Hello, I am Rick Knight

As the eConnect Team Lead, since 2021, I am responsible for the coordination, prioritisation of support, maintenance and development of eConnect core systems including bespoke and out-of-the-box solutions. Critical to my role within eConnect is the management of the development team (consisting of business analysts, software engineers, database developers and testers) to design, develop, and implement the Departments flagship data-sharing platform Extrata®.

My 20+ year career within the software development and IT industry, has provided me with a wealth of expert knowledge and practical experienced in building and developing software solutions and successfully leading IT teams. Adopting project and time management tools and frameworks (such as Agile and ITIL) enables me to effectively manage team workloads, priorities, and expectations, whilst achieving results and delivering timely solutions that align with the Departments strategic direction and cloud adoption strategies.

I also manage the ongoing support and back-end maintenance of the eConnect Data Exchange Platform (EDEP), a bespoke containerisation and micro-service solution supporting business applications and application programming interfaces (APIs). EDEP ingests weather station data from DPIRD's 200 strong weather station network, making it publicly available via API's that support the OpenAPI standard.

EDEP forms the backbone of the Departments Weather website and related Weather services which include various mobile applications, decision support tools and DPIRD's weather APIs.

Technologies: C#, .NET Core, Angular RxJs, Typescript, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, php, python, Docker, Linux, Oracle DB, SQL DB, Kong (APIM), Azure, Oracle Cloud, Git, Jira, Confluence, MS Project, PowerBI, Microsoft Office.

As Assistant Product Manager and Team Leader at DPLH, I led the Application Development and Support team, consisting of six direct reports with diverse skillsets. My key responsibilities included strategic leadership, planning, and software development oversight across the SDLC to achieve core departmental objectives.

Leveraging a diverse range of project management and development methodologies (ITIL, Agile, Waterfall, SCRUM) and tools (Jira, MS Project etc.) enabled me to be effective in managing project milestones and delivering desired outcomes. By fostering a culture of resourcefulness and innovation, I empowered team members to resolve issues and meet deadlines, driving results ensuring alignment with departmental strategic objectives.

Key initiatives included: Continued development of FASTPlan, the flagship system for managing development applications within Western Australia. Upgrade and migration of critical departmental systems (such as the document management system - Objective). Project managed the design, development, and implementation of the primary online application lodgement system. Successful project management and delivery of the Contaminated Sites Management System in D365.

As Technical Lead, and managing up-to five developers (including contractors an permanent staff), I led the development of high-quality software solutions, provided technical guidance and strategic direction, along with coding expertise, to meet branch and departmental objectives. Application of my expert technical knowledge and extensive experience, resulted in wide adoption of solutions across various disciplines, platforms, and technologies.

FASTPlan, a unique bespoke application for electronic management of Planning and Development application submissions, showcasing my attention to detail, leadership capabilities and ability to think outside the box.

Played a critical role in designing, developing, and implementing a secure on-line payment system, for subdivision applications (known as Form1C), with automated transaction reconciliation, utilising custom APIs in C#, ASP.NET with an SQL Server back-end solution. This initiative was one of the first of its kind successfully adopted by the agency, evolving to encompass on-line payments for numerous other applications.

During my time at Dialog IT, Perth, as a contract developer I further developed and enhanced my coding and database skills through the different engagements, adopting technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint, SQL Server, C#, MS Access, HTML/CSS, JavaScript and ASP/ASP.NET just to name a few.

At St John Ambulance Belmont, Perth, I improved their Ambulance maintenance system, conducted a system review, and devised a strategy and recommendations for future enhancements and improvements.

During my time as Senior Developer at the Department of Planning (DOP), within the Application Development & Support branch, I was responsible for the overhaul of the departments many MS Access systems and their migration to a centralised relational database system (SQL Server). Liaison with key business stakeholders was essential, along with effective communication, to ensure projects were delivered on-time meeting business needs with minimal disruption. The Boating Recreational and Commercial Qualification system (BRAQ), the Taxi Drivers Complaint Management system, and the inception of the Form1C system were a few of my significant achievements.

Crossecom is a privately-owned company, that delivers forecourt and RFID solutions to the Fuel Industry across Australia and internationally. As senior developer and member of the development team, I was vital in designing, developing, and supporting Crossecom's Integrated Service Station Automation System (ISSAS) and Asset Tracking software, written in Assembler, C, and C++ utilising a bespoke data storage solution.

I was responsible for designing, developing, and rolling out the company-wide customer support ticketing system (Helpdesk), which was essential to achieving and maintaining Crossecom's ISO 9001 rating.

I was also part of the innovative team that developed a Geo-tracking system for monitoring and tracking fuel distribution units in Singapore and India, written in ASP and C++ utilising a SQL Server back-end, enabled fuel companies to track location, speed, direction of each fleet vehicle, plotted in real-time on a global map.

As a developer for Natural Progression, I was part of a small team based in Perth, responsible for the development and enhancement of the off-the-shelf Natural Progression Accounting Product, designed to meet the accounting needs of small and medium size businesses - written in a bespoke derivative of the Quick Basic language.

I was primarily responsible for building a suite of interface libraries enabling the Natural Progression core software components to be re-used and made accessible to new GUI style interfaces, leading to the rapid delivery of customized solutions that could be easily tailored to specific customer needs.