About Me

Kieran O'Shea - Mug Shot

Name: Kieran O’Shea
Location: London, UK
Occupation: Software Developer

Hobbies & Interests:
Hiking, golf, jazz, cinema, radio broadcasting, traveling, computing, programming, electronics and photography.

Favorite things:
Music: Jazz, Blues, Funk, Soul
Books: Catch 22, My Family & Other Animals, Lord of the rings, His Dark Materials, Le Petit Prince
Films: Lord of the Rings, Donnie Darko, James Bond, The Birds, The Wicker Man, The Matrix, The Italian Job, The Grudge, Sin City, Signs, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, Freedom Writers, Cool Runnings, 28 Days Later
Place: Any place where I’m happy

 

Curriculum Vitae:
I’ve done a lot of things with my life that relate to work. Check out my CV.

Mug Shot:
The mug shot on the top left was taken at my friend Sarann’s wedding, Spring 2013. There are most likely better photos of me knocking about in the photo gallery if you care to look over in that direction.

Life Story:
I was born in Colchester, Essex but have no recollection of the area as my family moved away very soon after my birth to the city of St. Albans, Hertfordshire. I later learned that not being brought up in Essex freed me from a stigma from which I would likely never have escaped. That’s not to say of course that I believe the stigma that Essex is a bad place, indeed my Father moored his yacht there for a good number of years, I’m just simply glad I got through school scot free in that regard.

I went to Nursery, Infants and Junior school all at the same establishment, Prae Wood School in St. Albans which was conveniently located very close to where we lived. These days I’m quite proud of the proximity fact as it meant that as a child I didn’t end up unwittingly contributing to one of the big environmental issues of today – the school run.

I don’t remember an awful lot about my younger years but I do know that I began sowing the seeds of the technically minded individual that I’ve now become. From a young age I was working on woodwork projects with my Father and in addition spent a lot of time dabbling with Lego, Mechano and electronics in my after school time. Dismantling things to see how they worked and then miraculously putting them back together became my forte.

My secondary education took place at Verulam school, a moderate distance from our house on the other side of St. Albans. It was while studying here that I began building up a good network of friends, diversifying my technical skills into the field of computing and building my first website, the Grandfather if you will to this very online presence!

After completing my A Level studies in 2003 I set off to study Physics at the University of York, mainly on the strength of good performance in the subject at school. This turned out to have been a mistake and while I learnt a lot during my time at York (and enjoyed the many opportunities afforded me in non academic areas such as serving on the Halifax College committee and presenting on University Radio York), I was devoting an increasingly large amount of my time to software related work outside of my course and it was realised that in order to turn my activities into academic benefit a change in course direction was needed.

In September 2005 therefore, I enrolled for a 3 year BSc in Computing at the University of Leeds, converted my website to WordPress to blog about my ever increasing technical endeavours, and set off for the bright lights of the “London of the North”.

To say that the decision to study at Leeds was the best one of my life would be grossly understating both the personal enjoyment and the career enhancing nature of my tenure in the university. During my studies I gained a wealth of academic knowledge far in excess of what I could ever have expected, a great many good friends with whom I continue to remain in touch with to this day, and ultimately a proper start in my adult life which I now could not dream of ever having been without.

Fresh out of university, clutching my degree certificate, I set about job hunting for graduate posts with big technical firms. By more luck than judgement I ended up having an interview with financial firm JPMorgan and it must have been destined in some way as I ended up enjoying the work and continue to work in the financial sector to this day. As mentioned further up this page my CV is up to date and contains full details of my current work endeavours.