Welcome to my personal website_{jamiebalfour.scot}

I was born in Scotland in 1991 and given my first computer at age 7. From about age 5, I was very interested in video games and I became really interested in computers and technology by the time I was finishing primary school at age 11 and was set on my path for the future working with computers. I began developing software in 2004 when I turned 13 and I now know over 15 different computer programming languages.

In 2010, when I was 18 years old, I decided to get myself a personal website. As my skills improved in web development (which I was originally not interested in as I was a software developer), my website improved. In 2013 I rebuilt my website from the ground up and later again in 2017 with huge performance improvements. I often like to reinvent the wheel with my own take on it, so my website is completely hard-coded from nothing rather than relying upon libraries or precoded designs. I have developed my own libraries and tools that power my website including BalfBar, BalfComment, BalfPick, BalfRibbon, BalfSlider and Dash. The only libraries used across the whole site are the jQuery library and the D3 library. Since 2019, parts of my website are now also powered by my own ZPE too. Although my website is built with a 960ish design, which is considered a bit of a dated design concept, I wanted my website to be this style from day one and still love it as it is.

I went on to study 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 2019, I graduated with a Post Graduate Diploma of Education (PGDE) from the University of Strathclyde and became a Fully Qualified Teacher (FQT) teaching Computing Science in 2020.

My first job outside after university was as a support web developer. This gave me a lot of practical experience of how web development is run in the real world. My next job was as a software and web developer as well as a mentor to a junior developer. When I left that job my plan was to start my own company, which I still run to date. After that I sought out the job I always wanted to do and became a computing teacher.