About

Work Experience

• Principal Architect, Digital Enablement, Emirates

  Oct, 2019 - Present

  Engaged to overhaul the Digital portfolio at Emirates as part of the Agile (SAFe) transformation, I am tasked with setting and rolling out the strategy for how the Digital Ecosystem, the Enterprise API Strategy, Customer Identity and Access Management, and Online Payments at Emirates will evolve to meet the organisation’s strategic goals. Responsibilities include leading and guiding our microservices architecture and frameworks (written in Java and NodeJS) and containerisation of existing applications, web and mobile implementations, managing vendor relationships, and mentoring architects and senior engineers to enable the Digital Portfolio at Emirates to operate efficiently. My portfolio also includes the new Digital Payment Platform at Emirates which processes transactions of over AED 3 billion a month. On a typical day I find myself challenging existing processes and architecture to try to bring about a cultural change by being the change itself (and this involves contributing code where required). I currently lead multiple teams of 40+ engineers to try and move our digital ecosystem into the cloud native world using OpenShift, Kubernetes, Solace, AWS, Azure, lots of negotiation and whatever else it takes to get the job done well.

• Director, 7x

  Dec, 2022 - Present

  I built 7x as an API marketplace and platform leveraging distributed technologies to provide APIs and data to app builders across the globe. The value proposition of 7x to developers and product managers surpasses the API offering from large API providers like Google or Rapid API.

• Director, Blomstra LTD

  Jan, 2021 - Present

  As one of the founding partners and initial developers for this leading Flarum SaaS offering, I have been involved in trialling and selecting cloud providers and help setup the foundation to build, ship and deliver our offering on Azure AKS using Concourse CI and GitOps. I am now involved in making strategic technology decisions to support the growth of the company and step in to contribute code or help with operations and mentorship as required by the growing team at Blomstra.

• Open Source Developer, Islamic Network

  Mar, 2014 - Present

  Founder and lead developer for the Islamic Network Open Source project (https://github.com/islamic-network) and web services (https://islamic.network). This includes a variety of projects dealing with prayer time and Hijri calendar calculations, various Quran digitisation projects and a purpose-build CDN. The software is used by hundreds of developers and the web services, which run on an ecosystem of globally distributed Kubernetes clusters, 30 million+ requests a day.

• Technical Solution Architect, giffgaff

  Apr, 2017 - Sep, 20192 years 5 months

  I was engaged as one of the architects looking after the complete redesign and transformation of the giffgaff technology ecosystem from monolith to microservices architecture. This included all online systems, eCommerce, business intelligence / data warehousing and billing along with streamlining client-side technologies for both the web and mobile experiences. As part of the Technical Leadership team, I was also involved in migrating the giffgaff community (the UK’s largest) from the Khoros to Flarum.

• Principal Digital Architect, O2 (Telefónica UK)

  Sep, 2016 - Jun, 20179 months

  I was the technical architect responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure and Content Management System (with Drupal and Acquia) that powers the www.o2.co.uk website for both desktop and mobile experiences. I led 2 development teams to implement Drupal as part of O2’s omni channel strategy. I was also involved in implementing extreme programming practices with the development teams to improve the quality of work. I actively contributed code on a weekly basis.

• Senior Consultant, Software Engineering, Mastercard

  Jul, 2015 - Sep, 20161 year 2 months

  I worked with MasterCard teams in London, Brisbane and Chennai to help integrate and secure applications within the MasterCard Payment Gateway Services (using Symfony) ecosystem as part of their acquisition of TNSPay. My work involved aspects of software architecture, software development and mentoring and consultancy around better implementing SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) and Continuous Integration techniques at the team level.

• Chief Technology Officer, Vesica Ltd

  Feb, 2010 - Dec, 20155 years 10 months

  I helped raise the initial funding for this start-up to build a pure SaaS based offering for museums and galleries to digitally manage and exhibit their collections. I was responsible for building software and infrastructure teams (based in Pakistan and Serbia), all of the architecture and delivered the application on time and budget. I contributed code on a weekly basis. In 2015, we decided to wrap up the business because we were simply unable to gain enough large clients to sustain the quality and pace of the product we wanted to offer.

