Gavin Laking
Engineering Manager at clixifix® Customer Care, simplified software
Bolton, England, United Kingdom
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolGavin Laking is an experienced Engineering Manager and senior Ruby developer with over 13 years in professional software roles and more than two decades crafting web applications. He blends hands-on backend expertise—demonstrated by contributions to projects like minitest-reporters and the rstat.us microblogging backend—with a strong test-driven, clean-code philosophy. At clixifix® he has progressed from Senior Engineer to Engineering Manager, consistently focusing on maintainability and pragmatic refactoring. Known for mentoring teams and shipping reliable systems, he pairs technical rigor with a curious, self-driven approach to learning. Outside work he’s an avid walker, gamer and home cook, traits that reflect his steady, detail-oriented temperament.
13 years of coding experience
18 years of employment as a software developer
Kind Edward VI Grammar School, LouthBTEC National Diploma Graphic Design, BTEC National Diploma Graphic Design at University of Lincoln
ruby
Stackoverflow
11,272reputation
1.1mreached
58answers
16questions
checkbox
top-1%
ruby-on-rails
top-5%
Github Skills (26)
checkbox10
testing10
ruby10
minitest10
refactoring10
reporting-services10
webfinger9
ruby-on-rails9
rest-api8
ansi8
algorithms8
api-rest8
unit-testing8
restful-api8
api-design8
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
hotsh/rstat.us
Oct 2012 - Nov 2012
Simple microblogging network based on the ostatus protocol.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:28 commits in 1 month
Contributions summary:Gavin primarily contributed to the back-end functionality of the microblogging network. They implemented user profile preferences, allowing control over Twitter integration. The user refactored code related to subscriber data conversion, extracted a `FeedData` class, and simplified the `FindsOrCreatesFeeds` and `ConvertsSubscriberToFeedData` classes through the use of extract methods and other refactoring techniques. These changes improved code readability, maintainability, and the overall structure of the application.
dokkumicrobloggingprogressive-web-appsostatus
minitest-reporters/minitest-reporters
Sep 2015 - Nov 2015
:page_with_curl: Create customizable MiniTest output formats.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:12 commits, 4 PRs, 10 comments in 2 months
Contributions summary:Gavin implemented a `MeanTimeReporter` for the Minitest framework, allowing for the generation of reports that track test run times, including average, minimum, maximum, and last run times. They added features such as sorting by different columns and customizing the number of tests displayed. Further refinements include the addition of ANSI color codes for more descriptive output and refactoring to use `Minitest.clock_time`.
minitestcurlcustomizableformatscli
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