Gritstone Studios is a new product development company. We are currently developing Aroundsound. What if you could stay in the moment - but know you could replay it later? Aroundsound is all about recording everyday sound that means something special - first words, invented songs, bedtime stories. Like most people, we don’t mind looking at the world through a screen, but sometimes we’d prefer to tune in and take part too. Especially if we can still listen back later. Aroundsound allows you to record now, then edit, store and share sound so others can relive the moment with you. We are seed funded with a growing team and Beta product.

Sprily IT Ltd is the incorporation of my freelance software development business, which had previously been as a sole trader.Technical lead at Skyscanner on projects to improve the performance of their Python-based price-quote scraping service. In 2011, we successfully delivered a reduction in CPU usage to 75% of the baseline, representing a significant reduction in operation costs. Within 2 years, their cluster had grown significantly due to business growth, and in 2013/14 we performed a thorough audit of the codebase and architecture. Through careful measurement and analysis we managed to reduce CPU usage further to below 50% of its 2013 baseline, and reduced the number of VMs required to almost one third.After a gap of 5 years since 2009, I helped Multiverse Capital adapt their existing trading platform to autonomously trade intra-day futures markets using models they had researched. This was an especially interesting project, particularly from an architectural and operational perspective; where asserting correctness of platform code and handling external failures was very important.I had the pleasure of working with Sphonic once again in 2017/18. This time, as a Scala developer on their primary product: a tool for describing and executing transactions/workflows. Essentially a mini interpreted language used by analysts to define regulatory compliance processes.At Sprily, we also designed and developed software for sensor networks, focusing on providing near-realtime data from panel-mounted multi-meters. This data was used by electrical engineers for monitoring and near-realtime data-analysis. We partnered with a local motor-generator manufacturer to provide monitoring tools for a training suite for Brush. And we worked with Fuel Cell Systems to provide a platform for collating, storing and viewing data captured from sensors installed in a building powered by fuel cells.

Technical lead at Skyscanner on projects to improve the performance of their Python-based price-quote scraping service. In 2011, we successfully delivered a reduction in CPU usage to 75% of the baseline, representing a significant reduction in operation costs. Within 2 years, their cluster had grown significantly due to business growth, and in 2013/14 we performed a thorough audit of the codebase and architecture. Through careful measurement and analysis we managed to reduce CPU usage further to below 50% of its 2013 baseline, and reduced the number of VMs required to almost one third.Python software development for the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN), a global non-profit organisation advocating for the use of open data to tackle social problems. I worked on CKAN, an open-source data publishing tool. The role included standard software maintenance and development, including the first major version bump of CKAN. Additionally, a key responsibility in the role was as a consultant to the OKFN's clients in providing bespoke solutions to integrate CKAN with their own software and processes. This included data.gov.uk, the UK government's open-data portal; and data.europa.eu, the European Commission's open data portal.Tech lead on a Scala project for Cake Solutions, consulting with their client, Sphonic. I was responsible for the development of an exciting new anti money-laundering tool. The tool analyses a financial institution's customer transactions for patterns that may indicate suspicious behaviour, flagging the case for further investigation. I worked with other Cake Solution employees to build the backend platform and reported directly to the COO and CTO of Sphonic.

Zoombu is a door-to-door journey planner, combining travel options over multiple transport modes across the UK and Europe. We won multiple awards and recognitionfor our site before being acquired by Skyscanner in 2011. Our small team was responsible for alltechnical aspects of the product, from the core search engine to operations and infrastructure.

Development and maintenance of framework for modelling futures markets.Trading platform development for daily futures trading.In-house tools, including data management, distributed simulations across multiple PCs and tracking of live systems.Software development in Java and Python.

Freelance development of web applications for running and managing turn-based economic games for research projects. These included variations on the classic prisoner's dilemma and simple trading games. The application allowed subjects to participate in the experiments as well as administrative tools for managing the experiments - including control, monitoring and monetary payoffs.