An experienced leader of technical teams, both on-shore and off-shore with a focus on data services deployed across the major cloud platforms. An enthusiastic technologist with a passion for building innovative, scalable, secure systems that utilise the best possible solutions for the customer.

Skills summary

  • Architect

    Subject matter expert in development, Internet of Things and transportation data. Adept at identifying how to apply new technologies to solve the Business objectives.

  • Cloud

    10+ years advocating, developing and operating cloud solutions with Azure and AWS including on-premise and hybrid solutions.

  • Presales

    Supporting the sales process, primarily acting as the trusted advisor to customer technical teams, building the relationships necessary to work with them to produce an agreed joint roadmap to delivery.

  • Leader

    Leader and creator of product development teams. Manager of contractors and teams onshore, offshore, and in house. Effective communicator of new technology to executive audiences. 10+ years’ experience in Agile development and creating positive cultures in development teams.

  • Automotive

    Designed and operated a mobility data exchange for Connected Autonomous Vechicles. Designed and developed a management and delivery system for software over the air (SOTA) updates to vehicles working with key Automotive manufacturers to understand the requirements and architect in close partnership the appropriate solution

  • Mobile

    9 years’ experience of developing mobile applications for multiple platforms both native and web-runtime to interface into complex Cloud solutions serving million(s) of end users. Including 2 years integrating kernel-level Android software into Vodafone Spain and UK networks

Employment History

2021 – Present: Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM) / Sterling Services

Providing business continuity support on a temporary basis for TfWM to run the Convex and Midlands Future Mobility data platforms. A hands-on role leading a small team of DevOps and developers to support the systems and customer services.

2015 – 2021: InterDigital / Chordant

InterDigital create Intellectual Property in wireless technology. I joined the Internet of Things business unit that was subsequently spun-out as a start-up named Chordant.

Engineering Director, Chordant

  • Led Chordant’s engineering activities in Europe. Responsible for development and operation of the Chordant’s Data Marketplace service.
  • Transformed a proof-of-concept Internet of Things (IoT) platform into a commercial data sharing platform. Delivered the Convex Connected Autonomous Vehicle data exchange platform and developed the underlying data platform for the Midlands Future Mobility test bed.
  • Led a distributed team of ~25 developers, sysops, QA and service engineers distributed across Europe, with a mixture of permanent, contract and out-sourced staff. Multiple scrum teams in an agile product delivery process.
  • Transitioned Engineering from solely product development to service-based delivery
  • Chordant Europe ceased trading in July 2021 due to delays caused by COVID.
  • Technologies used: Java, NodeJS, GitLab, Azure, Ansible, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, MongoDB

Senior Manager, Software Solutions

  • Leading the software development and delivery of an Internet of Things (IoT) platform as part of the oneTRANSPORT programme, integrating local government data sets and sensors to solve transport use cases – working with customer stakeholders and architects to produce required roadmaps.
  • Responsible for the technical product roadmap, identification and delivery of use cases and user stories.
  • Presales Technical Authority. Leading technical training sessions; producing screen casts for product demonstrations; presenting at conferences. Organised hackathons.
  • Customer facing technical authority for the oneM2M-based IoT platform in the UK.
  • Recruited a team of software engineers in the UK.
  • Introduced Agile scrum methodology with continuous deployment to growing development team.
  • Presented and demonstrated oneTRANSPORT at multiple SmartCity and Transport conferences.
  • Technologies used: oneM2M, DATEX2, SIRI, RabbitMQ, Camel

2011 – 2015: Harman / Symphony Teleca / SurfKitchen

Head of Product Development for InSight Connect

  • Responsible for the design and development of a Software Update and Vehicle Relationship Management system. Accountable for a delivery to Jaguar Land Rover.
  • Built and led a geographically distributed team of 25 Russian, Indian and Polish engineers and architects. Current role is to own the introduction and subsequent maintenance of an Agile development processes, including tailored processes for formalisation of change control and release management. Technical oversight of product design for managing software updates and telemetry data reporting. Role includes the estimation, planning and risk assessment of upcoming releases. Experienced in the ramp-up of off-shore teams and recruitment, from business justification, candidate profiles, interviews and on-boarding.
  • Creator of initial concept and design of a remote software update client in C on Linux using CMake, libev, SQLite. Led the development of a Java server-side application using linked-data and customisable business process workflows.
  • Accountable for the design documentation required for the distribution of work to cross-functional teams and to third party providers.
  • Provided technical consultation and initial development estimations in pre-sales engagements for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) projects.
  • Management / Process: Project management, Microsoft Project, Process design, Resource management, Agile development, Offshore management

