Assisting startups with growth through mentorship and technical guidance.

I specialize in providing top-tier engineering leadership and developer services. My expertise lies in helping founders bring their visions to life by assembling and leading adept development teams for successful software product delivery. I excel in transforming existing products that are underperforming, guiding them towards a successful trajectory. This involves a thorough assessment and due diligence of current applications and the development organization.My approach is hands-on, particularly in architecture and development, ensuring that every aspect of the project aligns with the highest standards of quality and innovation. I have a proven track record of successfully assisting companies in launching products across various sectors, including Social Media, HealthTech, FinTech, and Digital Publishing. My goal is always to deliver results that not only meet but exceed expectations, driving growth and success in every endeavor.

Executive management and leadership at this multi-awarding winning InsurTech. Awards: AWS ScaleUp finalist; UK Best Companies to work star award; #1 best home insurance on TrustPilot. Delivered a new world class insurance platform capable of scaling to millions of customers and billions of service events, handling a GWP of $200M and growing.Crafted a technology strategy and roadmap for business tooling, allowing non technology business units freedom to iterate without development delays or technical involvement, freeing up 100s of hours of development. Scaled the in-house technical team to over 40; Reduced hiring pipeline by over 50% with a unique architect based hiring strategy. Created a culture of continuous learning and empowerment resulting in retention of more than 3x the average, saving $100Ks in hiring and training. Managing budgets of 5M+, with a proven track record of implementing cost-saving measures and achieving financial targets.Introduced DevOps & Observability strategies, delivered more than 100 services with zero high-priority downtime in over 7 years; capable of handling 100s millions policies and processing billions of events.

As the primary lead developer, I played a crucial role in architecting and implementing Policy Expert's MVP insurance platform, achieving regulatory approval in under eight months. My leadership in driving agile and pragmatic methodologies significantly enhanced business communication and delivery velocity.I pioneered the introduction of automation principles in testing and deployment, adhering to the 12-factor app methodology. This innovation enabled one-click deployments, facilitated multiple daily releases, and maintained near-zero high-priority issues for over three years. Our platform's architecture and performance received a 'Well-Architected' and 'High Performance' rating from ThoughtWorks during their due diligence process.Furthermore, I spearheaded the transition from a monolithic to an event-driven architecture, paving the way towards a comprehensive domain-driven design (DDD). This strategic shift was focused on optimizing the functionality and efficiency of business units, marking a significant milestone in our technological evolution.

At Informa, a global frontrunner in publishing telecom and media content, I led a self-organizing team of five as the lead developer. We employed Scrum methodologies, utilizing one and two-week iterations, to successfully deliver Informa's new online platform: Intelligence Centre [IC]. This project was a cornerstone in Informa's digital transformation journey, necessitating the establishment of a strong trust bond with product owners and the wider business community.Delivered on time and within budget, the Intelligence Centre stands as a market-leading application. It is recognized and utilized by numerous Fortune 100 companies, including industry giants like France Telecomm, Disney, and Adobe. The addition of the Report Builder feature further underscores the Intelligence Centre's robustness and extensibility, earning it accolades as a triumph among product owners.Beyond software development, my role extended to mentoring junior developers, staying abreast of the latest in agile methodologies and related topics, and integrating new technologies into both the project and the team. This multifaceted approach ensured not only the success of the Intelligence Centre but also the continuous growth and adaptation of our team to the evolving technological landscape.

Fiver Media (formerly Riptown Media) is the marketing arm of Bodog international, an online gaming company, with sites for poker, casino, fantasy football and music.Initially hired to join the architecture team to investigate new technologies, provide reference implementations for the wider tech teams, and to modernize the legacy EJB2 solutions.Promoted to lead the public web teams, we created a Single Sign On [SSO] solution for all Bodog web properties. Our new SSO solution allowed customers access to all Bodog offerings with a single login flow, and was able to handle more than 1000 logins per second. This type of performance was key during big sporting events like the super bowl. My teams helped Bodog's public web successfully serve millions of players daily, and we quickly adapted to new features and changes without interruption to the player experience.

Ecmarket a small privately held company creating bespoke software solutions.Conexiom is an order management solution. V1 was written in Java, using EJB2 server side, backed by Postgres; the web application using Struts; and the desktop client used the Eclipse framework. Eclipse plug-ins were created for each type of order management feature.As lead developer for V2 I used C# for both web and desktop clients, with the backend remaining as a Java EJB2 and JBoss solution. Conexiom rules engine wizard allowed users to create sophisticated business workflows for their order management with no technical assistance.Conexiom is used all over the world and successfully processed well over $100 million in transactions.

During my Biology BSc degree I opted to do a years work placement. I was very fortunate to be able to work with Dr Robb Krumlaul and Dr James Sharpe at Francis Crick Institute in London. I helped the other lab assistants on DNA sequencing specifically around the Hox Complex.

From apprenticeship to electronic engineer, then into IT and network systems.