Skip to content

Curriculum Vitae

Summary

I am an MEng Computer Science student at the University of York, averaging a first-class standard, with 13 months of industrial software engineering experience at Thales Underwater Systems.

My strongest experience is in modern C++, Linux-based systems, performance-critical software, real-time service architectures, and containerised deployment. I am particularly interested in roles involving substantial production codebases, systems engineering, embedded software, high-performance computing, or formally reasoned software design.

Industrial Experience

Thales Underwater Systems Ltd.

Software Engineering Intern

Stockport, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom
July 2024 – August 2025

  • Worked across two cross-functional teams responsible for architecting, documenting, implementing, and maintaining performance-critical applications in modern C++, CUDA, and Java.
  • Contributed to real-time service-oriented software architectures forming foundational components of Mine Countermeasures and UK Submarine programmes.
  • Served as technical authority for a large suite of C++ applications used to generate critical product qualification reports.
  • Achieved runtime performance gains in excess of 100× by designing, implementing, and integrating custom data interchange.
  • Defined and implemented containerisation strategy for systems involving hundreds of safety-critical and fault-tolerant applications using Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, and proprietary orchestration schemes.
  • Undertook complex software and systems architecture work with IBM Rhapsody to unify interfaces between legacy applications and manage customer-facing deployments.
  • Travelled to company sites across the UK to meet with customers and stakeholders from the Royal Navy, Ministry of Defence, Marine Nationale, BAE Systems, and L3Harris.
  • Authored and reviewed technical documentation, including mathematical analysis and validation of proprietary algorithms used in real-time sonar and mine-disposal systems.

Project and Research Experience

EchoMap

Sound-source localisation and DSP workbench

github.com/oliverdixon/echomap
May 2026 – Present

  • Architecting and implementing a modern C++23 application for sound-source localisation, signal inspection, and beamforming experimentation.
  • Building a cross-platform native and WebAssembly/WebGPU application using Dear ImGui, ImPlot, ImPlot3D, Dawn/WebGPU, GLFW, FFTW, and CMake.
  • Implemented project-based import and management of WAV signals, sensor positions, signal-to-sensor mappings, waveform visualisation, and frequency-domain analysis.
  • Developed CPU-side DSP foundations including FFT-based spectrum generation, configurable window functions, and groundwork for SRP-PHAT beamforming.
  • Designed the architecture around portable domain models, platform-specific application shells, injected services, and backend-independent rendering abstractions.
  • Investigating how WebAssembly, WebGPU, and native-style immediate-mode interfaces can support high-performance technical computing applications in the browser.

Optifol

Formal Requirements Engineering Toolkit

github.com/oliverdixon/OptiFOL-Software
November 2024 – June 2026

  • Defined and executed a substantial research activity investigating the feasibility of formal specification in requirements engineering.
  • Used first-order logic to analyse system-level correctness, consistency, redundancy, and efficiency in large engineering and software requirements sets.
  • Architected and engineered a cross-platform proof-of-concept application in modern C++ with a GTK front end.
  • Designed novel algorithms for formal analysis and optimisation of requirements.
  • Integrated with well-adopted engineering systems, including Git for requirements traceability, PostgreSQL for distributable storage, and LaTeX/HTML for report generation.
  • Built confidence in the solution through unit testing, continuous integration, and strict static analysis quality gates.

Awards and Special Recognition

Thales Underwater Systems Ltd.

  • June 2025 — Thales Gold Award
    Received a Gold Award from the Head of Software, presented by the Managing Director of Underwater Systems, for the definition and implementation of critical software pipelines.

  • March 2025 — Core Contributor Recognition
    Identified as a core contributor to the success of Mine Countermeasures software delivery and invited to attend a celebration event in Plymouth on behalf of Thales Engineering. Attendees included Royal Navy rear admirals, the CEO of Thales UK, the Deputy French Ambassador to the UK, and local MPs.

University of York

  • January 2024 — Mathematical Skills
    Received the highest grade in the Mathematics cohort on project work, scoring 100% for a presentation and report on Category Theory and its Applications to Theoretical Computer Science.

  • June 2023 — Digital Systems
    Received the highest grade in the Computing cohort on project work, scoring 100% for a comprehensive VHDL implementation of a nested-interrupt central processing unit.

  • June 2023 — Introduction to Computer Programming
    Received the highest grade in the Computing cohort on project work, scoring 100% for a graphical cross-platform object-oriented C application.

Education

University of York

MEng Computer Systems with a Year in Industry

York, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
September 2022 – expected September 2027

  • Computer Science degree programme with Mathematics modules.
  • Technical Consultant of the York Engineering Society.
  • First-year credit-weighted average: 76%.
  • Second-year credit-weighted average: 73%.
  • Third-year credit-weighted average: 81%.

Wakefield College

Wakefield, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
September 2018 – August 2020

  • A-Level Mathematics: A
  • A-Level Further Mathematics: A
  • A-Level Computer Science: A
  • A-Level History: A

References

Academic and employer references are available upon request.