Hello, world!

I’m launching this blog during London Tech Week 2026 to share reflections on tech leadership, software engineering, and the challenges we face as our careers evolve. As a lead software engineer and Scrum specialist, I’ll be writing candidly about what I’ve learned, what I’m still figuring out, and what I observe in the industry.

I started working in software engineering in 2015, cutting my teeth on projects with large-scale manufacturing firms before finding my footing in cyber and security research; domains in which I’d go on to lead projects for much of the next decade. Eleven years of that kind of breadth teaches you a lot. My plan, though, had always been to follow the Steve Wozniak path: deep technical speciality, hands-on engineering, always the person who knew the codebase best. By 2021, something had shifted. Most engineers I knew were moving deeper into their technical specialism. I was moving sideways, and on purpose.

I’d started to find the human side of tech more interesting than I’d expected. Not just collaborating, but understanding why teams struggle, how communication breaks down, and what actually makes software projects succeed or fail. That curiosity pulled me towards Scrum and agile practices, and eventually into a Scrum Master role: a deliberate pivot that I’m still learning from.

The more I leaned into people leadership, the more I started to care about who gets a seat at the table. I’m a big believer that diversity makes tech better, not just ethically, but practically. As a volunteer with CodeYourFuture, a charity offering free technical training and career support to people from underrepresented backgrounds, I work as a career mentor and Product Owner for one of their internal software products. It gives me a close-up view of the obstacles and opportunities people face at the start of their tech careers, and this perspective will surface here from time to time.

I started this blog because I want to explore the tension between technical depth and soft skills, how this ratio shifts as our careers evolve, and how to recognise when it’s time to rebalance. I’ll also keep an eye on how AI is reshaping our industry, and how this figures into the ratio. The early careers perspective I get through CodeYourFuture will run alongside that; how the same tensions play out at the start of a career, and what that means for those of us who mentor and support junior colleagues.

My first post will be reflections from London Tech Week 2026. If any of this resonates, follow along; I’d love to hear your thoughts as we go.