Suleman Chikhalia, Head of Technology

Suleman Chikhalia

Head of Technology

Privilee

Location
United Arab Emirates - Dubai
Education
Bachelor's degree, Business Computing Systems
Experience
16 years, 4 months

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Work Experience

Total years of experience :16 years, 4 months

Head of Technology at Privilee
  • United Arab Emirates - Dubai
  • My current job since May 2016

- Reporting directly to the CEO and line manager to a team of inhouse and remote staff.

- Responsible for roadmap and feature planning, product development and the sourcing and procurement of technology used across all departments at Privilee.

- Developed a proprietary membership registration system using NFC card technology to manage Privilee members' access to partner hotels. Technology rolled out to all partner hotels across the UAE which includes the likes of Atlantis, St Regis, Fairmont, Sheraton, Kempinski, The Address, Waldorf Astoria and other top-tier hotels.

- Orchestrated the design and build of a hybrid mobile/web application with one codebase, for use on iOS, Android and Web, massively reducing development and future maintenance costs.

- Bridged legacy code with a new backend system working in parallel and a REST API created using the latest web technologies.

Web Development Manager at Property Finder
  • United Arab Emirates - Dubai
  • November 2012 to April 2016

- Responsible for the development roadmap and maintenance (including hands-on development) of the largest real estate portal in the Middle East and all subsidiary MENA region sites.

- Orchestrated a complete re-write of the entire codebase based on a scalable cloud-based architecture using Amazon Web Services (AWS).

- Reporting directly to the CTO and responsible for an Agile development team (of engineers, designers, devops engineers and project managers). Introduced new tools and processes to enforce development best practices and improve existing processes.

- Designed and developed the payment credits system and feeds processing services using an SOA approach.

- Recruited key members of the technical team and set the assessment criteria for potential candidates.

Freelance Senior Developer at Various
  • United Kingdom - London
  • October 2009 to November 2012
Web Developer at Westfield
  • United Kingdom - London
  • June 2009 to October 2009

- Sole UK developer responsible for the development and maintenance of all the UK sites.

- Worked with media agencies and senior management to deliver web projects and microsites.

- Liaised with the Australian digital arm of Westfield both on-site in Sydney and over a daily conference call to manage workflow and project delivery.

Technical Architect / Lead Developer at Difiniti (now Aegis Media)
  • United Kingdom - London
  • November 2007 to June 2009

- Responsible for the scoping, development and maintenance of internal and client based projects and overseeing the growth and progression of the other developers.

- Helped secure £15, 000+ in revenue within the first month of my placement at Diffiniti with the development of a preliminary version online editorial tool for Sky.

- Lead developer for CMS development and the development of internal SEO tools.

- Worked on projects for reputable clients such as Sky, Apple, Dell, Betfair, Autotrader.

Education

Bachelor's degree, Business Computing Systems
  • at City University
  • July 2007

Course designed to produce technically skilled graduates who form the bridge between computing technologists and business specialists. Key Modules: Management of IT, Systems Theory, Human Computer Interaction, Database Modelling, OO Analysis & Design.

High school or equivalent, Computing
  • at St Angela’s & St Bonaventure’s 6th Form Centre
  • July 2003

Specialties & Skills

Languages

English
Expert