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James Broome

James Broome

Director of Engineering

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James has spent nearly 20 years delivering high quality software solutions addressing global business problems, with teams and clients across 3 continents. As Director of Engineering at endjin, he leads the team in providing technology strategy, data insights and engineering support to organisations of all sizes - from disruptive B2C start-ups, to global financial institutions. He's responsible for the success of our customer-facing project delivery, as well as the capability and growth of our delivery team.

Insight Discovery (part 6) – How to define business requirements for a successful cloud data & analytics project

Insight Discovery (part 6) – How to define business requirements for a successful cloud data & analytics project

James Broome

Many data projects fail to deliver the impact they should for a simple reason – they focus on the data. This series of posts explains a different way of thinking that will set up your data & analytics projects for success. Using an iterative, action-oriented, insight discovery process, it demonstrates tools and techniques that will help you to identify, define and prioritize requirements in your own projects so that they deliver maximum value. It also explores the synergy with modern cloud analytics platforms like Azure Synapse, explaining how the process and the architecture actively support each other for fast, impactful delivery.
Insight Discovery (part 5) – Deliver insights incrementally with data pipelines

Insight Discovery (part 5) – Deliver insights incrementally with data pipelines

James Broome

Many data projects fail to deliver the impact they should for a simple reason – they focus on the data. This series of posts explains a different way of thinking that will set up your data & analytics projects for success. Using an iterative, action-oriented, insight discovery process, it demonstrates tools and techniques that will help you to identify, define and prioritize requirements in your own projects so that they deliver maximum value. It also explores the synergy with modern cloud analytics platforms like Azure Synapse, explaining how the process and the architecture actively support each other for fast, impactful delivery.
Insight Discovery (part 4) – Data projects should have a backlog

Insight Discovery (part 4) – Data projects should have a backlog

James Broome

Many data projects fail to deliver the impact they should for a simple reason – they focus on the data. This series of posts explains a different way of thinking that will set up your data & analytics projects for success. Using an iterative, action-oriented, insight discovery process, it demonstrates tools and techniques that will help you to identify, define and prioritize requirements in your own projects so that they deliver maximum value. It also explores the synergy with modern cloud analytics platforms like Azure Synapse, explaining how the process and the architecture actively support each other for fast, impactful delivery.

Ed Freeman

Ed Freeman

Software Engineer I

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Ed is a Software Engineer helping to deliver projects for clients of all shapes and sizes, providing best of breed technology solutions to industry specific challenges. He focusses primarily on cloud technologies, data analytics and business intelligence, though his Mathematical background has also led to a distinct interest in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and other related fields.

He also curates a weekly newsletter, Power BI Weekly, where you can receive all the latest Power BI news, for free.

Ed won the Cloud Apprentice of the Year at the Computing Rising Star Awards 2019.

Customizing Lake Databases in Azure Synapse Analytics

Customizing Lake Databases in Azure Synapse Analytics

Ed Freeman

Great, so I've configured my Lake Database in Azure Synapse Analytics. But since I'm using parquet-backed files, my column names aren't very user-friendly. I also have these calculated columns incorporating business logic that I'd like to query on the fly rather than persist them to backing data. I also want to give specific end-users access to this database and provide them with pre-defined reporting queries to get them up and running as quickly as possible. How can I do this? Enter Custom Objects in Lake Databases - now you can create VIEWs, Stored Procedures, USERs (amongst other objects) in what used to be a read-only database. This article explores the customization options and how it can help you organize your reporting data in Azure Synapse Analytics
What is a Lake Database in Azure Synapse Analytics?

What is a Lake Database in Azure Synapse Analytics?

Ed Freeman

Lake Databases in Azure Synapse Analytics are just great. If you're starting on a new Synapse Analytics project, chances are you can benefit from Lake Databases. Whether you need to analyze business data from Dataverse, share your Spark tables of data with SQL Serverless, or use Database Templates to visually design and define your standardized/semantic analytical data model, there's a use-case for you. In this blog we'll explore what Lake Databases are, why they're useful, and what you need to watch-out for when using them.
Sharing access to synchronized Shared Metadata Model objects in Azure Synapse Analytics

Sharing access to synchronized Shared Metadata Model objects in Azure Synapse Analytics

Ed Freeman

The "Shared Metadata Model" is a powerful feature within Synapse Analytics that synchronizes Spark database objects with SQL Serverless. This article describes how to give non-admin users access to these synchronized objects in a least-privileged manner.

