Jack Ellinsworth

Cloud Engineer Degree Apprentice Current

Barclays UK · Aug 2024 to present · Knutsford, England

Public Cloud Engineering team, based at Radbroke, working across AWS and Azure.

• Led the architecture and rebuild of a multi-region application supporting critical customer infrastructure.
• Implemented automatic, manual and geolocation failover, monitoring, and the DNS and network design with AWS Route 53.
• Delivered it with zero-downtime, multi-region deployments using AWS CodeDeploy and CloudFormation, with automatic rollbacks through GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
• Coordinated release strategies to roll changes out safely across environments.
• Built an internal web application from the ground up with the team, using Python on the backend and Alpine.js and HTMX on the frontend.
• Independently designed and built the internal client package that application depends on for its backend integrations.
• Completed Years 1 and 2 of the degree alongside the role with a First in both, and earned three cloud certifications.

Volunteer programmer

Online social server · Apr 2021 to 2023

• Programmed for an online social server, designing its algorithms and its data storage on MongoDB and MySQL.
• Worked in a team of about five creating simulation games, taking on the most difficult programming tasks myself.
• Ran the supporting software on a Linux VPS and managed the code in GitHub repositories.

Crew Member

McDonald's · Sep 2022 to Aug 2024

• Worked busy weekend shifts alongside my A-levels, keeping the drive-thru moving and taking orders on EPOS systems.
• Supervised and supported other crew members, and was trusted by managers to be reliable and on time.

Work experience placements

GCHQ and Fujitsu · Apr 2023

• GCHQ: STEM and analysis work in a team of new people, breaking a problem down, splitting the workload into pairs and combining our analysis into a conclusion. It taught me the importance of confidentiality on sensitive work.
• Fujitsu: completed modules in cyber security, quantum computing and the Internet of Things, including how software vulnerabilities allow unauthorised access to systems.

ZeuraCore, a multiplayer airline simulation

Own project · Aug 2021 to Jul 2024 · Luau, Node.js, Express, MongoDB

The server and client code behind a multiplayer game where players check in, clear security, board and fly, while staff run the airport with in-game tools. Around 100 files and over 10,000 lines of my own code.

• Client-server architecture with the server in charge: every staff-only request is checked against a central permission service, so the client is never trusted.
• Event-driven services. The flight service publishes changes and the screens, gates, check-in desks and in-flight systems subscribe, which keeps them decoupled.
• Player, moderation and flight data stored in MongoDB behind a REST API that I wrote with Node.js and Express, called over HTTPS with a separate API key per endpoint.
• Hosted that API on my own VPS, set up from the UNIX command line with secured server ports, SSL certificates and a domain name.
• An automatic queue system for the check-in desks, purchase receipt handling that alerts staff when a payment fails, and batched, throttled autosaves.
• Built and sold airport systems like these to other developers on commission.

Code: zeura-core-public-showcase on GitHub

Commissioned Discord bot with music playback

Paid commission · Node.js

Took a client's brief through to a finished bot and delivered it as paid work. Written in Node.js, with music playback alongside its other features.

Discord bots for moderation and games

Personal projects

Bots that handle server moderation and run games. I kept these in GitHub repositories, which is where I learned version control properly, including reverting commits and using the GitHub CLI.