Welcome to my personal website _{jamiebalfour.scot}

I was born in Scotland in 1991 (33 years old). From about age 5, I became very interested in playing video games. I then became really interested in computers and technology when I got my first computer at age 7. By the time I finished primary school at age 11, I was set on my future path of working with computers. I began developing software in 2004 when I turned 13, and I now know over 15 different computer programming languages.

When I turned 14, I began distributing and sharing my software with friends. By age 16, I had written a bitmap editing program with hundreds of effects, a word processor and a web browser. In 2010, when I was 18 years old, I created a personal website. As my skills in web development improved - a new area of interest to me at the time - my website improved. I have developed my own libraries and tools that power my website, including my own ZPE, BalfBar and much more (you can find out more in the Projects section of my website). You can also find my projects on my GitHub page.

I studied Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University in 2012 (you can read my dissertation here). In 2016, I graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Computer Science. In 2013, whilst at university, I also start doing freelance web development on the side. In 2019, I graduated with a Professional Graduate Diploma of Education (PGDE) from the University of Strathclyde and became a Fully Qualified Teacher (FQT) teaching Computing Science in 2020. My main interests in computer science are computer hardware, web design and development, user experience, software engineering and computer language design.

My first job outside of university was as a support web developer. This gave me a lot of practical experience in web development in the industry. After that, my next job was as a full stack developer as well as a mentor to a junior developer at another digital agency. This job taught me even more, particularly some of the tools used in the industry to host websites. When I left that job I went ahead and began to plan out and start Jambour Digital ltd. After that, I went down the route of teaching - something I'd always wanted to do. I finally arrived at the school I'd always wanted to work at when I got my job at Knox Academy in May 2022 and have never been happier doing what I do!