Roles, milestones, and how I approach the work.
Career summary
I’m an engineering leader and technical architect. I’ve spent 15+ years building cloud platforms across public sector, SaaS, and regulated environments, mostly .NET and Azure, with a focus on distributed systems, platform engineering, and modern DevOps. I’m now an engineering lead at IRIS Software Group, working on education product engineering for iSAMS.
I still write code. I also set direction, improve how teams work, and care a lot about automation, quality, and platforms that don’t fall over. Alongside the product work I’m involved in the regional community throughYAUG and the Northern DevOps & Platform Conference. The same habit of sharing what I’ve learned shows up in the teams I lead.
Key career milestones
Engineering lead, IRIS Software Group
Oct 2026 – Present
.NET Core, C#, ASP.NET Core, Azure, modern JS frameworks, containers/Kubernetes, Terraform, observability, AI-assisted engineering
I lead an autonomous Education team building modern full-stack applications for iSAMS: UI frameworks, .NET Core backends, and cloud-native services. I stay hands-on on architecture and the decisions that matter, and I leave day-to-day execution with the seniors who know the domain.
I own delivery predictability as much as the tech. That means scoping and prioritising against business goals, keeping stakeholders clear on progress and risk, and raising the bar on agile practice, testing, code review, security, and CI/CD so the team ships with less drama.
I line-manage engineers through coaching, 1:1s, and career development. I’m also embedding agentic AI into how we work by default: clear guardrails, critical review of what the agents produce, and a culture where the tooling helps people ship safely rather than paper over weak foundations.
Principal consultant / engineer, Hippo Digital
Aug 2020 – Oct 2026 · Leeds
C#, .NET Core, ASP.NET Core, Azure, SQL Server, Cosmos DB, React, Terraform/Bicep
I led technical direction for teams building digital services for public-sector clients. Some days that was architecture. Some days I was in the code. A lot of the time it was helping the team move quickly without making a mess.
On client work I set the technical direction for complex platforms, built shared patterns other teams could reuse, and stood up Azure environments with infrastructure as code. I pushed for better CI/CD, observability, and automated testing, and I brought AI-assisted tooling in where it actually helped people ship.
I worked closely with Product and Delivery. We shaped the roadmap, challenged shaky assumptions, and kept the tech tied to something users actually needed. Mentoring was a big part of it too. I wanted teams that still hold together after I’d moved on.
Development lead, Collision Management Systems
Mar 2020 – Jul 2020
.NET Core, Azure, REST APIs, SQL Server, NUnit
I led development on a cloud-native data platform. I made the technical calls, improved unit, integration, and API testing, and helped the team get more predictable about releases. I also spent plenty of time pairing and unblocking the hard stuff.
Application developer, JPP Consulting
Oct 2018 – Mar 2020
C#, .NET Core, EF Core, Web API, AutoCAD/Revit APIs, NUnit
I built internal business apps and workflow automation, including AutoCAD and Revit integrations that cut out manual work. Most projects ran end-to-end: understand the process, build the thing, work with senior stakeholders to get it live.
Product development engineer / technical lead, CSols
Oct 2013 – Oct 2018
C#, VB.NET, SQL Server, Oracle, Web API, TeamCity, NUnit
I led a team building laboratory information systems in regulated environments. Over five years I brought in CI/CD, automated testing, and clearer engineering standards. Quality and delivery both got better for it.
I also did pre-sales (demos, RFP responses, technical talks) and mentored engineers across the team. It’s where I learned how to balance product pressure, regulated quality, and just shipping the software.
Earlier career
2003 – 2013
Business Analyst, Product Specialist, and Analyst/Programmer roles across Medacs Healthcare, Capita, and Heidelberg Cement. Those years taught me requirements, testing, and delivery, and left me with a strong preference for knowing what success looks like before anyone starts building.
Professional philosophy
I care about systems that hold up in production, and teams that can keep improving them. Clear goals. Honest feedback. Less theatre.
I push for clarity on what success looks like early, then hold that line through architecture, delivery, and operations. Leadership, for me, is creating the conditions where good engineers do their best work: shared patterns, solid platforms, automated quality gates, and coaching that raises the bar without taking ownership away.
People and practices are the product. So capability building isn’t optional. I’m practical about technology too. Cloud platforms, infrastructure as code, observability, and shift-left quality are tools for predictable delivery, not fashion. Same with AI-assisted engineering: useful when it speeds up real work, dangerous when it papers over weak foundations.