Teams and architecture
I pay attention to the way teams communicate, organise, and shape the systems they own.
Engineering leader
Hi, I'm Mitch.
Leadership, architecture, and the conditions for good work
About me
I lead engineering teams and work on the relationship between how teams are organised and how systems are designed. My focus is making delivery clearer, more reliable, and easier for people to improve.
Philosophy
Reliable delivery
I use lean practices, WIP limits, and lead-time metrics to understand where work slows down and how to improve its flow.
Defensible decisions
I favour designs whose trade-offs are clear and can be defended as systems and organisations change.
Experience
Leadership, consultancy, fintech, gaming, and financial middleware.
2022 – Present
Consultancy and strategic leadership
Leadership roles in matrix-based organisations have given me experience scaling teams and ways of working. I have onboarded teams of 100+ on multiple occasions, setting clear policies early and refining them as teams grow.
Jan 2022 – Present
Director @ NTT DATA UK
Integration Solutions Deputy Lead, focusing on digital transformation and system modernisation.
- Sky Livingston: Technical point-person for NTT work, client relations, and delivery pipelines.
- Public Services: Advising on integration solutions for public sector initiatives.
- Recruitment lead for Java developers, People Manager Champion, and Senior Leadership Team member.
2017 – 2022
Fintech scale-up and evolution
Scaling a lean startup taught me how resource constraints affect both customers and staff. At Satago, I worked on changes such as zero-downtime deployments, allowing releases during working hours instead of late nights or weekends. That helped move the release culture towards more predictable flow.
May 2017 – Feb 2022
Java Development Lead @ Satago / TruFin / Oxygen Finance
Led the development team through rebrands and organisational growth from 4 to 50+ people.
- Introduced feature flags and zero-downtime deployments to reduce release friction.
- Pioneered remote-first pairing and a high-trust engineering culture.
- Scaled cloud-native AWS microservice architecture.
2014 – 2017
Technical foundations and consultancy
This period deepened my technical expertise and taught me that robust architecture is less about a perfect design than a defensible one. Leading teams in gaming and consulting on high-stakes projects at Thomson Reuters taught me to explain trade-offs and protect the team's focus during organisational change.
Aug 2016 – Apr 2017
Senior Software Engineer @ BlackCat Technology Solutions
Consultant for Thomson Reuters on high-stakes architectural projects.
Jan 2014 – Aug 2016
Java Team Lead @ Inspired Gaming Group
Technical direction and team leadership for Java-based gaming platforms.
2007 – 2013
Early career and financial middleware
Show early financial sector experience
My early career in high-frequency financial batching showed me how technical efficiency changes business perception. Specialising in the Calypso framework across global banks including HSBC, RBS, and UniCredit, I learned to connect technical improvements with business outcomes.
- Reduced end-of-day batch processes by 50% at HSBC.
- Optimised high-concurrency middleware connecting front-end and back-end systems.
- Pioneered continuous integration practices in legacy financial environments.
Toolbox
Methods and technologies I use in working systems.
Leadership
Engineering
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