About me

I'm a web application developer and cloud architect with over fifteen years building digital solutions for businesses of all sizes. From small startups to large enterprises, I've spent my career solving complex problems with well-designed software and modern infrastructure.

I started in freelance web development in the late 2000s, progressed to running a digital agency where I led development teams, and in 2018 co-founded Si Novi with Martin Hicks, where I'm now Principal Consultant and Founder. I'm particularly interested in how cloud technology can fundamentally transform the way businesses operate - replacing manual processes, reducing costs, and enabling new revenue opportunities. The advent of AI and agentic workflows is further accelerating this transformation.

What I focus on

I'm drawn to projects that create genuine business value. That usually means automating tedious manual processes, replacing broken spreadsheets with proper web applications, or designing systems that scale smoothly as businesses grow. I enjoy working on integrations - connecting different systems via APIs or webhooks to reduce friction and improve data accuracy. Increasingly that extends to AI agents built on top of those integrations, taking on the judgement calls and messy exceptions that used to need a person.

Technical execution is important, but so is understanding the business context. I approach projects with a focus on delivering ROI, and I use Agile methodologies - particularly Scrum, where I'm a certified Product Owner - to stay aligned with stakeholder goals throughout delivery.

Above all, my work runs on trust. Many of my client relationships have lasted ten years or more - people I first delivered for a decade ago who still pick up the phone when something matters. I put that down to being straight about what's worth doing, building software that holds up in production, and caring about the total cost of owning it long after launch. Those long-standing relationships are the clearest signal I can point to that the work lands.

Technical expertise

My delivery is grounded in the AWS cloud. I first started working with AWS in 2014, drawn to automated, scalable services and serverless infrastructure, and it's shaped how I build ever since. I'm an AWS Certified Developer - Associate and hold AWS Partner sales and technical accreditations, and Si Novi is an AWS Partner, so the systems I build are scalable, secure and cost-effective by design.

I work across serverless and containerised architectures in equal measure - Lambda and DynamoDB on one side, ECS on the other - all defined as infrastructure as code. I've built everything from internal tools to public B2C applications, and I'm as comfortable modernising a substantial legacy codebase as starting something new, always with a consistent focus on security, scalability and maintainability.

Beyond code

My university degree was in Psychology at Manchester, where I explored human-machine interaction and the study of human error. That grounding still shapes how I build: designing systems to stay resilient when people inevitably make mistakes, and treating the interface itself as something that can prevent errors or cause them. I bring the same thinking to business operations, where a well-designed process quietly removes the chance to get things wrong in the first place.

I'm an outdoors enthusiast - you'll find me hiking, mountaineering and climbing whenever possible, or maintaining my Cumbrian kitchen garden and greenhouse. I'm also a "musician" (finger quotes intended), tinkering on drums and guitar trying to learn Jake E. Lee solos. There's also a chance you might have seen me in my former career playing drums with Nine Black Alps - a Manchester rock band who emerged in 2004.