The story so far · 2000 to today
How I got here
I came up through infrastructure and operations, then moved into engineering. That path still shapes how I design systems. Keep scrolling and the sprite changes jobs with me.
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Level 1 2000–2007
The network cupboard
Where it started: network operations, Active Directory, and building the databases people needed.
IT Controller · Worldwide Magazine Distribution
Day-to-day network operations. Relocated the company onto Active Directory, Exchange, and SQL, and built an in-house Access/VB database.
IT Technician · Discus Systems plc
Field engineer across the Midlands: Active Directory multi-site work and a data-cleansing/marketing database.
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Level 2 2007–2015
Running the whole estate
IT Manager · CPBigwood, formerly Curry & Partners
IT Manager through a merger that grew the firm from 40 to 185+ staff across 7 sites. Ran the estate, telephony, and in-house systems.
- Staff
- 40 to 185+
- Sites
- 7
- Servers
- 12
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Company merger and system integration
Led IT integration when Curry & Partners and Bigwood merged into CPBigwood, and kept operations running through data transfer and system consolidation. Maintained and upgraded 12 servers: Windows Server, SQL, Oracle, Exchange, SharePoint, Terminal Services.
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Multi-site VoIP
VoIP across all 7 sites, with free site-to-site calls, remote work with in-office extensions and DDI portability, and SIP accounts for internet-based calling, which cut telephony costs.
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Auction management database
An in-house auction database for lots worth thousands of pounds, with invoice generation and account tracking in the same system.
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Level 3 2015–2018
My own shop
Director · Gostech Ltd
IT consultancy for SMEs: servers, networks, bespoke development, VoIP, backups, and support contracts.
Team Lead (Contract) · Atos
Led a team of 12 through a Windows 7 to Windows 10 migration across 600+ devices.
- Team
- 12
- Devices
- 600+
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Level 4 2018–today
Into engineering
Staff Software Engineer · FDJ United, formerly Kindred Group Ltd
Event-driven Sportsbook systems, performance engineering, and technical leadership across teams. Application support to staff over seven years.
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Development Platform Testing (DPT) platform
Designed a platform for high-volume API and service-side benchmarking: distributed JMeter nodes orchestrated in Kubernetes with a Node.js control plane, Kafka traffic mirroring and synthetic events, and results indexed in Elasticsearch with a UI for insight.
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Late Bet Identification System
Detected racing markets left open after event start, to stop in-play betting exposure. Reconciled official start times with internal market timings to flag latency and feed anomalies, with UI and alerting for Trading and Risk. Exposure was previously measured in hundreds of thousands of pounds.
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Multi-market tenancy
A tenancy model so a single CMS can serve multiple brands and jurisdictions, with region-specific price margins and risk configs to meet regulatory requirements, plus guardrails and workflows with Trading, Risk, and Regulatory.
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