Joseph Rowlands

Personal Profile

Received excellent grades in GCSE Math, English and Science. Then I went on to complete a BTEC Level 3 in IT, and got 100% on everything. I have always been passionate about programming, math, and problem solving. I work quite well in a team, but I excel and innovate when I have the time to think about a problem for myself.


I use both Arch Linux and Windows as daily drivers and have set up my mail-server, VPN, and website on a Debian-based server. Almost all the software I use is what I've built myself, and I also enjoy helping others do so on Stack Overflow. My best skills by far are my motivation and hunger for knowledge. I am currently seeking a full-time position or apprenticeship within software engineering/development work, where I can use my wealth of knowledge and transferable skills.

Qualifications & Training

Extended Diploma in I.T2015 to 2016
  • Got 100% (graded as a double distinction*) in the course. I've always had a passion for computer programming, so it was very easy to pass.

    • Prince's Trust (2022)2022
  • Completed this course to help me gain some practical experience. It involved working in a team and thinking on my feet, as well as planning community projects and learning how to present my ideas to others.

    • Experience

    Writing Server Documentation2019 to 2021
  • I wrote several in-depth guides for Vultr, a well-established server provider with millions of customers. One of which is the Scipted LEMP documentation I wrote, which will guide anyone on how to install and configure a LEMP stack (Linux, Nginx, MySQL, PHP) on an Ubuntu server, and configure it with a LetsEncrypt certificate. The automation script was something I had improvised as I was only tasked with writing documentation on how to do it manually, but since I had lots of spare time I was able to create the script for them as well.
    • Freelance Programming2016 to present
  • I've done lots of freelance work for companies and individuals. From writing Bash and Python scripts for a Raspberry Pi, that upon insertion will automatically generate disk image backups of USBs, to writing C programs for a Biochemistry research team to parse and fix malformed table data, website scrapers, QR generators, database parsers, SEO with GPT3 generated articles using scripts, and a lot more. Having this much variety in my freelance career has allowed me to work with a lot of different technologies. If you'd like to see some more examples, check out my Upwork profile.

    • Skills

    • Bash9/10
    • Unix/Linux7/10
    • C6/10
    • C#6/10
    • Python6/10
    • SQL/Databases6/10
    • C++5/10
    • Windows5/10
    • Javascript4/10
    • x86 ASM3/10

    Projects

    Arch Linux Vulnerability Auditor
  • A security tool that started as a bash script, which compares currently installed software on Arch-based systems against the list of known vulnerable software on Arch's public vulnerability tracker. I'm currently in the process of converting the script to C for reliability and efficiency. I have already finished most of the important features.
    • DMC3 Tools/Music Player
  • A tool that can automatically install and configure commonly used programs for a popular game (DMC3), but also packages in some of its own functionality, like the built-in music player. I had to learn x86 assembly, and how to reverse engineer Windows x86 binaries using Cheat Engine and Binary Ninja to get the data needed for the program, which I wrote using C# and Windows Forms.
    • Arch Linux Update Daemon
  • An update utility, written in Bash that safely and quickly tests Arch-based systems for updates in the background automatically, while also providing a way of notifying the user and giving them an option to install the updates.
    • See more on my Github!

    References

  • Available on request