Mat | Engineering Leader

Personal Profile

Passionate and experienced Engineering leader seeking hands-off people-focused leadership role in fast paced agile environment. A leader and catalyst for change with a focus on agile methodologies. A ‘driver’ with a focus on task management and delivery through a holistic approach to people development.

Attends local meetups and “geek nights” to further extend knowledge and be a member of the development community.

Core Skills

Methodologies - Shape-up, Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, XP, TDD, Ensemble
Languages: C#, SQL, XML, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Markdown, Ruby, Jekyll, Python, Sass, TypeScript, NodeJS
Testing: TDD, Nunit, Moq, Specflow/Cucumber, Selenium Web driver, pytest
Source Control: TFS, Azure DevOps, Git, GitHub, subversion, CVS
Cloud: AWS, Azure
Database: MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB
Architecture: Micro-Services, Volatility, Domain Driven, Event Driven.
Software/Tools: Visual Studio, VS Code, Resharper, PhpStorm, TeamCity, PL/SQL Developer, MySQL Workbench, Office 365 suite, Slack, Trello, GitHub, WordPress, Mural, Confluence, Jira, Airtable, Code Climate, DataDog, working copy
OS: Mac, iOS, iPadOS, Windows

Side Projects

Created, published, and managed football statistics website (WordPress, PHP, MySQL) and twitter account which oversaw organic growth to peak 175,000 followers and global reach. Latest personal project was to redesign of running club website using Jekyll, a static site generator on Ruby hosted on GitHub pages.

Using Github Actions and GitHub Issues to create a Security News feed for the discerning security professional or engineering leader.

Employment History

Blackfinch Group

Blackfinch Group are investment specialists offering a range of products including tax efficient investments for individuals and business as well as offering investment in solar/wind energy and UK start up companies

HEAD OF ENGINEERING (July 2023 - Current)

Implemented an agile approach to software delivery across three teams building a sustainable pace for product delivery aligned to emerging business needs, set-up various team ceremonies, one-to-ones, and. Used a data-led approach recording DORA metrics and through objective setting and coaching saw the average cycle time reduce from 51 days to 5 days. Implemented new ways of working such as refinement and building out acceptance criteria, unit testing.

Presented Engineering baseline and principles to the group. Increased morale, motivation, and a value driven team-first approach to work - resulting in more pair programming and TDD adoption. Carried out quarterly and probationary reviews. Hired first QAs into the business. Introduced a progression framework for career development.

Worked closely with architect and IT/Ops to implement RBACs and environment management through IaC. Developed a technical roadmap, architectural review and architectural design records, acknowledging and surfacing technical debt to stakeholders.

Seccl

Seccl’s technology helps advisers, investment managers, and fintechs of all sizes to operate their own investment platform. Seccl are an API first technology company operating in the wealth management, financial services sector as part of the Octopus Group.

ENGINEERING MANAGER (June 2021 - June 2023)

Started leading multiple squads in the Investments and Advice tribe with a focus on delivery, empowering, and growing our engineers. Implemented a role/skill matrix and used this during annual reviews - the first time anything like this was used in the company, acted as head of engineering during a senior/c-suite leadership change and aided recruitment of new CTO and HoE.

Currently leading the devops capability, a team responsible for cloud infrastructure and developer enablement and support. Developed a roadmap to remove legacy cloud, poorly managed systems to managed services. Helped team deliver an automated client onboarding process reducing cycle time from approximately 6 hours to 3 minutes. Oversaw a DB upgrade well within deadlines and with no downtime nor customer detriment. Gave Technical debt and security greater gravitas within the organisation and helped construct a roadmap for remediation. Increased Team happiness metrics by 4 points (out of 10), 2.7 in wellness and 2.4 in overall engagement, 7.1 in relationship with peers from 6 months to prior 6 months.

Key achievements and projects

built a recruitment process and question set for various roles and formalised a fair and systematic approach to recruitment hiring 12 engineers in first 6 months
involved in non-engineering hiring sessions to support other hiring managers. Interviewed and hired peer and involved in CTO and HoE hires.
led on transition to GitHub Enterprise and Advanced Security.
led on the trial and implementation of DataDog, adding monitoring and observability capability for the first time
replaced custom-built legacy CI/CD process on Jenkins to GitHub actions moving from monolythic deployments to individual components
oversaw remediation of infrastructure through a well-architected review with AWS partner.
oversaw replacement of Kubernetes to ECR on Fargate - creating on demand infrastructure triggered by pull-requests reducing AWS costs by 10 per cent.

