Engineering Manager specialising in platform engineering and developer experience. I lead teams that build shared internal platforms, the kind of foundational work that improves delivery, reliability, and developer effectiveness across an organisation. At Marks & Spencer, I run two platform areas providing the shared web foundations, and Developer Services, the front door into the internal developer platform for around 1,500 engineers.
I am analytical and data-led in how I prioritise, always weighing short-term delivery against long-term platform health. I stay close to the technical detail, reviewing architecture and challenging trade-offs alongside senior engineers, while investing just as heavily in coaching, mentorship, and building teams where people do their best work. My influence tends to extend beyond engineering management into product direction and organisational strategy, shaped by years in senior technical product leadership and a natural inclination to focus on outcomes rather than activity. I am particularly interested in where AI can genuinely reduce friction for engineers, and I approach it pragmatically: build, measure, and keep only what proves useful.
Skills
Engineering Management & People Leadership
Platform Engineering (IDP)
Delivery Leadership & Flow
Metrics, Experimentation & AI Evaluation
SQL, Python & Data Literacy
Architecture Reviews & Trade-offs
Observability, Reliability & Logging
Team Growth & Organisational Design
Cross-Functional Delivery
Culture, Standards & Ways of Working
Career History
Software Engineering Manager – Web Platform & Developer Services
Marks & Spencer | May 2025 - Present
Lead two platform teams — Web Platform (Web facing IDP) and Developer Services (engineering front door to the IDP)
Wrote strategies for both areas, including an AI-native orchestration direction that turns natural-language intent into governed platform workflows.
Deployed M&S’s first organisation-wide engineering health framework. Used DX survey data and support channel analysis to quantify ~1.6 FTEs per week of wasted engineering time and drive targeted improvements.
Built a RAG-based engineering support PoC, then used analysis of ~1,900 support messages to narrow the real AI opportunity and steer the work towards lower-friction native tooling.
Delivered a zero-incident Golden Quarter across the web selling experience with a team of three engineers.
Led org-wide contributions including automated change management and GitHub Actions re-enablement gold standards following a cyber incident.
Driving supply chain security evaluation, major framework and runtime upgrades, and the platform design principles governing all IDP components.
Head of Product – Internal Developer Platform
Marks & Spencer | Oct 2023 - May 2025
Led a team of 7 platform product managers across a broad platform portfolio (50+ engineers, £14m budget) spanning Web, Mobile, APIs (incl. GraphQL), Runtime, Events, Experimentation, and Developer Experience with ~1800 internal users.
Partnered with engineering leadership to shape and execute a multi-year platform strategy in ambiguous problem spaces.
Drove adoption and standardisation to reduce cognitive load and accelerate delivery across engineering.
Established developer experience and engineering health metrics as core performance indicators.
Secured funding to train and hire product managers with strong platform expertise.
Held dual product and engineering management responsibility in the absence of a dedicated Engineering Manager — managing engineers, owning team health, hiring, performance, and engineering culture alongside product leadership.
Led development of internal runtime platforms and developer tooling, supporting multiple engineering teams and a multi-million pound budget across platform initiatives.
Defined API and platform strategies with a focus on usability, security, and scalability.
Embedded measurement and experimentation to drive prioritisation and demonstrate impact.
Improved DevEx through automation and self-service capabilities, reducing friction for engineers.
Managed technical teams working on core game platform, DevOps, and infrastructure.
Ensured more of the code base was reused, reducing cost and time to market.
Improved team flow and feature visibility across the org through adaptive processes.
Tech & Project Management Career Progression
Marks & Spencer | May 2011 – Mar 2018
Progressed from Business Analyst to Senior Technical Project Manager, shaping M&S’s retail technology landscape.
Delivered multiple POS & payments projects, introducing automated build and test pipelines.
Served as an Agile Champion, driving best practices across engineering teams.
Education
MSc Computer Science (Distinction) – University of Hertfordshire (2011)
BEng (Hons) Aerospace Engineering with Astronautics – Kingston University (2007)
Professional Training & Certifications
Certified Platform Engineering Practitioner – Aug 2025
Certified Platform Engineering Professional – Aug 2025
SAFe 5.0 Agilist
Personal Project
The Cabin — terminal-based survival-horror text adventure combining free-text AI input with rules-based guardrails, diegetic responses, and a stateful world model.