• Technical Lead, Springer Nature Technology and Publishing Solutions

  May, 2014 - Jun, 20151 year 1 month

  • Technical oversight and responsibility for Nature Publishing Group’s 30+ LAMP stack websites and applications
  • Work with development team to incorporate XP and CI practices throughout the development lifecycle
  • Coach and work alongside the Head Product Management and Scrum Masters to refine and better implement an agile approach for all LAMP development
  • Technical programming training for the existing development team on PHP, JQuery, Git, MVC and OO concepts
  • Planning and overseeing release management and rollout of developed applications across Macmillan’s Nature Publishing Group
  • Hands-on involvement in all aspects as required, from coding to managing servers and CI / CD pipelines

• Lead Developer, UK Home Office

  Oct, 2013 - Apr, 20146 months

  • Stakeholder Management - Liaising with management and clients to scope projects
  • Design and develop application architecture and infrastructure
  • Hands-on development, mentoring and training other developers
  • Product and Sprint backlog management
  • Streamlining processes and source code management
  • Introducing and leading implementation and automation techniques in XP
  • Technical responsibility and management of projects valued into millions of pounds sterling

• Senior Developer, Tripadvisor

  Aug, 2013 - Sep, 20131 month

  • Developed and deployed back-end tools to serve customer service and finance staff administer HolidayLettings.co.uk
  • Designed enterprise level architecture for applications with RESTful services to use across multiple departments, organisations and platforms across the TripAdvisor group

• Senior Developer, The Open University

  Apr, 2013 - Jul, 20133 months

  • Co-authored the Open Design Studio module for Moodle, a Pinterest equivalent built into Moodle courses (for general release into the Moodle community)
  • Authored the Alerts Plugin - a reporting system to track and manage abusive content across Moodle courses and modules (for general release into the Moodle community)
  • Database and query optimisation to support very large datasets and thousands of concurrent users
  • Wrote first major unit tests for Open University contributed modules using Moodle’s new PHP Unit integration with a view to deploying TDD across all development teams

• Senior Developer, NHS

  Oct, 2012 - Mar, 20135 months

  • Drive project management and architecture of new development for critical Pathways DoS system (used by 999 and 111 services across England)
  • UI / UX development for new, faster and more relevant technical search screens
  • Rewrite and develop accurate search and data extraction algorithms
  • Rewrite and develop new search system integrated with Google Maps API, Google Geocoding API, PHP, SOAP, OpenLDAP, JSON, SOAP, XML and Microsoft SQL Server
  • Assist in configuring and setting up virtual CentOS environments
  • Train existing development team on PHP, JQuery, Git, Google APIs, CentOS

• Technical Director, Vesica Interactive

  Jun, 2009 - Oct, 20123 years 4 months

  • Responsible for performance of in-house and offshore development team
  • Established relationships with various data centres and infrastructure providers for highly scalable client applications
  • Managed and delivered projects for international clients like Panasonic, HotCam, RokPool, and boutique agencies like Walden Page Ballard and Bull Rodger
  • Primary technology stack was PHP, MySQL, Drupal, WordPress, CodeIgniter, Symfony and Slim

• Corporate Systems Accountant, GTA

  Apr, 2008 - Jun, 20091 year 2 months

  • Streamlining monthly financial close process between multiple systems / currencies / countries
  • Developing VBA / Excel applications to communicate with Hyperion / SQL Server
  • Write procedure documents and SQL queries to import / export data from AS400 to JD Edwards to Hyperion to Oracle Financials

• Managing Partner, Ingenium Partners FZE

  Oct, 2005 - Nov, 20072 years 1 month

  • Setup consultancy with 3 other partners setup to provide software development services
  • Worked with various clients to design solution and software architecture based on Open Source applications
  • Managed client relationships and offshore development teams (in India)
  • Developed web / software applications / User Interfaces to assist offshore teams and make sure projects were completed on time

• Financial Controller, TAEUS Corporation

  Jun, 2004 - Sep, 20051 year 3 months

  • Oversaw accounting department of 4 accountants and responsible for company’s overall financials up to US $12 million
  • Develop procedures and policies for SOX Compliance
  • Managed global forecast and budgeting and delivery of projects on budget for clients like HP, Sony, LG and Dolby
  • Developed architecture for in-house project management application upgrade on FileMaker
  • Joined as Corporate Accountant

• Information Systems Instructor and Web Developer, University of Colorado Colorado Springs

  Jan, 2003 - Jun, 20041 year 5 months

  • Analyse requirements of new website and prepare requirement specification documents to get approval for new web site and Moodle based LMS
  • Liaison and work with co-developer, program director and faculty to successfully design, code, and implement the new web site and intranet
  • Conduct classes to instruct and train students in the use of Microsoft technologies and basic web development

Skills

Education

References