Hi, I'm Andrew Ward
I’m a software developer, an open source contributor, and a graduate from the University of Bristol. I’m a core developer for Minetest, an open source voxel game engine.
I have a diverse range of interests, both technical and non-technical. Some examples include User Interfaces / User Experience, game dev, electronics, and physics.
Portfolio
Tip: hover over tiles to see descriptions.
Featured
General Software
Games and Graphics
Electronics and Robotics
Minetest
Blog
I post in-depth tutorials and articles on my projects on my blog around once a month. See below for the most recent posts.
-
24 January 2023SDL_GameController: Making gamepads just workWhen implementing controller support in a game, you want gamepads to just work. The solution is SDL_GameController, which allows you to target a large number of gamepads.
-
08 December 2022Large spike in Minetest traffic caused by YouTube videoA month ago, ContentDB received a large spike in traffic. Bobicraft, a Spanish-language Youtube channel with 5M subscribers, posted a video about Minetest.
-
02 December 2022Minetest on Steam Deck: usage and reviewIn this article, I will explain how to set up Minetest on the deck, and review the controls, performance, and experience.
-
16 November 2022Setting up fingerprint auth on Kubuntu (Thinkpad X1)Unlock your computer or use sudo with your fingerprint on Ubuntu KDE.
-
22 October 2022Minetest Mods: my first Android appIn 2016, I created an app to install mods for Minetest's Android port. It taught me a great deal about Android dev and helped me get my first programming job.
Experience
- Software Engineer June 2022 - Present
Working on an Android app with a large userbase. The app uses legacy Java; we’re working on bringing new features to users and refactoring the app to use the latest best practices (Kotlin, Jetpack, etc).
-
Capgemini Engineering
Software Engineer Sep 2019 - May 2022Worked on an analysis tool for the rail industry, using React and TypeScript.
Worked on infrastructure for running physics calculations in the cloud, using Python, Flask, Celery, OpenShift/Kubernetes, MongoDB, and Docker.
Worked on jet engine noise prediction software and desktop GUI applications, written in C# WPF and Java Swing.
Increased team productivity by pioneering an automated Jenkins CI pipeline to run unit and UI tests. This freed developers up for 15 minutes each invocation, resulting in team savings of more than an hour per day.
Commended for the ability to quickly ramp up on new projects, and efficiency in producing work.
Participated in agile / scrum development with daily stand-ups and planned sprints, and performed test driven development and peer code review.
-
Arm
Linux Kernel and Android Intern Jun - Aug 2018As part of a Research and Development team, I worked on experimental changes to the Linux kernel to improve memory security on Android. The aim of these changes was to protect Android devices from both local and remote threats, such as malicious applications or networked actors. A typical task involved making changes in C and ARM Assembly to the Linux kernel, and then modifying user-space C++ tests to verify correctness.
-
GWS Media
Android and Backend Developer Mar - Dec 2017I worked part time as an Android, iOS, and Backend developer for 9 months alongside my studies, gaining valuable experience in client interaction and agile development. I worked on a number of different projects, both individually and as part of a team. I took pride in ensuring that my work was delivered to the highest standard, following platform design guidelines and best practices. One such app.
-
CERN
Collaborator Jul 2019 - Dec 2019Worked on Craft the Web, a game to teach young people about the origins of the world wide web.
Guest speaker at CERN during the Codez la Science conference (slides).
-
Minetest
Core Developer and Contributor Aug 2012 - PresentMinetest is an open-source voxel game engine, which I am a maintainer for. I regularly review pull requests, and have contributed over 100 patches.
Things I’ve directly contributed include:
- An in-menu installer and package manager, and a backend for it called ContentDB.
- The Minetest Modding Book.
- Lua assertation and integration testing framework, to improve quality assurance and prevent regressions.
- Assorted GUI features, including styling and a shared inventory GUI library.
I’ve also created a number of third-party projects, including an Android app to install mods, a 3d voxel modelling program, and lots of games and mods.
I attended as an official exhibitor at both Freenode Live conferences, in 2017 and 2018.
Participating in this project has given me a proficiency in Git, Linux, and collaboration.
Skills
Here is a selection of things I've had experience with.
Languages and Libraries
- C/C++17: STL, Sockets, SFML, SDL2.
- Java/Kotlin: Android SDK.
- Python: Flask, BeautifulSoup, Celery, SQLAlchemy.
- JavaScript/TypeScript: React, Webpack, Canvas, Express, Socket.io.
- HTML/CSS: Bootstrap, Bulma, Jekyll, Jinja2, Liquid, SASS.
Tools
- Git, Git Flow, and SemVer.
- Linux.
- CMake, Make, and Ninja.
- Clang/GCC, gcov, LLDB/GDB, and Valgrind.
- Docker, Jenkins, and OpenShift.
- GIMP, InkScape, Blender, and KDENLive.
Teamwork
- Has mentored junior developers and apprentices.
- Experienced with Git and Git Flow. Knows rebasing, cherry-picking, and more.
- Open Source contributor.
- Writes high quality technical documentation. See my book.
Want to see more?
Take a look at my blog, Mastodon, Github, or YouTube accounts.