Oliver Drew Email & Phone Number

Howden, Gb

London, Gb

Lead software and quality engineering practices across PA Media Group's portfolio companies, providing strategic leadership to drive technical excellence and organizational transformation. Accountable for engineering quality and delivery across PA Media, PA Mediapoint, Podium, and PA TV Metadata, while offering advisory support to Alamy and StreamAMG operations in the UK, Malta, and India.Focused on implementing transformative changes to maximize engineering effectiveness and business value. Notably transitioned from a matrix-style engineering management structure to squad-based leadership, significantly enhancing performance and accountability. Unified software and quality engineering practices across teams through the expansion of a collaborative community of practice, fostering consistency and excellence.As part of the PAMG technology leadership team, I work closely with finance, HR, product management, and agile coaching functions, with partial responsibility for managing the technology budget. A key highlight includes leading the successful delivery of Podium's Racing Data API—a complex initiative involving coordination across multiple internal and third-party teams.By championing best practices in engineering leadership and nurturing an inclusive, high-performance environment, I have effectively led diverse, multinational teams across PA Media Group. My ability to address complex challenges both within and beyond Engineering has solidified my reputation as a trusted leader who consistently upholds high standards and ensures exceptional outcomes.Through strategic planning, optimized resource allocation, and effective stakeholder management, my teams consistently deliver impactful solutions while maintaining engineering excellence. This approach has been instrumental in transitioning to modern, scalable architectures, ensuring both business continuity and growth.

London, Gb

Led the software engineering function across PA Media's Sports Data, Racing and Betting, and Media businesses, driving technical excellence and organizational transformation. Provided strategic technical leadership while fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.As a senior technical leader, I led and mentored a team of 16 software engineers, successfully managing their transition from an office-based to a predominantly remote working model while maintaining high performance and team cohesion. A key technical achievement during my tenure was architecting and engineering a new cloud-based image processing pipeline using AWS Lambda, SQS, and microservices architecture, which decreased the time from capture to sale readiness from over five minutes to less than 30 seconds.I established and championed the Engineering Community of Practice, creating a collaborative platform for knowledge sharing and technical excellence. My influence extended beyond the engineering team, as I served as the Technology and Product representative in the company-wide working group that defined and implemented "The Performance Programme," establishing new performance management processes throughout the organization.On the technical infrastructure front, I led the modernization of legacy systems through the introduction of infrastructure as code via Terraform, significantly improving deployment reliability and reducing maintenance overhead. I also transformed engineering recruitment practices through strategic collaboration with Talent Acquisition, enhancing both the hiring process and overall team quality.In my strategic capacity, I developed and implemented a comprehensive vision for the software engineering function, ensuring alignment between technical initiatives and business objectives. This included redefining the engineering people leadership role, which created clear career pathways and growth opportunities for technical talent within the organization.

London, England, Gb

Led cross-functional development initiatives across William Hill's Gaming, International Regulated Markets, Payments, and Compliance portfolios. Spearheaded the strategic Single Wallet project, a critical third-party integration, orchestrating development efforts across multiple international teams in the UK, Gibraltar, and Israel while managing diverse time zones and business requirements. Established effective collaboration channels with C-level executives and product management teams to ensure alignment with business objectives and successful project delivery.Demonstrated exceptional people leadership through comprehensive performance management, mentoring and coaching programs, while fostering an inclusive environment that embraced cultural diversity and effective communication across international teams. Created tailored development objectives that enabled significant professional growth for team members, while simultaneously expanding personal leadership capabilities through coaching and strategic leadership challenges. Successfully navigated complex interpersonal dynamics through skilled conflict resolution, ensuring team cohesion and productivity.Delivered critical compliance initiatives including "Reality Check" implementation, managed several complex third-party API integrations, and established seamless connectivity with Italian regulatory systems. Technical stack included Java 8, Spring/Spring Boot, Oracle, Redis, PL/SQL, and RESTful services to architect and engineer robust solutions. Provided direct line management support and drove recruitment initiatives (full time and contract) to build a high-performing engineering culture.

London, England, Gb

Led a high-performing team of five Software Engineers delivering critical solutions across Gaming, International Development, Payments, and Compliance streams. Successfully delivered a mission-critical REST API service for the Italian regulatory market, meeting aggressive deadlines while maintaining exceptional quality standards. Established comprehensive engineering best practices, implementing automated testing frameworks, mandatory peer review processes, and continuous integration pipelines that significantly enhanced code quality and team productivity.Pioneered and led the implementation of agile delivery methodologies through the formation of a flexible development cell structure, optimizing resource allocation across projects and significantly improving delivery timelines and team efficiency. Leveraged extensive technical expertise in Java 7/8, Spring (including Spring Boot), Maven, Oracle, Redis, PL/SQL, and RESTful services to architect robust solutions. Collaborated closely with project management to ensure optimal resource distribution and timely project completion while maintaining development excellence.

London, Gb

Led development of a significant enhancements to PA's Football automated football data collection systems, successfully delivering a wider scope of data ingestion, enhanced efficiency and accuracy. Architected and implemented football data modeling using SportsML, modernizing PA's data collection processes and API product offerings. Played an instrumental role in developing PA's flagship Football Data API and innovative data collection interface. Spearheaded the successful migration of legacy football data systems while ensuring seamless service continuity for existing clients. Contributed significantly to PA's Olympics API offerings and managed multiple sport data and graphics delivery applications. Demonstrated expertise in system analysis by leading documentation initiatives for complex legacy systems. Technologies utilized included C# (.NET 4 & 4.5), Java, VB.Net, MarkLogic, XQuery, SQL Server 2008, Informix, T-SQL, XML, JSON, and HTML.

London, Gb

Developed comprehensive software solutions for sports data delivery to internal and external stakeholders, managing projects through the complete software development lifecycle from requirements gathering to production release. Led technical specification development for high-value commercial football data contracts, producing detailed technical documentation that supported bid submissions.Implemented robust support mechanisms for legacy systems while creating detailed technical documentation to improve system maintainability. Demonstrated versatility across multiple technology stacks, utilising Java, Perl, VB.Net, XML, XSLT, XPath, HTML, CSS, and SQL. Worked extensively with various relational database platforms including Informix, MySQL, and MS-SQL, while operating across Unix, Linux, and Windows environments.

Liverpool, Merseyside, Gb

Led research initiatives in Systems-of-Systems Security, contributing to multiple peer-reviewed publications presented at international conferences. Developed proof-of-concept software applications to demonstrate advanced security concepts, while simultaneously serving as a programming instructor for undergraduate students. Key contributions included developing network security solutions, presenting research findings to stakeholders and industry partners, and advancing the field through published academic works. Utilized C#, mobile development frameworks, and network programming technologies to create practical applications of theoretical concepts.

Leeds, England, Gb

Spearheaded development of updates to the company's Content Management System, implementing automated website deployment functionality. Engineered a solution using VB.NET 2.0 that streamlined client website initialisation, reducing setup time and improving consistency. Developed integrations with IIS and Windows native libraries to enable sophisticated system-level functionality for web management.

Bsc Hons, Computer Science

Education record