Dec 2021 – Mar 2023 · 1 yr 3 mos · Remote

• I co-founded HeadClear to address a problem I'd seen repeatedly in workplaces: organisations wanting to support employee mental health but lacking any meaningful way to understand what was actually happening across their teams without invasive monitoring.
• As CTO, I built the complete technical platform from the ground up. The core innovation was Insight Optical Imaging, a technology that measures vital signs through facial blood flow mapping using only a device's standard camera. This enabled non-invasive wellbeing assessment without ever storing personal video data, which felt essential given how sensitive this territory is.
• The product spanned iOS and Android apps built on Ionic Framework, a web dashboard for managers, and a .NET Core backend with PostgreSQL handling data across multiple environments. I developed the machine learning models for anomaly detection and predictive analytics, designed to flag when someone might benefit from support whilst maintaining strict privacy boundaries throughout.
• Enterprise deployment required Azure AD integration with automated user synchronisation and organisational hierarchy mapping, removing the administrative burden that often kills adoption in larger companies. The infrastructure ran across Hetzner, AWS S3, Firebase, and Cloudflare to balance performance, security, and cost.
• One architectural decision I'm particularly pleased with was building data portability into the foundations. When employees leave an organisation, their wellbeing data leaves with them. It seemed wrong to design it any other way, and it met HIPAA-level protection standards whilst genuinely respecting individual ownership.
• HeadClear taught me how to take a product from concept through to enterprise deployment, and reinforced my conviction that privacy and utility don't have to be in tension.

Oct 2020 – Dec 2021 · 1 yr 2 mos · Remote

• When Advanced acquired Mitrefinch, I took on the challenge of transforming Flexipay from a legacy desktop application into a multi-tenant SaaS platform. The original software had served its purpose well for decades, but it was architecturally stuck in a single-user, single-organisation model that couldn't scale.
• The technical challenge was substantial. Payroll systems carry significant complexity around tax calculations, pension auto-enrolment, and HMRC RTI submissions, all of which had to work flawlessly during and after migration. I redesigned the core architecture for cloud-native deployment with proper tenant isolation, ensuring data security whilst maintaining the efficiency benefits of shared infrastructure.
• Performance mattered enormously in this domain. The processing engine we worked on handles gross-to-net calculations for 10,000 employees in under 20 seconds, which opened up market segments the desktop product could never have reached. The new platform also introduced real-time calculation previews, automated reporting, and self-service portals for employees to access payslips and tax documents.
• Much of the work involved regulatory compliance: GDPR-compliant data handling, password-protected document delivery, and comprehensive audit trails that satisfy UK financial regulations. I also built the automation workflows for pension enrolment and finance system integrations, removing manual steps that had historically been error-prone.
• By the time I left, Flexipay had grown from single-organisation deployments to over 3,500 UK organisations using the platform, with full HMRC RTI recognition. It was a proper modernisation rather than a superficial refresh, and it fundamentally changed what the product could be.

Aug 2020 – Oct 2020 · 2 mos · On-site

• I joined Mitrefinch as a developer working on MF Secure, a platform for managing access control hardware across buildings and sites. The systems handled real-time tracking of staff, contractors, and visitors through multiple entry points, including biometric access and integration with fire safety protocols. It was my first proper exposure to the complexities of physical security systems and the regulatory weight they carry.
• Within the year, I'd moved into leading the Platform team, taking responsibility for the Azure estate underpinning all Mitrefinch products. This meant ensuring the cloud infrastructure could scale reliably across a product suite that served organisations ranging from single offices to complex multi-site deployments.
• A significant part of this role involved making the various products work together properly. I built the single sign-on capability that unified authentication across the suite, and led the integration work connecting access control systems with time and attendance tracking and cloud payroll. These weren't separate tools anymore but components of a coherent platform.
• The security standards were non-negotiable in this space. Everything I built contributed to maintaining Mitrefinch's ISO 27001 accreditation, which mattered enormously to the enterprise clients who needed that assurance before trusting us with their site security.
• When Advanced acquired Mitrefinch in October 2020, I transitioned into the Principal Software Engineer role that would define my next chapter.

Apr 2019 – Aug 2020 · 1 yr 4 mos · On-site

Oct 2018 – Apr 2019 · 6 mos · On-site

• I joined IFS as a Software Engineer and was promoted to Senior within the time I was there, working primarily on the mobile framework that underpinned the company's workforce management applications.
• The core challenge was building a unified codebase in C# using Xamarin Native that could deploy across iOS, Android, and Windows desktop whilst still feeling native on each platform. This wasn't a wrapper around web views but proper platform-specific implementation where it mattered, with shared business logic underneath.
• The most technically demanding piece was the offline synchronisation system. Mobile workforce applications are used by engineers and field workers who frequently lose connectivity, so the app had to function fully offline and reconcile data intelligently when a connection returned. Getting sync conflict resolution right in that context required careful thinking about data ownership and merge strategies.
• These applications handled real-time scheduling, asset installation tracking, and safety features for field workers. The practical impact was reducing paper processes, cutting unnecessary travel, and giving operations teams visibility into what was actually happening on the ground.
• IFS had strong recognition from industry analysts in the mobile workforce management space during this period, and the framework I helped build was foundational to that product capability.

Nov 2016 – Oct 2018 · 1 yr 11 mos · On-site

May 2016 – Nov 2016 · 6 mos · Nottingham · On-site

• MultiPie was a small app development consultancy in Nottingham's Creative Quarter, and working there meant touching almost everything. Over seven months I built native iOS and Android applications across a genuinely eclectic range: games, social media platforms, interactive brochures, sports tracking tools, and precision manufacturing apps for engineering companies.
• The variety was the education. Each project brought different constraints, different user expectations, and different technical challenges. In a team that small, I was involved from initial client conversations through to launch and ongoing support, which taught me early how much the work before and after writing code actually matters.
• It was my first professional development role, and the pace of a consultancy environment meant learning quickly or falling behind. I did the former.