Chris Needham
Principal Software Engineer at BBC
London, England, United Kingdom
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolChris Needham is a Principal Software Engineer and standards leader with over 25 years of experience spanning embedded systems, device drivers, native Windows clients and internet media. Based at BBC R&D since 2008, he prototypes web audio/video services and represents the BBC at W3C as co-chair of the Media Working Group and Media & Entertainment IG, bringing protocol- and spec-level perspective to product engineering. He is fluent across low-level C/assembler and high-level web stacks (Node.js, Python, Ruby, JavaScript) and has practical DSP and medical-device safety experience from earlier roles. An active open-source contributor, Chris has improved documentation and features in major projects like Web Audio and WebCodecs and built UI and waveform tooling (peaks.js, waveform-data.js) used for audio interaction on the web. Known for marrying rigorous engineering with standards advocacy, he also chairs W3C groups while still shipping pragmatic prototypes.
15 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
BEng (1st Class Hons), Electroacoustics, BEng (1st Class Hons), Electroacoustics at The University of Salford
Stackoverflow
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Github Skills (40)
spec10
javascript10
testing10
command-line-arguments10
user-interface10
ui-design10
interface-design10
audio10
uid10
web-audio-api10
command-line-parser10
latex10
front-end-development10
argument-parsing10
specification10
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
bbc/waveform-data.js
Oct 2013 - Jan 2023
Audio Waveform Data Manipulation API – resample, offset and segment waveform data in JavaScript.
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:9 releases, 1 review, 199 commits in 9 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Chris contributed to the `waveform-data.js` repository, which focuses on audio waveform data manipulation. Their work included fixing a bug related to the JSON output of an external program, and a version update. They also added features to the project such as allowing zero as a valid segment name and the ability to concatenate waveforms. These contributions demonstrate a focus on refining the core functionality and addressing specific issues in the project.
audiowaveformjavascriptaudio
bbc/peaks.js
Oct 2013 - Jan 2023
JavaScript UI component for interacting with audio waveforms
Role in this project:Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:44 releases, 19 reviews, 833 commits in 9 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Chris primarily contributed to the front-end components of the 'peaks.js' repository, a JavaScript UI component for audio waveform interaction. Their commits show a focus on UI improvements, including fixing shift+right arrow key handling and addressing issues related to point markers. They made changes to the demo pages, including updating wording and adding buttons. The user also contributed to the handling of custom markers, showing proficiency with the design and implementation of UI controls.
audiowaveformjavascriptui-componentsaudio
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