Nic Bentley
Nicholas Bentley
Full-stack Developer
& HCI/UX Researcher
nic@nicbentley.uk
About
Hi, I'm Nic. I enjoy building robust, feature-complete programs and websites to fit user needs. UX oriented with a passion for performant and accessible software. Always tinkering with something.
Work Experience
2022 - 2024
Teaching Assistant
University of Birmingham
Alongside my PhD, I have been involved in the planning, organisation, teaching, and marking of two final year and masters level university modules - Human-Computer Interaction and Research Topics in HCI.
Teaching ⬢ Logistics ⬢ Feedback
2018 - 2022
Software Developer
MiTek
During my time at MiTek I worked on multiple highly successful projects.
I worked on an industry leading Construction CAD app built on C#/SQL to improve performance and add new features to meet the demands of customers tackling larger and more demanding projects.
I worked on a full-stack CAD webapp with a rapid turnaround from concept to delivery, using a C#/.NET/SQL backend and a TS/Angular5 frontend.
I also worked on a larger logistics web platform for a broad range of international customers with the same technology stack, including developing the early concept, and I ran workshops to assist our other international teams get up to speed with the technologies in use.
I worked within and with a number of international teams during my time at MiTek, and worked a lot on APIs for integration between the mentioned products and a few others. I also had a leading role in developing automated tests, as well as our containerisation and Azure CI/CD pipelines.
C# ⬢ Angular ⬢ HTML5/TS/CSS ⬢ Docker ⬢ Azure ⬢ SQL ⬢ Full-stack
2016
Penetration Testing Internship
Xiphos Research Ltd.
Hands on experience with penetration testing gave me a good understanding of common vulnerabilities, where they come from, and how to prevent them. Getting a look into the guts of a number of systems was invaluable.
Security ⬢ Performance Profiling ⬢ Network Analysis
Education
2022 - present
PhD Study
University of Birmingham
I am pursuing a Human-Computer Interaction PhD. My thesis investigates extending digital fabrication techniques to allow a greater breadth of design space for physical interfaces.
I have worked with a number of accomplished academics across multiple institutions internationally. We produced an open-source, extensible framework for the addition of a fourth axis to 3D printers, improving the ability of makers to embed threads within printed objects, allowing for novel applications which expand the design space of 3D printed objects.
I am working on an analysis of the design space expansions that may be possible via the direct printing or single-process fabrication of mechanical meta-materials, methods to facilitate or carry out this fabrication, and the benefits and drawbacks of these techniques when compared to traditional multi-process fabrication methods.
I am currently taking a leave of absence from this work, but it's ticking over in the background!
Papers published:
HCI ⬢ Interactivity ⬢ Digital Fabrication
2014 - 2018
MSci Computer Science
University of Birmingham
Covered a wide variety of topics, specialising in Human-Computer Interaction. My thesis involved the planning, creation, and running of a full-stack testing platform for a study on the interplay between physical and on-screen interfaces.
Fundamentals ⬢ HCI ⬢ UI/UX ⬢ Interface Research
Side Projects
2024 - Ongoing
Beloved Beasties ↗
A dog walking and pet care company operated by my lovely partner Serin. I manage and host the website on a local server, as well as communications software.
NuxtJS ⬢ Cloudflare ⬢ Server Hosting ⬢ Docker ⬢ GSuite
Ongoing
This website
I've had this site for a while, and enjoy tinkering with it and hosting little projects on subdomains every now and then. Having a local server lets me spin things up and down as much as I feel like it.
NuxtJS ⬢ Cloudflare ⬢ Server Hosting ⬢ Docker