Skills / Tools employed: FOTA, SOTA, OMA-DM (FUMO, SCOMO), MQTT, RDF, Turtle, JSON, B-JSON, JSON-LD, SPARQL, SQL, MySQL, BPMN, Activiti, Tomcat, Docker, OpenRDF Sesame, JMeter, OWL, C, libev, SQLite, BsDiff, QNX, CMake, RPM, DPKG, Bash, Jenkins, Gerrit, Git, Emacs

Architect – Mobile Communication Devices

  • Lead Architect for a remote software update and telemetry system.
  • Worked with Product Manager and senior developers to collect requirements, develop use cases, produce designs and estimate deliveries.

Skills / Tools employed: RMSis, UML, JIRA, Enterprise Architect

Technical Lead – Enterprise Services

  • Led a team of 6 offshore developers in the Enterprise Services division in the development and maintenance of a mobile application store hosted on Amazon Web Services infrastructure. Provided technical support and assistance to operations and managed services teams.
  • Optimisation of legacy Android, Symbian and JavaME Application Store to support the management of content for a growing number of devices. Having originally only intended to serve content to 10 - 20 devices the application design and implementation had to be modified significantly to support a far greater list of devices from a mobile operator, whilst maintaining a working live system.
  • Key achievement was to modify the design of the content import process to support thousands of devices.
  • Responsible for the initial design of an enterprise application store. Solution architecture work with SAP mobility and device management.

Skills / Tools employed: Java, Tomcat, AWS, Hibernate, MySQL, XML, NodeJS, PostgreSQL

2006 – 2011: Vodafone Group Research & Development

Technical Lead – Service Platforms

  • Technical lead for the Smart Charging programme delivering live trials into three European operators. This role required a diverse skill-set from software development to business analysis. Lead a small team of developers in the assessment and prototyping of emerging charging technology resulting in presentations to senior executives.
  • Engaged with business stakeholders responsible for the communication of technical architectural options and opportunities. Supported initial engagements with operating companies trialling charging technology - included: technical and market analysis; analysis of future charging technology options; cost estimations based on architectural constraints of mobile operators.

Technical Lead – Betavine Social Exchange

  • Led a team of 5 developers in creating a website for the mobile developer community for Vodafone. Employed an Agile methodology for project management. Responsible for internal team of developers and recruited external contractors meeting the project deadlines. Successfully planned and delivered major releases on time to business objectives. Recruited and managed student internships within R&D.
  • Development of software architecture including the introduction of the Spring Security Framework, CAS single sign-on and migration to PostgreSQL database. Researched and integrated tools to facilitate the software development process. This included issue management with Bugzilla and peer code reviews with Reviewboard. Introduced automated web testing with Selenium.
  • Researched into mobile application platforms – developed several prototype Android applications.
  • Representative for Research & Development at external events. Organised internal Hackday events.

Lead Developer – Betavine Developer Community

  • Led the development of a mobile application distribution website for the developer community. Drove requirements and developed code. Required detailed knowledge of application distribution on different mobile platforms.
  • Developed primarily in Java using Spring framework with Hibernate on MySQL hosted on Tomcat and Apache2. Experienced in developing front end interactions using Javascript and the PrototypeJS library.
  • Responsible for designing and developing a public API for sending SMS / Java Push messages.

Web Technologies Researcher

Developed prototype widgets for mobile devices. Presented and demonstrated early widget technology and concepts to board members.

Client-Server Technologies Researcher

Developed prototype of an early social network hosted entirely on the handset.

2005 – 2006: Panasonic Mobile Communications Division Europe

Graduate developer in the user interface department working on 3G phones.

Education

  • 2002 - 2005 University of Kent

    BSc (Hons.) Computer Science (2:1)