Experienced Senior Software Engineer and Engineering Manager with 20+ years in software development, project leadership, and team management. Proven expertise in architecting scalable applications, driving technical strategy, and managing cross-functional teams. Skilled in a broad array of technologies including Node.js, TypeScript, AWS, GCP, and Agile methodologies. Dedicated to delivering high-quality solutions and aligning technology initiatives with business goals.
In addition to my role as Engineering Manager, I also served as Lead Developer, where I helped build a public-facing RESTful API. Built on a "Trust No One" policy, the API surfaced tailored data for customers with typical response times of ~200ms in production. I also led the creation of a customer-facing Developer Portal that enabled customers to create secure API keys for authenticated requests. Rate limiting and throttling were implemented via GCP’s Cloud Armor, and load balancers were introduced to enhance the API's performance, reliability, and scalability, ultimately improving user satisfaction.
I maintained and advanced an event-driven application distributed across a multi-cloud architecture. Hardware devices (~3,000) in homes collect data from various peripherals, which are sent via MQTT (~85,000 rules executed per hour) to an AWS IoT broker, then forwarded through AWS SQS (~1M messages sent/received per day) to GCP Pub/Sub, eventually triggering the relevant Cloud Run service.
I improved cross-team performance by motivating and energising teams, resulting in a predictable cadence and stable velocity. Additionally, I led efforts to identify and manage risks associated with software engineering.
Led a high-performing team of 6 engineers, ensuring team alignment with company goals, fostering professional growth, and improving project delivery timelines.
Led the Cyber Security initiative, focusing on bot protection, DDoS prevention, threat intelligence, and container vulnerability scanning. I conducted audits, reviewed whitelists, and engaged with customers, partners, and suppliers to ensure access levels were appropriate. I developed a centralised dashboard to monitor threats and track progress.
I worked with teams to break down epics and stories into smaller, iterative steps that each delivered value. As an escalation point for delivery challenges, I ensured smooth project execution.
Collaborating with Product, I helped create a roadmap to address technical risks and led planning and estimation sessions for deliverables and task breakdowns.
Direct line manager for 6 people across the Technology Team, ensuring they felt supported and understood IOPP’s policies and practices.
Managed a team of Leads and Senior Engineers, focusing on technical delivery (35%), managerial duties (35%), recruitment (15%), and administrative tasks (15%).
I championed a domain-driven design approach, ensuring proper domain documentation was in place. Collaborated closely with the VP of Engineering to ensure alignment with quarterly OKRs.
Led the technical design and implementation of key initiatives, utilising a broad range of technologies to ensure high levels of user experience and technical quality.
I introduced a framework allocating 20% of engineering capacity to continuous technical improvement, balancing product quality with high-priority new features.
Implemented a master-slave database replication model to enhance performance and enable parallel query processing.
Decoupled Crowdcube’s authentication layer, enabling independent updates for both authentication and API services. Improved test coverage across both services.
Implemented Apple ID integration for social authentication, and managed legacy framework upgrades to the latest versions, ensuring the core code benefited from recent bug fixes and security patches.
Led the WeFlip project (now Look After My Bills), which automatically switches energy bills to save consumers money. The team developed a Single Page App with a RESTful API, integrated into a Microsoft Azure pipeline using Docker containers.
Initially employed to build a workflow system that streamlined the company’s back-office processes. The success of this system led to my promotion to Software Development Manager, where I built the department from the ground up. I was responsible for recruiting team members, facilitating agile project management, and overseeing the development of bespoke software.
I maintained a hands-on approach throughout the software development lifecycle while mentoring junior developers and maintaining strong relationships with financial institutions.
Developed an internal workflow system to streamline back-office processes, also building the AWS infrastructure to host applications.
Lead developer on a project for the British Horse Racing Authority, which replaced paper-based processes with web applications and RESTful APIs.
Lead on UNISON’s CMS migration to Box UK’s platform, responsible for the project's progress from QA to live environment.
Maintained Box UK’s enterprise-level XML-based Content Management System (Amaxus), supporting high-profile clients.
Developed e-commerce and marketing-related solutions for clients.