Met Office/LandmarkAug 2020 - onwardsAndroid Developer - Met Office Weather AppMountain FuelAug 2020 - Sep 202 iOS/Android Developer - Product discovery app and payment integration conceptHelpserver LimitedNov 2019 - Apr 2020 iOS/Android Developer - White label community app with supporting PHP backend for notifications, analytics, content management.Met Office/LandmarkApr 2019 - Sept 2019Android Developer - Met Office Weather AppMet Office/LandmarkSept 2017 - Mar 2019Lead iOS Developer - Met Office Weather App

Reporting directly to the Managing Director based in Leeds, working autonomously, headed up the Newport office specifically driving improved product development and innovation of Cox Automotive’s car dealership CRM (CloseIt) and voice recording (Voicesafe) products.As Office manager, responsible for the day to day running of the office, working with the retail parks facility management team and external suppliers. As Software Development Manager, responsible for solid line management of 2 team of six developers, 1 Agile Business Analyst all based in Newport, 1 team of 4 developers based in Leeds, 1 offshore team comprising of 3 developers in Poland and a UI/UX function based in Birmingham. Focused on delivering results, achieved an increased capability of 38% through re-establishing proper agile rituals, continuous integration, continuous delivery and the introduction of automated testing. Recommendations to the Senior Management Team to stop development on non-viable products and the disbanding of the inefficient team based in Poland where approved and implemented; increasing productivity by a further 20%.By standardising requirements through the introduction of Business Driven Development achieved a further 10% increase in productivity, totalling an overall improvement of 68%, allowing customers to receive key product updates every 6 weeks.Technologies utilised: PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ZEND, MySQL, Atlassian Tools.

Acting as agile coach helping Landmark Solutions embrace the advantages and understand the benefits of working in an agile environment, increasing software throughput and reducing risk of non-delivery, whilst being constrained by customers ridged release schedules and government guidelines.Facilitating a change management program to transition Landmark Solutions into a highly performing agile software delivery organisation influencing all levels of the organisation from junior staff to director.As Software Development Manager, responsible for solid line management of 11 developers & QA Analysts ensuring regular staff reviews, performance goals, training plans and performance management where appropriate are implemented and being tracked.Acting as scrum master coaching the development team and project managers allowing successful embedding of agile/scrum ways of working into the team including daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, sprint planning and weekly sprints being continually evaluated via retrospectives. Responsible for implementing behaviour driven development to standardise requirements and acceptance criteria achieving better backlog understanding and improved test coverage using SpecFlow.Responsible for the quality assurance test function improving interaction with development teams, automation techniques, implementing continuous deployment and continuous integration workflows.Successfully obtained external customers buy-in to run weekly demos at the end of each sprint allowing true customer signoff significantly reducing time to market.Technologies utilised: C#, MVC, SQL Server 2014, NHibernate, TeamCity, Octopus, Jenkins, SpecFlow, Atlassian Tools.

Active Associate with Entier; a niche contract agency specialising in project delivery professionals. We provide a refreshing alternative to traditional recruitment agencies by taking accountability for having great people show up.

Hands on Development Manager responsible for implementing Symmetry’s mobile strategy initially for the Apple iPhone & iPad markets leveraging key business processes through API’s allowing customer the ability to access core features via their mobile devices. Responsible for architecture and development of the application using Behaviour Driven and Test Driven Development techniques. Application was delivered within timescales and budget.Responsible for the day to day running of a cross functional scrum team , consisting of 4 developers, ensuring scrum retrials adhered too including stand-ups, planning, estimation and retrospectives, including line management; providing daily support, quarterly appraisals and performance management where necessary.Introduced beta testing capitalising on Apple’s iTunesConnect and TestFlight application for daily releases allowing quick turnaround of defects and feature / enhancements sign-off.Technologies utilised: Objective-C, Swift, API’s, Spring, Realm DB, V.I.P.E.R architecture.

With the success of implementing Agile & Scrum into the development team continued to influence the organisation to adopt a more agile approach with regards to product management.Became key stakeholder providing a single product vision for Symmetry’s Cloud, Browser and Mobile app strategies supported by a 1 year roadmap.Introduced an epic breakdown process providing development teams with a fully prioritised and estimated backlog supporting the roadmap.Re-introduced concept and innovation initiatives in order to drive product vision forward.
Responsible for line management of the UI/UX designer and Business Analyst providing daily support, quarterly appraisals and performance management where necessary. Introduced Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) using Gherkin to assist with the clarify of work stories and help development define the definition of story done / done criteria.
Improving UI/UX interactions with development teams by the introduction of wireframes and design standards. Achieved the standardisation of the product UI within branding guidelines for the first time in the products history.

