeed I have my own app that reads the data from the CIF files available at data.atoc.org to construct a database of current schedules (Not online - it's a Windows app so just sits on my own machines. I have aspirations to work on the app and put it online but there are too many competing demands on my time). I've thought about fares data but it looks like too much of a minefield of complexity for me to handle on my own, and the risks of getting stuff wrong and doing something like recommending a ticket that is actually not valid are too great. Not massively interested in signalling data, since my interest tends to be mainly from a perspective of providing data that's useful to me as a passenger wanting to plan and price the best journey, rather than from the perspective of an enthusiast.

 

[XAM2175]

Up to being made redundant recently I was an analyst and SQL developer for a company involved in gas and electricity metering, with my main focus being internal workflows and integration with industry data systems.

I'd be very happy to consider something in rail, but with specific regard to fares and routeing data I'll confess that the apparent complexity is a wee bit off-putting.

 

[Jdrowlands]

I recently graduated from university and I'm currently a software engineer in the financial sector. Tech-wise I'd consider myself a generalist; my current role involves distributed systems/API development in Java but I've worked with a range of different technologies in the past including web front-end and mobile development. I'm particularly interested in algorithm design and writing efficient code.

I've done a significant amount of hobby work with rail data in the past and have good knowledge of the timetable, real-time (both Network Rail & Darwin) and routeing guide feeds, and reasonable knowledge of the fares feed. I've worked on several projects including an experimental journey planner and software to visualise the permitted routes between stations, but haven't released these publicly – in part because I don't have a lot of time to polish things to a 'releasable' standard these days and also because I'm somewhat of a perfectionist.

I'd potentially be interested in collaborating with others on interesting rail-related software ideas or side-projects, but I don't think I'd be interested in a typical 9-5 in rail, partially due to cultural issues (there is a huge amount of unnecessary politics surrounding data in the sector) and partially due to concerns regarding career progression – a lot of the work seems to be contracted out to consulting firms and the like, and producing high-quality, well-designed systems seems to generally be treated as a fairly low priority.

 

[Trackman]

As a hobby I used to be an Apple registered iOS developer for both desktop and mobile apps.
I've had a five or six mobile apps published including some interactive 'community' ones which seemed to go down very well.
I fell out with one of them because it was a case of no praise or a thank you even though I was doing it for nothing.
The last straw was Apple for the ever moving the goal-posts with Xcode. No 32 bit legacy support even if compiled in 64bit. Then even after that it was 32bit discontinued within that with 64bit compiled code. The final straw came with the introduction of the Swift programming language by Apple, this would do away with the Objective language C based on NeXTSTEP which has been around for 30 years. I thought one day they would make us switch over to it.. after a quick google this maybe the case, so good riddance.
--
I also dabbled in Z80 and MC68000 machine code when I was younger.
Coding then makes Xcode programming look like Play School. (even if you have two broken legs, difficulty breathing and a massive hangover)

if a relevant job cropped up that was in rail, would you consider it?

If the money was right and I had a proper team behind me.

 

[biko]

I am not a software developer, but I do program quite a bit for work. I recently graduated and work now as a transportation consultant in the Netherlands, mainly demand modelling. I have experience in Python, Matlab, R and Ruby, but certainly not on an expert-level, more like I can use it to program my calculations in the way I want it.

As my role and presence on the forum suggest, transport-related projects interest me, especially projects which evaluate the quality of some kind of solution (like demand modelling for example helps showing if a measure is sufficient to solve some kind of problem). I don't currently work for a railway company directly, but they are clients of my employer.

I certainly would consider working for a railway company, but generally they don't require my expertise often enough so they hire people like me if needed.

I haven't had a look at fares or routeing guide data yet, but I'm interested in how it works. And I'm also curious why this thread was started in the first place

 

[GLC]

I’ve been an iOS dev for 10 years now. I do both Swift and Obj C, and can kind of bluff my way through Python when required.

I’ve shipped apps for large companies where the apps had millions of users, for large companies where the apps were used by the (mostly billionaire) board members, and I’ve shipped apps independently for myself

I enjoy working on projects which have large reach, and nice UI (of course being a dev for Apple platforms ).

Never worked with fare data, but I’ve built my own iOS app which is fed data via DARWIN. Purely for my own use though as Railboard is much more polished!

 

[stanpotts]

I've been a software developer for 5 years, mostly systems programming in safety related industries, including rail.

Never worked with fare data.

 

[Trackman]

I’ve been an iOS dev for 10 years now. I do both Swift and Obj C, and can kind of bluff my way through Python when required.

I’ve shipped apps for large companies where the apps had millions of users, for large companies where the apps were used by the (mostly billionaire) board members, and I’ve shipped apps independently for myself

I enjoy working on projects which have large reach, and nice UI (of course being a dev for Apple platforms ).

Never worked with fare data, but I’ve built my own iOS app which is fed data via DARWIN. Purely for my own use though as Railboard is much more polished!

Are you freelance, work for a company or part of a team?
There is no need to reply if don't want to.
Just curious that's all.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Do we have any software developers / programmers / DevOps people here?

If so, what sort of role do you do (you may not want to give away too much information such as who you work for!) and what sort of experience do you have?

