I am an engineering leader focused on sociotechnical systems and building high-performing teams through clarity, flow, and shared mental models.
Philosophy
Sociotechnical Excellence
Software is a social artifact, made for and by humans. I focus on how teams communicate and how architecture reflects those social boundaries.
Flow over Friction
Using lean, WIP limits, and lead-time metrics to maximize value delivery rather than just busyness.
Pragmatic Architecture
Using patterns like EIP, Conway's law, and Team Topologies — architecture across the services and the organisation.
Experience
Consultancy & Strategic Leadership
2022 – PresentSeveral leadership roles in matrix based organisations have given a broad range of opportunities to grow my skill set in scaling up teams. Onboarding teams of 100+ on multiple occasions, setting policy and ways of working early on and refining as teams grow has solidified my understanding and opinions on what works in large scaling operations.
Director @ NTT DATA UK
Integration Solutions Deputy Lead, focusing on digital transformation and system modernisation.
- Sky Livingston: Technical point-person for all NTT work, managing client relations and delivery pipelines.
- Public Services: Advising on integration solutions for public sector initiatives.
- Recruitment lead for Java developers, People Manager Champion, Senior Leadership Team.
Fintech Scale-up & Evolution
2017 – 2022Working and scaling up a lean startup gives you a deeper understanding of resource constraints and the drive to push improvements that benefit both customers and staff. At Satago, I focused on sociotechnical "wins" like zero-downtime deployments. This didn't just mean no break in service for customers; it fundamentally improved life for the engineering staff by allowing deployments during working hours instead of late nights or weekends. It transformed a stressful release culture into one of predictable flow.
Java Development Lead @ Satago / TruFin / Oxygen Finance
Led the development team through multiple rebrands and organisational growth from 4 to 50+ people.
- Introduced Feature Flags and zero-downtime deployments to remove release friction.
- Pioneered remote-first pairing and a high-trust engineering culture.
- Scaled cloud-native AWS microservice architecture.
Technical Foundations & Consultancy
2014 – 2017This period was about deepening technical expertise and learning that robust architecture is less about the "perfect" design and more about the "defensible" design. Whether leading teams in gaming or consulting for high-stakes projects at Thomson Reuters, I learned the value of being able to explain the sociotechnical tradeoffs of every decision and protecting the team's focus during organisational noise.
Senior Software Engineer @ BlackCat Technology Solutions
Exclusively engaged as a consultant for Thomson Reuters on high-stakes architectural projects.
Java Team Lead @ Inspired Gaming Group
Technical Direction and Team Leadership for Java-based gaming platforms.
Early Career & Financial Middleware
2007 – 2013View Details of Early Financial Sector Experience
My early career in high-frequency financial batching taught me that technical efficiency directly changes business perception. Specialising in the Calypso framework across global banks including HSBC, RBS, and UniCredit, I learned that "done" is better than "perfect," but "efficient" is better than both. Shaving 50% off a batch window or mastering thread safety wasn't just a technical exercise—it was about ensuring the data was right and the business could move faster.
- Reduced end-of-day batch processes by 50% at HSBC.
- Optimized high-concurrency middleware connecting disparate front-end and back-end systems.
- Pioneered Continuous Integration practices in legacy financial environments.