Brought on to influence management to realise the benefits of Agile and Scrum and to facilitate the company through implementation and ongoing change.Responsible for the recruitment and day to day management of a new internal development team, consisting of 5 developers, including line management; providing daily support, quarterly appraisals and performance management where necessary.Acting as ScrumMaster coached development team and embedding agile / scrum ways of working into the team. Achieved significant cost savings and shorter delivery times to market supported by invaluable metrics. Commenced daily stand ups, planning sessions and retrospectives across internal & external development teams.

Management of offshore development team comprising initially of 15 developers but reduced down to 6 following improvement recommendations being accepted by management; subsequently improved performance and increased deliverables at significant cost savings.

Introduced test driven development (TDD), Continual integration (CI) and automated testing (AT) successfully improving product quality and stability.Technologies utilised: Java, ADF, PLSQL, JasperSoft, HTML, Javascript, CSS.

Nokia Music developed its own music streaming, download and subscription service for delivery on its flagship Lumia product range providing users with the ability to search, stream or download over £15 million tracks in 36 territories. Responsible for delivery of Nokia Music, Nokia Reading and Nokia Drive applications on the Lumia range to schedule and within budget; £1.2 million annually. Now on over 15 millions devices worldwide. Responsible for delivering Nokia Music on Microsoft's first tablet device.

Responsible for driving Nokia Music’s agile ethos ensuring continual improvement on results through well stablished techniques; Continuous Integration (CI), Test Driven Development (TDD) and the introduction of Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) in the later part of 2012.

Responsible for resource management of 45; 3 internal and 2 external scrum teams. Direct management of five scrum masters together with hiring and management of 3rd party suppliers.

Formalising and responsible for Nokia Music’s training & mentoring initiative and facilitating Nokia's graduate programme with local universities.

Responsible for identification and on boarding of preferred suppliers to facilitate acceleration of roadmap deliverables.Technologies utilised: Windows Mobile, C#.Net, MySQL, SQL Server, API’s.

Solely responsible for influencing Nokia Music management to adopt a change management program to deliver relevant training during the company’s transition from a long lead-time delivery to rapid agile delivery company allowing the kickstart of innovation and creativity activities.
Instrumental for driving organisational change to support Agile / Scrum together with influencing business partners to adopt and supply whole scrum teams in and out of the overall resource pool. 
Responsible for resource management of 65; 5 internal and 2 external scrum teams. Direct management of the seven scrum masters together with hiring and management of 3rd party suppliers. Budget £2.4 million annually.

Reduced overall development resource to fall in line with efficiencies obtained from the introduction of automated testing resulting in increased deliverables sprint on sprint with significant cost savings. Mentored under performing scrum master and product owners turning them into high performers.
Technologies utilised: PHP (LAMP), HTML, CSS, Javascript, ZEND, Symfony, C#.Net, Java, MySQL, SQL Server.

Obtained Certified Scrum Master status; successfully implemented scrum and agile methodologies.Responsible for delivering Nokia Music’s Royalty Management System for digital product ingestion and 3rd party payments.

Responsible for delivering Nokia Music’s ‘Comes with Music’ proposition to both Nokia mobile devices and Nokia’s high profile browser based download platform.Headed up the R&D department of 60 internal developers, 21 business to business developers together with 8 external contractors with a total budget of £2.4 million annually. 

Worked with outsourcing company with a budget of £600,000 in order to accelerate roadmap deliverables.Co-responsible for taking the development teams from traditional to agile methodologies obtaining immediate senior management buy-in and transitioning the company overnight to scrum.

Employed agile coach to facilitate the transition with the introduction of stand-up, planning sessions and retrospective. 
Introduced automated testing, continuous integration (CI), test driven development (TDD) and formed the foundation of continuous deployment.

Influenced the product organisation to move to agile epic management, story breakdown, backlog management, more flexible roadmaps and deliverable dates.Technologies utilised: ASP.Net, VB.Net, HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL Server.

Startup founded by musician Peter Gabriel that provided a white label platform for brands to have their own music download store. OD2 provided the worlds first legal music download service and provided white label stores for the likes of Microsoft, Coke, Real World Records, Oxfam, Orange, BT and O2. I was solely responsible for the architecture of the music download store and the royalty management and media integration platform (RMS).I was also responsible for the continuing development of the store and the RMS system using Microsoft technologies.

Working within a team of 100 developers within the NatWest Life division building a laptop enabled suite of life insurance prospecting tools and products specifically designed for easy data capture of potential new and existing customers.

During my career with NatWest I held a number of positions covering IT Operator, Foreign Exchange Dealer, Quality Assurance Assessor and Audit & Procedures Office.