Gemma Hollis — MSc Computer Science (part-time)
Manchester
Former store manager two-thirds of the way through a part-time conversion MSc in computer science, working a support-desk role alongside it. Traced a stock-sync fault that had generated complaints for eight months and shipped the fix; before that, ran a 22-person shop through a £3.1m trading year.
Experience
Support Engineer (part-time), Kesgrave Systems · October 2025 – present
Second-line support for a warehouse management product used across 70 sites.
- Handles 40 to 60 tickets a week and closes 82% without escalating, against a desk average of 64%.
- Traced a recurring stock-sync failure to a time-zone assumption in a nightly job and shipped the fix, ending a complaint that had run for eight months.
- Wrote 31 diagnostic SQL queries into a saved library the whole desk now uses, cutting the average data-fix ticket from 45 minutes to 12.
Store Manager, Halliwell Stores · September 2014 – September 2025
Joined as a sales assistant straight from the BA; ran the branch from 2019.
- Ran a 22-person branch through a £3.1m trading year, lifting like-for-like sales 9% in a flat regional market.
- Replaced a paper rota with a shared scheduling model, cutting unplanned overtime by £26,000 a year at the branch.
- Trained six supervisors, four of whom were promoted to run their own branches.
Projects
- Rota Planner — The scheduling tool written to replace the spreadsheet above.
- Open-source contributions — Fixes and tests to two Java libraries met at work.
Education
- MSc Computer Science (conversion) · Manchester Metropolitan University · September 2025 – September 2027
- BA (Hons) English Literature · University of Leeds · September 2011 – July 2014
Skills
- Languages: Java, Python, JavaScript, SQL, HTML and CSS
- Tools: Git, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL, Docker, Linux, JUnit
- Working practice: Code review, Agile stand-ups, Incident triage, Team leadership, Written handovers
Certifications
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner — Amazon Web Services