Group level leadership role to mature and advance the engineering and technical delivery capability within Benefact, build high-performance team culture and increase delivery success. 

• Lead technical delivery, solution architecture, and engineering practices across multiple group platforms, including General Insurance, CRM/D365/Power Apps/Automate, CMS, and Integration
• Directed and managed a multidisciplinary function comprising architects, analysts, software engineers, build configuration engineers, testers, UX designers, as well as offshore dev and testing teams
• Established group strategy for API development, cloud adoption, and low-code solutions to enhance scalability and operational efficiency
• Technical lead for digital transformation programme - developed the ecosystem model to increase flexibility, re-use across the organisation and reduce technology/service proliferation
• Oversaw the delivery of the strategic General Insurance (GI) platform initiatives along with continuous improvement efforts as part of a comprehensive transformation program including large-scale upgrade projects for CRM, CMS and Document Storage
• Embedded agile methodologies such as SAFe, Scrum, and Kanban while fostering high-performance team culture within cross-functional product and platform teams

Technology/Digital/Cloud Strategy, Solution Delivery, Architecture, Integration Strategy, SAFe, SCRUM, DevSecOps/CI/CD, ITIL, UX/UCD, Test

A senior leadership role within UCAS, accountable for technical delivery of a major digital transformation programme spanning all core learner and provider products, partnership platform and back office technology, including implementation of Salesforce and MuleSoft integration capability. 

• Accountable for technical delivery, solution design, development and assurance of digital products and services
• Budget of £4M in addition to change programme budget
• Built an onshore engineering team of 65 and managed additional offshore and augmented delivery capabilities as part of a flexible capacity model
• Created and delivered IT graduate programme over multiple cohorts
• Implemented DevOps and scaled agile practices

Accountable for solution design, development and assurance at UCAS, leading several product delivery teams, spanning multiple technology stacks and COTS products to provide business critical, high-volume services across education, commercial and social media sectors.

Led the agile transformation from traditional programme management framework, including the creation of a DevOps practices within the digital programme. Technical lead for the migration to the cloud which required a lift and shift of all core services to support critical business events.

Managed and expanded a development team, consisting of web/application engineers, database developers, testers and a UX design to deliver and maintain software targeted at educational and commercial sectors. Led project delivery through Scrum process and implemented Kanban approach to support break-fix and operational tasks.

Responsibilities included performance management, recruitment and mentoring of technical staff leading to formation of a highly skilled, business focused development team. 

SCRUM, Prince2, Solution Delivery, Operational Management

C#, ASP.NET, MSSQL Server, XML, XSLT, CSS, HTML, Usability, Accessibility, Architecture, IIS, Azure, Vendor Management, JIRA, TDD, BDD, CI

Application development lead for UCAS, specialising in application and database design and architecture.

Worked as part of an agile delivery and support team, focusing on education software targeted at the 14-19 sector and commercial solutions. 

Established development standards within organisation and transition towards open data standards; Key aspect of role was to mentor and develop team, act as a technology and domain subject matter expert.

Lead application developer, responsible for all solution architecture, design and development of core web applications. Worked as part of a cross-functional agile development and support team, developing health and education software.

Managed infrastructure and service management staff in addition to engineering delivery focus of role. Worked closely with clients to define product roadmap, delivery approach and manage commercials.

Lead developer for NEXT’s eCommerce platform, next.co.uk and an array of other solutions, including B2B offerings. Part of a small team that grew online revenue for Next to support trading values up to £24 million a day, making Next the largest trading online retailer of clothing in the UK.

Primary focus in this role was to lead on web, application and database design and development for a high volume, transactional web platform and internal call centre solutions. Delivered the company’s first .NET application – nextflowers.co.uk.

Web application developer for NEXT’s eCommerce platform. Role focused on application and web development with strong focus on user experience, working alongside external agencies and digital marketing teams.