Elisenda Gascon

Elisenda Gascon

Apprentice Engineer II

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Elisenda is a mathematics graduate from UCL. During her years at university, Elisenda took a couple of introductory modules in Python and Machine Learning, which led her to take a few online courses on those subjects.

After finishing her mathematics degree, Elisenda's motivation to join endjin was a desire to put her problem solving skills to the test and further develop her understanding of technology. She is currently expanding her knowledge of cloud computing and its various applications, and discovering the fascinating world of Microsoft Azure.

Big Data LDN: highlights and how to survive your first data conference

Big Data LDN: highlights and how to survive your first data conference

Elisenda Gascon

Here are some of the highlights form this year's Big Data LDN conference.
My first year as an Apprentice Engineer

My first year as an Apprentice Engineer

Elisenda Gascon

Eli joined endjin as part of the Software Engineering Apprenticeship 2021 cohort. In this post she reflects on her first year.
5 tips to pass the PL-300 exam: Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst

5 tips to pass the PL-300 exam: Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst

Elisenda Gascon

I recently passed the PL-300 - Power BI Data Analyst exam. Here are some tips to prepare for it that I found useful!

Charlotte Gayton

Charlotte Gayton

Apprentice Engineer I

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Charlotte is seconded to endjin for her Industrial Placement year, as part of her BEng in Computer Science at the University of York. She was part of the summer 2021 internship cohort, and worked on creating a synthetic customer data generation tool to create statistically accurate "fake" data which could be used to create large volumes of realistic data for testing scenarios for endjin's customers.

During her year-long placement at endjin, Charlotte is going to focus on the adoption and roll out of the OpenChain specification (ISO 5230) across endjin's open source projects.

Working with JSON in Pyspark

Working with JSON in Pyspark

Charlotte Gayton

This blog shows how to transform a document based format to a tabular format whilst managing all the nested properties
Creating Pester Unit Tests in PowerShell

Creating Pester Unit Tests in PowerShell

Charlotte Gayton

Why you should make writing unit tests a regular practice and how they will improve your code. This blog explains how to write unit tests in PowerShell using Pester.
My Year in Industry so far

My Year in Industry so far

Charlotte Gayton

Charlotte is studying for a Bachelor of Engineering - BEng (Hons), Computer Science at the University of York. She was part of our 2021 internship cohort, and is spending her Year in Industry placement with endjin too. In this post she reflects on her first 6 months.

Jessica Hill

Jessica Hill

Apprentice Engineer II

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Jessica comes from a Biosciences background, having gained a 1st Class Bachelor of Science in Biology from The University of Manchester.

During the lockdown Jessica used the opportunity to explore her interest in technology by taking two Code First Girls online courses; Introduction to Web Development and Python Programming.

This led Jessica to look for job opportunities in the technology sector and joined endjin's 2021 apprenticeship cohort, which had over 200 applicants.

My first year as an apprentice software engineer at endjin

My first year as an apprentice software engineer at endjin

Jessica Hill

Jessica joined endjin as part of the Software Engineering Apprenticeship 2021 cohort. In this post, Jessica reflects on her first year.
An Overview of the Corvus.Extensions Library

An Overview of the Corvus.Extensions Library

Jessica Hill

Corvus.Extensions is an open source repository that provides a collection of useful helper extension methods to .NET types. This post provides a spotlight on the repository.
EVALUATEANDLOG in DAX

EVALUATEANDLOG in DAX

Jessica Hill

This blog post explores an exciting, hidden new feature in DAX - the EVALUATEANDLOG function. EVALUATEANDLOG brings debugging capability to Power BI.

Liam Mooney

Liam Mooney

Apprentice Engineer II

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Liam studied an MSci in Physics at University College London, which included modules on Statistical Data Analysis, High Performance Computing, Practical Physics and Computing. This led to his dissertation exploring the use of machine learning techniques for analysing LHC particle collision data.

Before joining endjin, Liam had a keen interest in data science and engineering, and did a number of related internships. However, since joining endjin he has developed a much broader set of interest, including DevOps and more general software engineering. He is currently exploring those interests and finding his feet in the tech space.

