Jo[h]n Hope
Contact Info
- Locations
- Dublin, Banbridge (current)
- X
- @midhir
- jonhope
- GitLab
- @johnhope
- GitHub
- JonMidhir
- me@jhope.ie
About
I started programming at about 11 years old with a book called Programming Microcomputers and a Commodore 64.
These days I'm Director of Engineering at GitLab, responsible for planning and import functionality. Most of the last decade has gone into growing and leading distributed engineering teams, and building products at scale.
I love music and founded Midhir Records while at college. The label focused on unique artists within various genres of extreme music, bringing their music to market on vinyl and CD formats and promoting it around the world, while distributing interesting music from other labels here in Ireland. Around this time I released an album in China with my own band Altus Astrum.
I'm a builder and an incorrigible technological optimist. I occasionally look for great projects to support with contributions, advice, or a tiny angel cheque.
Experience
- 2025 –
- Director of Engineering, Plan & Import, GitLab (remote)
- 2022 – 2025
- Senior Engineering Manager, Plan, GitLab (remote)
- 2019 – 2022
- Engineering Manager, GitLab (remote)
- 2017 – 2019
- Principal Developer, Storyful / News Corp (Dublin)
- 2015 – 2017
- Full‐Stack Developer, Storyful / News Corp (Dublin)
- 2013 – 2014
- Technical Co‐Founder, ShiftDock (Belfast)
- 2011 – 2013
- Game Developer, Project Zebra (Belfast)
Projects
- GitLab Query Language (GLQL): a query language for GitLab data with embeddable, live views. I designed the compiler and language syntax, built the proof of concept and sponsored it through to a shipped product.
- ShiftDock: I co‐founded the company, led the product development and helped raise seed finance, including an IntertradeIreland Seedcorn NI award.
- TF3 Battlezone: Android, iOS & Facebook game for the third installment of the Transformers® franchise. I built the server application (Ruby).
- Redcrumbs (gem): Fast activity tracking for Rails using Redis.
- ruby‐knn: A simple k‐nearest neighbours classifier in pure Ruby, with pluggable distance calculators.
- Open Source: Contributions to HTTParty, Sinatra, Timecop & more; most contributions available to view on Github.
- Midhir Records: Record label and mail‐order. We signed four incredible artists and secured retail & independent distribution all over the world. I founded and ran the label between 2004 – 2009.
Education
- 2010
- PG Dip. New Venture Creation, Queen's University Management School (Belfast)
- 2009
- MA Sonic Arts, Queen's University (Belfast)
- 2008
- BSc Music Technology, Queen's University (Belfast)