Higher Education Statistics Agency

Collects, processes, and publishes data about all aspects of the higher education landscape in the UK as the trusted source of HE data and analysis as Designated Data body. In addition to roles acted as a Product Owner, (certified) Scrum Master, Staff Forum representative, and fire marshal from time-to-time.

HEAD OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT (October 2019 - June 2021)

co-led a team of 30 lead developers, developers and testers, expanding to 46 including test manager, lead developers, lead testers, scrum master, developers and testers. heading up the Data Futures project from a technical perspective in conjunction with a delivery partner organisation.

Key responsibilities

Line management, pastoral care, objective setting and appraisals, resourcing and recruitment
Member of information security and data protection management group
Member of Portfolio and Performance Board
Strategy, planning, resourcing and organisation
Technical oversight and decision making
Close collaboration for architects, product owners, directors, and CEO on project direction
Working with third party partner organisations and key stakeholders during requirements, planning, and funding phases.

Key achievements and projects

Implementation of a secure development policy, test strategy, technology strategy and tech radar
Ensured recertification of ISO27001 security standard
Expansion of team by 25% to accommodate work on new transformation program and increasing portfolio
Transition from TFS to Git, .NET Framework to core.
set up and led Leadership training lunch and learn session with 8 colleagues based on career goals
successful business change process to promote testers into Lead tester roles.
successful business change to address pay parity and reduction in gender pay gap

LEAD SOFTWARE DEVELOPER (October 2018 – October 2019)

Planning, designing and developing server and client applications. Having a key role in ensuring the best technologies and techniques are used in their development. Development of technical capability and involvement in performance assessment and development of junior colleagues. Working day-to- day within a scrum team.

Key responsibilities

Line management, pastoral care, objective setting and appraisals, resourcing
Development work within scrum team
Setting and delivering on quarterly objectives at group level in line with business’s annual operating plan
Product owner for security business system
Strategic and high-level planning
Fostered good working relationships with government/statutory colleagues
Ensuring quality throughout software development lifecycle

Key achievements and projects

Setting up regular video training lunch sessions
Update and implementation of skills framework
Oversaw release of business system move from MongoDB to SQL server and hosted in Azure
Supported direct reports through mental health and gender identity acceptance
Building and identification of technical debt register and encouraging team to tackle one item per sprint
Knowledge sharing sessions and training to colleagues on Agile/Scrum, mental health and design patterns

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER (July 2015 - October 2018)

Development and maintenance of data collection system (c#, MVC, Oracle, azure blob storage) - identify, design, estimate, prioritise and deliver work items in Azure DevOps

Key responsibilities

Development and maintenance of data collection system (c#, MVC, Oracle, azure blob storage)
Identify, design, estimate, prioritise and deliver work items in Azure DevOps
Acting scrum master for the team

Key achievements and projects

Led team on new delivery software used by all scrum teams / projects. Under build control and release. XML configuration. Software reads, creates, checks, uploads data in file/oracle to customers, running on a schedule.
Volunteered for special team to redesign unistats project - from legacy oracle SQL scripts to xml/c# project with unit tests
Selected for project team to oversee redesign of corporate website (outsourced). User workshops and requirements gathering. Subject matter expert.
Redesigned lookup service micro site

WEB DEVELOPER (May 2011 – July 2015)

Design, maintenance and support for all internal applications (web-based issue tracking, asset tracking, contacts database)
Maintenance of main corporate website (PHP, MYSQL/ORACLE) with e-commerce
Managed 6 micro websites (WordPress/MYSQL)
Support Service desk and infrastructure team as needed
Worked on HEDIIP micro site (WordPress/MYSQL)
Created and redesigned main website migrating from Joomla 1.0 to 2.5
Created web based mobile application displaying provider data, also embedded on main website

DATA ANALYST (March 2006 – May 2011)

Designed, created and specified documentation for a new data collection record
Generated PL/SQL script to automate manual checking
Generated, maintained and published data for high profile performance indicators
Trained new members of staff, including new line manager

Education Summary

Solent University

Business Information Systems & Business Information Technology (Computing) HND, HNC - 2001-2005

Database management systems, systems analysis and design, computer management, software constructs and tools, data analysis and database design, multimedia and internet development, information analysis, quality management principles, communication technology.

North Leamington School & Binswood 6th Form

2 A Levels in Psychology and General Studies, BTEC in Business Studies.
10 GCSEs including English (double), Science (double), Maths, French, Spanish, and Geography