Freelance developer mostly working in the mapping/geo sphere, and often around transport - cycling, walking, logistics, and very occasionally rail. I work predominantly in Ruby, C++, Javascript and Swift; also done a little bit in Dart/Flutter. OpenStreetMap data and tools are my particular speciality.

If you don't already work in the rail sector, if a relevant job cropped up that was in rail, would you consider it?

On a freelance basis, absolutely, yes - not looking to take on a full-time job at present. (Unless it's really good!)

Also have any of you looked at fares or routeing guide data, and if not yet, is that something that might interest you?

A little - I did some maps from fare data a few years ago. It's not something I've had time to look into recently but I'm generally interested in the subject.

 

[Roast Veg]

Do we have any software developers / programmers / DevOps people here?

Yes, I'm a full time software engineer by trade.

If so, what sort of role do you do (you may not want to give away too much information such as who you work for!) and what sort of experience do you have?

Embedded systems development, primarily in Rust. 4 years experience in software as a whole.

What sort of projects interest you?

If you don't already work in the rail sector, if a relevant job cropped up that was in rail, would you consider it?

Also have any of you looked at fares or routeing guide data, and if not yet, is that something that might interest you?

If the underlying question is "would I want to work with rail data" then the answer is a definite yes. I have already (some time ago) looked at the open timetable data, and (more recently) have read some of the routeing guides in human readable form.

 

[4COR]

Do we have any software developers / programmers / DevOps people here?

If so, what sort of role do you do (you may not want to give away too much information such as who you work for!) and what sort of experience do you have?

What sort of projects interest you?

If you don't already work in the rail sector, if a relevant job cropped up that was in rail, would you consider it?

Also have any of you looked at fares or routeing guide data, and if not yet, is that something that might interest you?

I'm a software tester and work in the higher education industry. We work with all kinds of stuff from web platforms, larger HR/Finance type systems and onto some more niche stuff for HE. I also do some load/performance and automated testing, as well as helping to arrange security testing, and helping to translate the findings for the non technical audiences...

Outside of that I also dabble (well, done it for 15 odd years) in sysadmin stuff (hosting, etc) as well as a bit of python based web development using Django and I've recently started hosting and dev for a local firm that needed to do away with a lot of paper based work. (They actually have a tenuous relationship to the companies that are part of the construction of HS2...)

Rail jobs: never looked outside of my current role, but imagine some of the testing work would be interesting stuff.

Fares and routing: Yes - just finding time to do so!!

 

[yorkie]

Any others?

Also did you see this:

Raileasy seeking an iOS developer (contract role)

(Posted with the permission of the forum team) This is just a quick post to ask if there are any iOS developers on the forum, or any that members can recommend (interest in rail is definitely a bonus, but not essential)? We are looking for an experienced iOS developer to work with us on...

www.railforums.co.uk

There are other opportunities at other companies too.

 

[al78]

Do we have any software developers / programmers / DevOps people here?

If so, what sort of role do you do (you may not want to give away too much information such as who you work for!) and what sort of experience do you have?

What sort of projects interest you?

If you don't already work in the rail sector, if a relevant job cropped up that was in rail, would you consider it?

Also have any of you looked at fares or routeing guide data, and if not yet, is that something that might interest you?

I am employed in research but some of my work has involved software development. I am responsible for maintenance and background coding of the Tropical Storm Risk website (https://www.tropicalstormrisk.com/). I have used Java to develop tropicla cyclone historical and post-event wind footprint mapping products, and European windstorm high resolution post-event gust footprints. I have experience in programming in Java, Fortran, modest experience with Unix shell scripting, a little bit of expreience with Python and R, and some experience in Linux server administration.

Projects that interest me are anything that involves creating something which can provide benefit to people or industry, hence so far I have had good job satisfaction.

I have never worked in the rail sector but if a computational based job cropped up I would certainly give some consideration to applying. I have wondered if modelling post-event windstorm gust footprints would have any practical benefit to the transport sector.

 

[miklcct]

I am a backend developer using PHP and worked in e-learning and e-commerce companies, with varying skill in other technologies as well including Javascript / Typescript, C++, Java, Android app development, networking, Linux system administration, web hosting, DevOps, etc.

Last year I joined a commerce position at a transport company but failed my job as there was serious incompatibility between the way I worked and the methodologies the company used.

I also have a few products of my own, including a PSR-15 mini-framework, an interface for showing combined headways in a browser which is bookmarkable, and a website which ranks the 1st in Google for the topic.

One thing that I will absolutely not do is to work on any Apple platforms, including iOS. Also now I have decided that my lifestyle is incompatible with a full time 9-6 job in Bournemouth as the only way I can travel on weekend's events outside my local area is by taking overpriced Loganair flights on Friday evening and return on another overpriced Loganair flight back to Southampton on Sunday evening, and it's impossible for me to train for long distance marathon swimming unless an unheated lido is right next to my workplace (which was the case in 2019), enabling me to do my training immediately before / after work.

I'm planning to start a business (in other words, start freelancing and taking contract roles) once the new tax year begins as I believe my skill set is marketable. If there will be any business opportunities in a rail-related firm using PHP as the backend language I will be happy to work with them.