Data validation in Python: a look into Pandera and Great Expectations

Data validation in Python: a look into Pandera and Great Expectations

Liam Mooney

Data validation is a vital step in any data-oriented workstream. This post investigates and compares two popular Python data validation packages - Pandera and Great Expectations
How To Implement Continuous Deployment of Python Packages with GitHub Actions

How To Implement Continuous Deployment of Python Packages with GitHub Actions

Liam Mooney

This post demonstrates how to use GitHub Actions to automatically publish updates to your Python package to PyPI, and explores whether this constitutes Continuous Deployment
An Overview of the Corvus.Retry Library

An Overview of the Corvus.Retry Library

Liam Mooney

Corvus.Retry is an open source repository that provides functionality for building policies and strategies for handling transient faults. This post provides a spotlight on the repository.

Paul Waller

Paul Waller

Designer

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Paul has over 20 years of creative experience in design, and delivering user and customer experiences across 3D, print, and digital disciplines. As endjin’s designer, Paul enables customers and the team to visualise abstract concepts. Whether it’s UX, or dashboards for financial and retail services, television props for the Great British Menu, illustrations and animations for promotion and marketing campaigns, or logos and iconography for design systems, Paul is responsible for making concepts look and feel great, in a way our customers can understand.

How to develop an accessible colour palette for Power BI

How to develop an accessible colour palette for Power BI

Paul Waller

If the audience for your Power BI report is larger than 12 people, then statistically 1 of your audience suffers from Colour Vision Deficiency. In this post we will talk through how we experimented with colour to develop an accessible colour palette and why colour and contrast is important when it comes to data visualisation.
How to enable data teams with the design assets required for impactful data storytelling in Power BI

How to enable data teams with the design assets required for impactful data storytelling in Power BI

Paul Waller

In this post we will talk through how to expand on a data team's creative skillset, without access to specialist photo editing software such as Photoshop or Illustrator.
How to Create Custom Buttons in Power BI

How to Create Custom Buttons in Power BI

Paul Waller

In this post we will talk through a step-by-step guide for how to design and build custom buttons in Power BI. We'll start with the basic foundations of shape and form, to applying icons, states, and actions with the view to extending your brand collateral across your report design and UI.

2021 Internship Cohort

Thea Bautista

Thea Bautista

Intern

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Thanks to a volunteering placement which opened her eyes to the capabilities of technological innovation, Thea studies Biomedical Engineering at King's College London.

Here, she found her love for code through her programming modules and entertains her tech interests in her spare time through online courses and coding-driven projects.

Wanting to learn more about work-life in a tech company and the ins-and-outs of how businesses are run, she joined endjin's 2021 intern cohort.

From start to finish: my internship at endjin

From start to finish: my internship at endjin

Thea Bautista

Thea studies Biomedical Engineering at King's College London, in this post she summarises her 6 week internship at endjin.

Nehemiah Campbell

Nehemiah Campbell

Intern

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Nehemiah is a graduate from the University of Bristol, gaining a 1st Class Masters of Science in Mathematics with Statistics. During his summer internship, Nehemiah worked with Python to pre-process, gather insights from data and developed a machine learning model. He has an interest in automating processes to solve daily inefficiencies and building robust solutions.

Nehemiah worked at endjin between 2021-2022.

Month one at endjin

Month one at endjin

Nehemiah Campbell

In this post, Nehemiah reflects on his first month at endjin as an apprentice engineer.

Klaudia Guz

Klaudia Guz

Intern

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Klaudia is an intern and an Electronic Engineering student at University of Southampton.

During her degree she learned about electronic devices and computer architecture which sparked her interest in technology. This led Klaudia to apply for the internship at endjin and she's hoping to join again next year as an apprentice.

My internship experience

My internship experience

Klaudia Guz

Klaudia studies Electronic Engineering at University of Southampton, and reflects on her two month internship.

Amy Shaw

Amy Shaw

Intern

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Amy is currently a student at the University of Reading studying Biomedical Engineering.

She loves all things tech and hopes to work as a Software Engineer post-graduation. She loves the problem solving aspects of programming and feeling like she's constantly learning new things.

Outside of academics and work, Amy is passionate about art and enjoys painting in her spare time. She also enjoys languages and is learning Spanish in addition to her native languages English and Khmer.

Amy's summer as an intern endjineer

Amy's summer as an intern endjineer

Amy Shaw

Amy is studying Biomedical Engineering University of Reading, and reflects on her two month summer internship at endjin learning C# and Python, and working on a data science project.

Alumni - gone, but not forgotten!