Projects
Here are some of the projects I've worked on. Most are under NDA so I can't share all the details, but this should give you a reasonable sense of what I do.
Doefin
Digital options exchange for Bitcoin mining difficulty | 2024 – Present
Doefin is building a trading platform for a rather niche financial product — options on Bitcoin mining difficulty. It's the sort of thing that needs to be reliable, performant, and built with institutional traders in mind.
I've been working on the frontend, building out web3 integrations with Ethereum smart contracts. This means handling wallet connections, transaction signing, and ensuring everything operates smoothly when you're dealing with blockchain interactions. The challenge is making crypto mechanisms feel as straightforward as conventional web applications, which is considerably harder than it sounds.
The result is a platform that's sufficiently robust for institutional use, with documentation that makes sense when you're conversing with investors or compliance folk.
Archax
Crypto & digital assets trading platform | September 2022 – 2024
Archax had just raised a Series A and needed assistance scaling their crypto trading platform. When you're building something where a few milliseconds can cost real money, you can't simply guess at performance — you have to measure everything.
I worked on backend services, focused on keeping things fast and ensuring they didn't fracture when things got busy. This meant considerable profiling, fixing bottlenecks, and thinking through what happens when third-party APIs go down or network connections drop.
By the end, the platform was handling real-time data at the speed institutional traders expect, with substantially better resilience when things inevitably go awry.
OneBot
AI chatbot for IT service management | June 2024 – Present
OneBot is an AI-powered chatbot for IT teams. I joined as Lead Software Engineer to help them re-architect the platform and get their delivery process in better shape.
The system needed to scale, the LLM integrations needed to be more reliable, and the team needed clearer ways of working. I spent time redesigning the core architecture to be more modular, establishing better engineering practices, and ensuring the AI integrations were cost-effective and safe.
Tech: Python, Next.js, MongoDB, Qdrant (a vector database for AI retrieval)
The result: faster feature delivery, a clearer technical roadmap, and a platform that's considerably easier to reason about when something breaks.
CloudMargin
Collateral management platform for financial institutions | February 2021 – March 2022+
CloudMargin builds software for managing collateral in financial markets. I started as a Senior Software Engineer and was promoted to Lead after a few months (and was voted Best New Joiner in 2022, which was rather gratifying).
My principal project was integrating with AcadiaSoft, which automates margin calls for banks. This meant building reliable event-driven systems using AWS (SQS, DynamoDB, SNS), maintaining high test coverage, and ensuring the frontend (React/Redux/TypeScript) worked smoothly with the backend (Node.js/TypeScript).
I also spent considerable time mentoring junior developers, running refinement sessions, and helping shape technical decisions as the team grew.
Nationwide Building Society
Modernizing development practices | September 2019 – ?
As a Senior Software Engineer in Nationwide's Internet Bank division, I worked on various projects using C#, .NET Core, and ASP.NET. But the most interesting thing I did was lead the migration from TFVC (an antiquated Microsoft version control system) to Git.
This wasn't merely about switching tools — it meant coordinating with multiple teams, migrating build pipelines, and convincing people that the pain of change was worthwhile. It was, and Nationwide's development process is substantially smoother now.
CDK Global
Automotive retail software | March 2012 – September 2019 (7 years)
I spent 7 years at CDK Global working on Autoline Drive, software for car dealerships. I held various roles — Software Engineer, Scrum Master, Technical Lead — and learned a great deal about managing teams and shipping software in a sizable organization.
The most memorable part was working with KCML, a proprietary programming language that didn't always behave the way you'd expect. It was frustrating at the time, but it forced me to become proficient at debugging and to never assume code will do what it appears it should do.
If you're working on something in a similar vein and need help, get in touch: will@fortytech.co.uk or 07796687935.