Credentials
Recognition • Certifications • Career timeline
I combine 3 years of commercial software and AI engineering with 20 years of teaching, leadership, and building things from scratch. This page brings together my recognition, certifications, and career journey so far.
Recognition
- Version 1 Excellence Awards – Rising Star - shortlisted in recognition of impact and contribution.
Leadership & strategic contribution
- Version 1 Shadow Board member & Co-Chair - contributing to cross-organisation strategic discussions, representing early-career perspectives and providing structured, delivery-informed feedback to senior leadership.
- As Co-Chair, helped set agendas, facilitated discussions, and coordinated Shadow Board activity, ensuring productive engagement and clear outcomes across initiatives.
- Led a Shadow Board initiative from concept through to proposal, collaborating with peers across disciplines and presenting outcomes into formal strategic forums.
- Regularly participated in strategic meetings reviewing internal initiatives, offering constructive challenge, risk considerations, and practical recommendations grounded in delivery experience.
- Acted as a sounding board for other internal programmes, helping shape direction, prioritisation, and communication to improve adoption and impact.
- Excellence Awards 2025 – AI Innovator (Judge) - served as a judge for the AI Innovator category, reviewing and evaluating submissions from across the organisation.
Further reflection
I wrote a reflective piece on my year on the Version 1 Shadow Board, covering what I learned, what challenged me, and how the experience shaped my confidence and leadership approach.
Read: A Year on the Shadow Board →Advanced programmes & capability
Version 1 AI Ready: Architect Programme
An intensive internal programme focused on AI security, strategy, and implementation, covering responsible AI design, governance, and architectural decision-making, alongside rapid prototyping using Windsurf across realistic business scenarios.
Completed as part of Version 1’s internal AI capability development.
Anthropic Partner Basecamp & Claude Certified Architect
Completed Anthropic's Partner Basecamp training programme, covering the Claude API, prompt engineering, responsible AI development, and building production-ready applications with the Anthropic SDK. Achieved the Claude Certified Architect , Foundations certification in July 2026.
Badge embed provided by Credly.
Microsoft Copilot Studio Agent Build-A-Thon
Earned a Microsoft-issued badge for participating in a three-week virtual build-a-thon, gaining hands-on experience building AI agents, receiving expert guidance, and showcasing an agentic prototype for a real business use case.
Badge embed provided by Credly.
Professional skills
- Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Angular
- Backend: Python, Flask, Node.js
- AI & ML: Azure AI Services, OpenAI, Hugging Face, SLMs
- Cloud: Azure (Key Vault, Storage, Cosmos DB), Databricks
- DevOps: Docker, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, CI/CD pipelines
- Delivery: Agile / Scrum, stakeholder engagement, documentation
Certifications
- Anthropic Claude Certified Architect , Foundations (July 2026)
- AI Engineer Agentic Track: The Complete Agent and MCP Course, Ed Donner, Udemy (September 2026)
- GH-300 GitHub Copilot
- Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-102)
- Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-900)
- Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)
- Docker Essentials – IBM
- Generative AI Essentials – AWS
- Green Software for Practitioners – Linux Foundation
- PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner
- AgilePM Foundation and Practitioner
Career timeline
August 2026 – Present
Lead Innovation Engineer · Home Office (Version 1)
- Contracted to the Home Office, working on innovative AI solutions to real business problems within a government innovation function.
- Final module of my Degree Apprenticeship in Advanced Software Engineering (AI) submitted. Straight A's across all six graded modules.
January 2026 – July 2026
AI Engineer · DSIT AI Engineering Lab (Version 1)
- Led the community engagement workstream for the AI Engineering Lab: 600+ members, 100+ AI Champions, 14 newsletters to a contact list of 800+, Knowledge Hub built in collaboration with DSIT.
- Forward Deployed Engineer at the AI Engineering Lab Hackathon: the largest AI event the UK public sector has ever staged. 280 engineers registered, 40 teams formed, delivered in partnership with Anthropic, Microsoft, GitHub, and AWS. 2 of the 3 teams I supported placed in the top 3, including the overall winners.
- Line manager to 2 direct reports; leading technical interviews for senior AI engineering roles.
- Delivering solutions using Python, TypeScript, React, Angular, Azure AI Services, and Docker.
2024 – 2026
AI Engineer / Frontend Developer (Version 1)
- Delivered Cafcass Scribe: an AI tool supporting 1,500 Family Court Advisers and 80,000 letters/month. Gartner Eye on Innovation runner-up. Angular 19/20, Material 3, Azure AI Services, Playwright automated testing.
- Built the Enterprise Virtual Assistant, a RAG-based chatbot packaged for client deployment, using Azure AI Services, OpenAI, React, Docker, CI/CD, and Azure.
- Partnering closely with backend teams and supporting quality through testing, documentation, and cross-functional collaboration.
2023 – 2024
Associate Consultant (Early Careers Programme)
- Built user-focused interfaces for AI-powered tools in public and private sector contexts.
- Developed full-stack foundations, stakeholder skills, and practical experience integrating AI capabilities into real products.
- Delivered features collaboratively across multidisciplinary teams.
2021 – 2023
Career transition & technical training
- Completed a government-funded Skills Bootcamp in Front-End Development (React, JavaScript, responsive UI).
- Joined the Version 1 Early Careers Academy with training across full-stack delivery, Agile, cyber security, and cloud fundamentals.
- Built personal and pro bono projects to strengthen hands-on engineering skills.
2004 – 2021
Education (Teacher & leadership roles)
- Taught across multiple settings and age ranges over 17 years, building deep expertise in communication, planning, and adapting to different audiences.
- Led the design and build of a school farm from concept to delivery, managing stakeholders, logistics, and cross-team coordination.
- Duke of Edinburgh Manager, overseeing programme delivery, risk management, and student development.
- Arranged and led school trips, managing logistics, safeguarding, budgets, and communication with parents and external providers.
- Successful sports coach, particularly in hockey, developing teamwork, resilience, and performance in competitive settings.
- These leadership and delivery skills now underpin how I approach engineering work: clear communication, structured problem-solving, and building things from scratch.
