Matthew Bootland CV

Matthew Bootland

Senior Software Engineer

Kichijoji, Tokyo, Japan

github.com/mbootland

// NOTE: This website is developed in Ruby on Rails
// You can see the codebase here: github.com/mbootland/bootsoft

Skills

  • Ruby on Rails
  • JavaScript
  • Python
  • React Native
  • TypeScript
  • GraphQL / REST
  • DevOps
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes

About Me

I have lived in Japan for around 10 years and I have roughly 9 years of experience as a Software Engineer. The majority of my experience is in Ruby on Rails with SQL. However, I have used many languages and frameworks such as JavaScript, TypeScript, GoLang, Python and React Native.

I worked at GMO GlobalSign for approximately 5 years and wrote roughly 60% of the codebase for the main Rails application. At Rakuten I was primarily responsible for maintaining a questionairre platform which collected 5-8 million questionnaire responses per year. I also developed an API that returned hierarchical staff data to be used for the purpose of cost allocation.

I left PlayerData towards the end of October 2025 as I was working in the evenings to match UK hours and there are some visa complications involved with receiving income from a foreign source.

Experience

PlayerData (UK), Tokyo (Remote)

Senior Software Engineer, Product Engineering Team
Feb 2024 - Oct 2025

PlayerData makes a wearable GPS device that tracks statistics for sports professionals to utilize and apply to their training to gain an advantage over their competition. PlayerData is one of the fastest growing companies in Europe and has some of the best engineers I have ever worked with. I work as a Senior Software Engineer in the Product Engineering Team.

I developed both the main API in Ruby on Rails and the mobile application which is React Native with TypeScript. The React Native app uses Apollo and GraphQL to query the API. I have made over 500 pull requests in the 20 or so months that I was at the company and developed many new features. I have also been heavily involved in performance optimisation, maintenance and debugging efforts.

Tech: Ruby on Rails PostgreSQL GraphQL TypeScript React Native

Rakuten, Sapporo (Office)

Senior Software Engineer, DevOps team (Contract)
Jun 2023 - Feb 2024

Rakuten is Japan's largest e-commerce company and the 3rd largest e-commerce company worldwide. They also sponsor the football team FC Barcelona. I work in the Cloud Marketing Platform Department (MCPD) and largely work on 2 applications; a lottery service and a questionnaire service.

Upon joining Rakuten I completed mandatory training in Linux/Infra and Kubernetes. I completed this faster than any other developer in my department completing all onboarding with 2 months, with the average being 6~9 or so. My main focus has been working on the questionnaire platform which collects 5-8 million questionnaire responses per year.

Tech: Ruby on Rails GoLang Docker Kubernetes Microservices Azure

Various, Japan (remote)

Technical Consultant
May 2021 - Jun 2023

For two years I worked as a technical consultant in the recruitment industry. As this experience is largely irrelevant to programming, please skip my relevant experience below.

GMO GlobalSign, Tokyo (Office & Remote)

Senior Software Engineer, IDaaS team
Sep 2016 – May 2021

GMO GlobalSign is a security company whose main business is selling electronic certificates. My job was to develop TrustLogin, their Single Sign-On (SSO) service. I began as a mid level software engineer with only 1 year experience and quickly rose to being evaluated as the most senior member on the team. At the time of leaving the company roughly 40% of the codebase was written by me.

Tech: Ruby on Rails GoLang JavaScript Docker AWS SQL MongoDB

Comms365, Milton Keynes, UK

Software Engineer
Jun 2015 – Jul 2016

Comms365 is an ISP. They provide fall back internet connections to companies using a device which bonds multiple 3G/4G connections together, essentially creating a high speed portable internet terminal.

I co-developed an Internet Communications Portal which allowed clients to track their own data usage and incoming charges. It was also used to create and assign SIM cards to companies. Data usage was entered into a sharded Mongo database and then map reduced into hourly, daily and monthly data. Naturally the rest of the data was relational and used an SQL database. I also developed a stock system and a log processor service.

Tech: Ruby on Rails JavaScript SQL MongoDB

Education

The University of Bradford - MSc Computing

Modules: Software Development, Databases, Computer Architecture & Systems, Advanced Software Engineering, etc
Sep 2013 - Jul 2016

The University of Sheffield - BA East Asian Studies

Sep 2008 - Jul 2012