¶ George Miller
¶ Early life
I was born and raised in Whitechapel with my brother and sister. My parents still live there today.
Tony Miller MBE is my Dad, Director of the Whitechapel Mission which is a charity in the east end who serve the homeless and vulnerable of London. Sue Miller is my Mum, who is wise to keep herself off social media. 😆 She also works at the Whitechapel Mission as the centre manager.
The Whitechapel Mission is a key part of my life even today, it is a huge influence on my life from the very beginning. The Mission is a daycentre for the homeless of London fulfilling peoples daily needs like breakfast, showers, and clothing. It also provides advice services and specalised care those looking to get off the streets or change their life for the better.
I have been involved in the work there from a young age, originally as an observer then as I grew up, a more active contributor. When I went to school for the first time, we walked through the hall each day, and when I was old enough, I would help behind the counter when needed. I learnt a lot about the nature of being homeless and vulnerable in society, what it practically means, and how it effects people. This experience and understanding helps me show others that the common misconceptions about being homeless aren't always right. Most importantly, it taught me a lot about the nature of serving others and our duty to help others where we can.
¶ Education
Primary: The Aldgate School, formerly known as Sir John Cass's primary school.
Secondary: The Coopers' Company and Coborn School
Overally I enjoyed secondary school, I wouldn't say I really performed outstandingly, mostly just average across the board, but I did quite well with anything technical. I worked harder and better when I got to sixth form (years 12 & 13), and really enjoyed politics.
I went to the University of Greenwich where I studied Computer Science in a 3 year degree from 2011 to 2014.
I did not find my time at university as challenging as I was hoping, but it was the first time my education was solely focused on the area that I truely loved. I worked hard on my dissertation and graduated at the end of the three years with a First. I have yet to find the degree useful, but I am early in my career. I suspect that if I did not go to university and started working instead, I would have learnt more practical skills of working life sooner, which would have been more beneficial.
¶ Work
¶ Cuvva (2016-now)
Cuvva was founded in 2015 by Freddy Macnamara, I joined in 2016 as their first backend engineer.
I met James Billingham (technical co-founder) much earlier in my life at the Microsoft Student Partner program along with Alex Forbes-Reed. James invited me to create some basic tools to assist with customer support at Cuvva such as a web-UI to allow viewing of customer profile information, and a web-UI to view active policy locations on a map. I quickly realised it was the place I wanted to work full-time.
When I started I had never programmed in Javascript, and the backend was almost entirely NodeJS, but thankfully a very modern standard, so no callbacks. 😅 I quickly learnt NodeJS specific javascript and helped iterate on our short-term motor product which allows customers to buy car insurance for only 1hr at a time. We later moved to Golang and I learnt that languge as the business adopted it too.
I designed and built their first subscription product code-named "Flexi" with a lot of help. This product was to allow customers to move their annual car insurance over to Cuvva by having a set of 13 base policies, each 28 days long that covered the vehicle while parked. Customers would then purchase top-up driving cover to actually drive the vehicle. The product didn't work out due to excessive missue of the product where customers just wouldn't purchase the top-up cover.
I now work outside of a product team assisting all backend engineers in their work, and maintain all standards of the system.
I currently work at Cuvva as the Principal backend engineer.
¶ Livery
My Dad was first introduced to the The Worshipful Company of Coopers as they are significant contributors to the work at the charity. After realising my own link to the company via my secondary school, I joined myself. I became a Freemen of the City of London, and later a Liveryman of the Coopers' Company.
¶ Personal life
Candles are really great.
Influences, personal convictions, and mental health are not mentioned here. Let's get to know each other in person.
¶ Ballet
I was taught to dance by Janet Viola at the Lanterns Studio Theatre, which is an independant studio by Canary Wharf. I practiced classical ballet, modern, jazz, and some street dance. I practiced there for just over 18 years. It kept my mind away from programming and kept me physically fit. It also helps today with my balance, coordination, and all the usual suspects of health. It is also the source of my flair for the dramatic.
¶ Hobbies
Naturally working as a software engineer means programming is also a hobby. I enjoy working on many projects, and managing my own set of servers. My main focus is on George'flix which a PLEX server that allows me to watch TV on the go. My favourite language to program in currently is Golang.
¶ Gaming
My parents got me an xbox for Christmas when I was a child, and I stayed up quite late playing Halo 2. It sparked my adoration for video games. I now play almost exclusively on PC, but do own an Xbox, and you can see a selection of the games I own, and some video clips of my plays from my website.
¶ Technology
Any technology that can acquire an IP address interests me. Anything lower level than that I struggle to find engaging. I specifically enjoy playing with Sonos products, cloud infrastructure, smart home gadgets, PC components, and a lot of SaaS services. Self hosting things is fun!
Printers are not fun, so no, I cannot help you work out why yours does not work. 😆
¶ Movies, TV, & Cinema
I love TV shows, movies, and visiting the Cinema. I try to go the cinema weekly where possible, but I do have a narrow focus for movies I enjoy, specifically focusing on action, adventure, science fiction, animation, fantasy, and dark comedy.
¶ Edie
Edie is our family Dog, and as you would expect a dog owner to say, she is the greatest dog in the world. Edie is a Maltese Shih-Tzu.
