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In memory of a friend.

It is with the deepest sadness that we announce the death of Simon Shakespeare after a cardiac arrest on the 28 October 2020.

Simon was an exceptional developer, team leader and manager. Well loved and respected in the tech community, he was a friend to everybody who had the pleasure to know him. The Hive family will forever be lacking his expert guidance and unique humour. He leaves behind his wife Emma and son Dougal. Our thoughts and best wishes are eternally with them and Simon’s extended family and friends.

We would like to thank everyone who has been in touch with their thoughts and memories of Simon. If you would like to leave a message about what Simon meant to you or a story or photo of happy times spent together, please share with us at inmemory@hiveit.co.uk and we will look to include them on this page as a rememberance.

If you would like to make a donation in Simon’s memory, then his family are asking that you donate to the Snow Sport Foundation, a worthy cause who generate funds to promote and deliver snow sports opportunities, to a range of people with additional needs, disabilities, financial hardship or social circumstances - specifically for children and young people.

Simon Shakespeare

Simon Shakespeare.

Head of Development

Arte et Labore

(Borrowed from his team Blackburn Rovers)

Simon brings 20+ years of experience to the team. Despite now being primarily web-orientated, he has gained a broad range of valuable programming and implementation skills over the years within the retail, construction, telemetry and telecommunications sectors.

Having worked on many large code bases Simon is a keen advocate of the current trends in microservices, modularisation and maintainability, albeit aware that these bring with them a new set of problems that he is keen to overcome.

Outside of tech interests Simon loves the outdoors and can usually be found running, walking and mountain biking around the fields near his home in Sheffield and when not doing that he'll be off to the Alps skiing.

If Simon could work on any project of the past, it would be...

Having studied languages at Sheffield University relatively recently, I would love to have worked on machine translations and their associated algorithms i.e. Google translate.

Skills

Java, Spring, Microservices, JavaScript

Loves

Skiing, football, and french

Rememberances of Si

We are very saddened to hear of the sudden loss of Simon. It must be a tremendous shock to the team and The University of Sheffield would like to extend its sincerest condolences to Simon's colleagues, friends and of course, family. Kamal, Dermot and myself had the pleasure of working with Simon across projects and his insight and expertise was highly valued. It was a great pleasure to work alongside him and to know him. Both Kamal and Dermot have individually responded to this news and would like to extend their sympathies to all affected by Simon's sudden loss, as do I.

Sending our very best wishes,

Annie

Si, I feel honoured to have had the privilege to work alongside you for the past 7 years, sharing great experiences and hearing your awesome tales. Here truly goes a great font of knowledge and experience. You have been an amazing confidant, a sounding board, a pragmatist, and a caring and nurturing person who had his heart set on the support and betterment of our amazing team and who has given me unparalleled support on a personal level over the years. You always had the whole team in your mind and wanted to go forward without leaving anyone behind.

Dunc

Simon was a lovely man to work with and I really appreciated his insight and wit.

Kamal

Si was such a wonderful human being. I loved our desk neighbour chats (mainly about bikes and cheap places to ski) and he was the best Hive dad to a lot of us. He'll no doubt be much missed, what a guy 💕

Sooze

Jonny, Liz, Martin,
I want to wish a long life to each of you. I’d say more but, in the face of tragedy, words fail me.

Condolences

Roger

I just wanted to say how sorry I am to hear the news about Si.
It must be absolutely devastating for you and everyone at Hive, not to mention his family. I don’t want this to sound too empty but let me know if there’s anything I/we can do. I know Laura and Claire have said this to you already but I do appreciate this will have really knocked everyone at Hive and after all of the good will that you’ve shown us, the least we can do is be understanding and help where we can as you come to terms with this horrible news. Can you pass on my regards to everyone else at Hive too.

Thanks

David

We are really sorry to hear such sad news. I know we haven’t worked with Simon directly as the website has been built, but I do remember working with him in Leicester as part of the website requirements specification development.

Please send our condolences to the whole of the Hive family.

Lisa Finch

That’s heartbreaking. I’m so sorry to hear that. He was such a great guy, really nice to be around, such a sad loss.

Thank you for letting us know and thinking of us. Sending lots of love to you all at such a sad time.

Lauren White

I’m so sorry to hear about Simon Shakespeare.
I only got to work with him a couple of times back in the Technophobia days, but he was the sort of person you always wanted on your team. Simon was good at his job, but that almost didn’t matter. Above all else he was a genuinely nice person, and because of that he set the bar high for the people who worked around him.
I know it’ll be a big loss to the Hive team and this will be incredibly difficult for his family to come to terms with with.
I hope, in time, you remember how lucky you were to have worked with Simon and I hope that Simon’s family know how much of an impact he made on the people he worked with.
Look after each other. x

Harry Worsnop

I remember when we recruited Simon. We'd been on the lookout for a Senior Dev for quite a while. As soon as he came to interview we knew he'd fit right in at Technophobia. His warm manner and quietly assured skill made him both a pleasure to have in the office and a real asset on any project we put him on. In recent years I used to bump into him around ecclesall and sharrowvale road and we'd always stop for a chat. I'd ask him about his outdoor adventures - as someone who doesn't have any 'daredevil' hobbies of my own it was nice to live a little vicariously through him. I send my love to the hive team and Simon's friends and family at this sad time.

Cherry Limb

I was super sad to hear about the passing of Si.
Simon was always happy to help me while I was at Hive and no question was too stupid to ask. I always knew Simon would give me a hand to solve a problem even though he wasn’t working on that particular project. I learnt a lot from him both professionally and with his quirky facts about random things. He was one of the best role models a newcomer like myself could have asked for and I will always value the time he spent with me.

Tyler Newall