I currently lead the Infrastructure function, which comprises our Cloud Operations team and our recently-insourced IT team. I have grown this function from representing 0.2 of my time throughout 2020, up to 8 full-time staff members as of July 2022.Reporting to the CTO, and working closely with the Product Development function, my team are responsible for architecting, deploying, and supporting the cloud environments that support our SaaS offering to customers, covering both private cloud and, as of this year, public cloud in Azure. We are also responsible for all aspects of corporate IT, and work closely with our Cyber Security team.We utilise infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tooling (Terraform, Ansible, GitHub, Azure DevOps), and apply DevOps and Agile principles to our work.Our day-to-day split between development work and operational work aligns with our strategic improvement efforts: - On the development front, I was responsible for designing our new Azure SaaS model, the first direct-delivery SaaS model in the company's history, leveraging Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) resources (Azure SQL, App Service) and IaC processes to reduce costs, minimise management & maintenance overheads, and speed time-to-market for our customers - we have taken a ~6 week lead time for environment provisioning down to 90 minutes. - On the operational front, I selected and led the deployment/customisation of an ITSM tool (HaloITSM) to bring structure & improvements to our incident management, change management, and service management processes, launching the system in Q1 2021 and continuing to work on process improvements and automation.In addition to my core Infrastructure responsibilities, I am also routinely involved in technical pre-sales, RFP/RFQ responses, security and GRC matters - including PCI and ISO 27001 compliance, and as an escalation contact in response to major customer support incidents.

A hybrid role, I spent the majority of my time working as a Senior Consultant, developing expert-level knowledge of our product and leading projects for major financial services clients, while also spending around a day a week on improvements to internal IT, and managing key external supplier relationships covering our outsourced internal IT function and our third-party private cloud hosting provider.Key achievements included the on-time, on-budget launch of an end-to-end payments reconciliation solution for a European full-service payment services provider (PSP), and the migration of our demo/POC environments from a private cloud model to Azure, paving the way for further private-public migration work.My increasing focus on our SaaS offering meant close interaction with our customer-facing application support team, and eventually led to us forming a new Cloud Operations team within the fledgling Infrastructure function with team members from across the business. At the outset, this team had a stated goal to drive essential improvements to our SaaS offering and our technical support processes. When the Cloud Ops team was formed, I officially ceased being a member of our Professional Services function, dropped the "Senior Consultant" moniker from my title, and moved to focus on Infrastructure full time.

This role represented an intended career transition for me, from generalist IT to specialist (focusing on SQL).I was responsible for translating customer requirements into customisations for our core product, AutoRek, an automated reconciliation platform.I quickly established myself on the more technical end of the consulting team, and worked on implementation projects for major UK banking and international payments clients, with some additional exposure to clients from the asset management sector.I routinely travelled to sites within the UK and across Europe, and worked directly with clients to build their business processes into our tool, integrating it with their business data (e.g. SWIFT/MT - ISO 15022, CAMT/MX - ISO 20022, BAI2, JSON, XML, etc.) through ETL processes, and built the necessary reporting & MI on top.In addition to my core role, I worked on improvements to internal processes and tooling, deploying Ansible as an infrastructure-as-code automation platform to provide fast & consistent deployments of internal development environments, and I wrote an internal tool that automatically produced human-readable documentation for the custom solution config we were making for customers.Leaning on my past experience as an IT lead, I began to advise the Senior Management Team on matters relating to internal infrastructure. This, combined with my experience & achievements as a technical consultant, led to me being promoted to the hybrid role of Senior Consultant & Head of Infrastructure, a year after I completed probation.

Leading a team of three, supporting a staff team of 120 across 13 locations throughout Scotland. Responsible for departmental budget, training & supervision of IT staff, and planning departmental priorities. Remit included responsibility for data protection within the organisation; I launched a comprehensive Information Security policy to bring processes in line with ISO 27001 and GDPR. Led continued improvement, development & customisation of CRM system to fit organisational requirements, particularly focusing on improvements to reporting & automation of processes. Over the course of two financial years I invested significant effort to improve performance/security/reliability, reduce support effort, and make delivery of training easier, by undertaking a major programme of modernisation, eradicating legacy hardware & software; all client machines, servers, networking equipment, and operating systems were replaced/upgraded/updated and standardised on current versions. Upgraded legacy Server 2003 domain to Server 2016 functional level and performed migration from on-prem to hybrid Azure AD, in the process migrating on-prem Exchange 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2013 to Exchange Online & SharePoint Online, and led the adoption of Office365.

Came on as the main IT support resource, reporting to the IT Coordinator in a department of two, responsible for supporting a staff team of 120 across 13 locations throughout Scotland. Initially, my time was split between general 1st-line support and development work focused on a new CRM system implementation (ProgressCRM). The department head moved on in August 2012, and I was left as the sole employee/acting supervisor covering the entire IT function. During this time, I also acted as lead developer & DBA for the new CRM system, successfully taking the system live in October 2012. In May 2013, I was formally promoted to the head role and this position was backfilled with another staff member.

Working as part of a team of two developers on the implementation project for the Epicor 9 ERP system of a high-value electronic goods retail/distribution company. Responsible for the development of company internal business intelligence reports, system maintenance and development of customisations (BAQs, BPMs, custom dashboards, Service Connect). Worked closely with the Finance, Purchasing, Sales, and Logistics divisions to map their processes into the ERP platform. Applied & further developed skills in Crystal Reports, C#, OpenEdge ABL, and SQL Server 2008 (T-SQL). Gained a great deal of knowledge relating to business financial processes, project planning and associated time management, inventory management, and managing relationships across several departments, company directors, and external support contractors.

Provided basic I.T support and instruction for the duration of a short contract with this small charity (back when it was called the Scottish Preschool Play Association). Responsibilities included training individuals in Office, Dreamweaver, and the in-house bespoke database system, troubleshooting problems, hardware upgrade and repair, and visiting regional offices throughout Scotland for hands-on support as required. Despite this being a junior role, I was able to implement some strategic improvements – namely the adoption of VoIP calling for internal communication to reduce costs, and encouraging the team to move to an online version of the previously paper-based annual membership questionnaire to reduce costs and allow for improved statistical reporting.

Freelance role that I occupied throughout my post-high-school, pre-career period. Activities included; short-term contract IT support/development roles, selling custom built PCs/servers, web development projects, refurbishment/maintenance of existing/legacy systems, installing domain networks for small business clients, teaching PC operation and basic IT competency, and offering a source of consumer advice on systems and related technology products.