Pictured here either in Leith during a miraculous appearance of the Sun, or in Mexico on honeymoon - its impossible to tell the difference - and although Neil's legs had to be tastefully cropped from this photo for health and safety reasons he is actually a keen sportsman whose youthful hobbies included walking, running, cycling, hill climbing, fishing and archery. But eventually his copy of Tomb Raider was played to death and he had to go outdoors instead.
Neil has many years of experience as a Java developer, having used Spring extensively since its inception and worked mainly in Agile environments. Prior to life as a software developer Neil was a research scientist. In more recent times he has developed an interest in single page Javascript Applications, functional programming and Scala.
Originally from Glasgow, Neil finally had to emigrate to Edinburgh in order to make it more credible that he could write a bio claiming he enjoyed walks up Arthur's Seat at lunchtimes. Perhaps it was in the low oxygen evironment of Edinburgh's mountain's lofty summit that he had a vision of a halcyon realm, where programmers would roam free within the atmosphere of a tech startup while having all the advantages of being a part of a larger organisation as well. There they would create software that would be used by millions of customers, using the latest technologies, fuelled by their unfettered creative passions, unlimited free coffee and bacon rolls on a Monday. Or perhaps he was just Googling 'Scala meetups, Edinburgh'. The end result was the same and Neil has been with the Connections team since the start of January 2015.