Eric Carter

Hi I am Eric Carter, Head of Engineering for thestartupfactory.tech.

Head of Engineering is a lofty title, in reality I like nothing more than to roll my sleeves up and get stuck in to some clean code. But being an engineer is far more than being a developer. Engineering is all about the process of how you turn ideas into reality. How you design, architect and build a product or application is only the end. First we must understand the idea and build a high performing team and processes that can get us quickly and reliably to our goal.

My first experience of software engineering was hacking Snake in QBasic. Since then I have turned hobby into career, studying Electronic Engineering followed by 10 years developing applications in telecoms, law enforcement, and maritime domains. From tiny one-man-army proof-of-concept projects to multi-year international projects delivering enterprise applications, I have seen a lot of variety but also a lot of similarity and boiler-plate code. I have become an advocate of agile and iterative development methodologies, and the thing known as “dev-ops”.

Outside work

Despite it also being my day job, I take every fleeting opportunity between the DIY chores to break out the laptop and cut code in a trendy new language or framework.

Other hobbies include: snow boarding especially off-piste tree runs and powder jumps; woodwork and DIY; and flying an RC helicopter around the garden.