Changelog

Senior Full Stack Software Developer at Clarity GlobalRemote + London

How to quickly partner with a CTO and work closely to launch a new product while setting early standards for code quality, decision-making and future growth.

The first internal hire, working directly with the CTO to enhance existing internal tools and shape a new GEO data platform started in September 2025 and publicly launched in February 2026 (https://surfacd.com).

Added

• Designed and implemented resilient data acquisition pipelines in PHP and TypeScript with proxy rotation, retry strategies, fallback handling and fault-tolerant collection workflows
• Built scalable ingestion and processing services for collecting, validating and transforming external datasets
• Led internal AI enablement initiatives to help technical and non-technical teams adopt AI-assisted workflows safely and effectively
• Developed tooling and workflows around MCP, AI-assisted development and internal automation
• Organised and led hackathons, technical workshops and training sessions focused on practical AI adoption and developer productivity
• Benchmarked LLM usage across the data pipeline
• Worked closely with operational stakeholders to identify high-impact automation opportunities and delivery improvements
• Contributed to architecture discussions, technical planning and cross-functional solution design
• Collaborate with product and commercial stakeholders to ensure the engineering roadmap aligns with go-to-market timelines and customer needs
• Over 20,000 tests, 100% code coverage, strict static analysis

Changed

• Transitioned a PoC into a production-ready platform balancing speed and quality
• Improved reliability and observability across data collection systems through monitoring, alerting and operational tooling (including Node microservices)

Stack

• PHP
• Laravel
• Node
• React
• Cloudflare
• Postgres

Lead Contract Developer at Oh DearRemote

Understanding the value of clear communication in small, remote teams, especially when working with part-time teammates.

Contributing remotely to a high-scale observability platform processing billions of uptime checks and millions of notifications for software teams globally.

Working within a small engineering team with responsibility across backend systems, infrastructure, testing, operational tooling and developer workflows.

Added

• Designed and led the migration of a high-volume heartbeat infrastructure handling 3.5m+ requests per day using Node.js, AWS Lambda, ALB, SQS and Cloudflare
• Implemented monitoring, alerting and operational tooling to improve system visibility and production reliability
• Developed mock crawler infrastructure to improve automated testing reliability and CI adoption
• Implemented multilingual support for customer-facing status pages using TDD methodologies
• Developed internal debugging and operational CLI tooling to reduce issue resolution time
• Contributed to technical planning, production troubleshooting and engineering quality improvements within a distributed remote team
• Worked closely with maintainers on release delivery, debugging, documentation and customer issue investigation

Changed

• Reduced infrastructure costs by 66% and reduced average response latency by 83% to 24ms while simplifying the stack for speed and maintainability
• Improved processing throughput by over 1 minute through simplification of distributed workflows and queue processing
• Refactored internal crawler infrastructure to support asset-level uptime monitoring across scripts, stylesheets, images and external dependencies
• Standardised Docker development environments to improve onboarding consistency and local development workflows

Stack

• PHP
• Livewire
• MySQL
• ClickHouse
• Cloudflare
• AWS

SaaS Cloud Developer at Redwood SoftwareHybrid

A strong test suite enables faster delivery and better collaboration with highly skilled teammates.

Worked within the cloud SaaS engineering team on enterprise automation platforms operating across multi-tenant AWS infrastructure.

Focused on improving engineering standards, modernising legacy systems, expanding observability and improving maintainability across customer-facing platforms.

Added

• Introduced backend automated testing practices using PHPUnit and Cypress, growing the test suite from zero to 900+ unit and integration tests within 12 months
• Built CI/CD pipelines within Bitbucket for automated testing and deployment workflows
• Designed reporting and analytics tooling for customer success, support and infrastructure teams
• Delivered metrics frameworks, reporting dashboards and subscription-based reporting systems across multiple data sources
• Developed customer environment monitoring integrations using Prometheus and Grafana
• Built internal microservices and API integrations across Jira, Zendesk and internal platforms
• Contributed to technical discovery and proof-of-concept work for Laravel and React platform migration initiatives
• Led code reviews, technical planning and engineering process improvements across the wider team

Changed

• Led adoption of static analysis, coding standards, automated refactoring and security tooling including PHPStan, Rector, CS Fixer and Veracode
• Refactored legacy systems to modern PHP 8.1 standards using TDD approaches
• Expanded Docker-based development environments to improve onboarding consistency and local development workflows
• Improved exception handling, structured logging and operational debugging capabilities

Stack

• PHP
• AWS
• Docker
• MySQL
• Bitbucket
• Jira
• React

Career break

Reflection is just as important as delivery as it improves focus and motivation.

I took the opportunity to take an indefinite hiatus in order to focus on personal commitments and provide support to a family member dealing with a serious health condition, whilst also carving out time for personal exploration and rejuvenation with travel and hobbies. This pursuit allowed me to refine my technical skills and redefine my career.

Finance Systems and Reporting Development Manager at Guide Dogs for the Blind AssociationReading

Problem solving under technical and budget constraints.

Led technical delivery, reporting development and finance systems across ERP and operational systems within a large national charity. Worked across finance, operations and technical teams to deliver integrations, reporting platforms, process automation and business-critical system improvements.

I did not always have access to IT infrastructure, tools or privileges so being able to debug issues with restricted access required creativity and a real understanding of the problem by working closely with affected users. It can be easy to throw code at a problem or automate processes without thinking of long term maintenance, impact on workflows or the humans at the other end. This resulted in using a mix of local code (e.g. VBA), low-code tools (MS Power Platform), smarter logging and changes to business processes.

Added

• Directed development and support of ERP integrations, reporting systems and operational workflows across finance and business functions
• Designed and implemented reporting and data solutions using SQL, Power BI and ERP tooling
• Delivered system migrations, implementation projects and process automation initiatives across on-premise and cloud environments
• Translated complex operational and financial requirements into scalable technical solutions
• Delivered training, technical documentation and stakeholder workshops for technical and non-technical users
• Provided cross-functional technical support, troubleshooting and solution design

Changed

• Improved business reporting, forecasting and operational visibility through automation and data modelling
• Cultivated a culture of process improvement and "anything is possible", systems governance and operational risk reduction initiatives

Stack

• Unit4 ERP
• SQL Server
• SQL
• Power BI
• VBA