perpetualvector.com

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James Williams

Engineering Manager Technical Leader Delivery Catalyst
📱+353 87 602 5625 📧 james.williams@liquid-armour.com 🌐 linkedin.com/in/williajd

“Software is a team sport — my role is to create the conditions for teams to deliver, learn, and thrive.”

PROFILE

Engineering leader with 20+ years in software delivery, known for turning struggling teams into high-performers and driving sustainable, predictable delivery. Believes “software is a team sport” and has consistently built high-trust, high-output teams that deliver business value at pace. Combines deep technical expertise in microservices, event-driven systems, and cloud platforms with a pragmatic, people-first leadership style. Skilled at aligning engineering delivery with organisational goals, rebuilding confidence in teams, and embedding CI/CD and DevOps practices that stick.

Whether it’s stabilising a legacy release pipeline, leading large-scale migrations, or aligning engineering output with business priorities, my approach is consistent: cut through complexity, focus on outcomes, and build a culture where delivery is a given, not a gamble.

KEY SKILLS

  • Delivery-focused leadership – Aligning teams to deliver reliably, sustainably, and at pace.
  • Flow optimisation – Removing bottlenecks and improving throughput using Lean, Kanban, and DevOps principles.
  • Technical depth – Scala, Java, GoLang, microservices, event-driven architecture, Docker, Kubernetes, REST, PostgreSQL, MongoDB.
  • Change leadership – Coaching teams through process, tooling, and mindset shifts.
  • Continuous improvement – Embedding CI/CD, automated testing, and iterative release patterns.
  • Cross-functional collaboration – Bridging engineering, product, and business for shared delivery goals.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Reduced release failures from 40% to under 10% and cut application crash reports by 50% by implementing robust CI/CD and transforming team processes.
  • Led a failing team at HMRC to become the #1 performing unit out of 100+ by embedding a DevOps culture and achieving at least daily deployments within six months.
  • Drove a 20x increase in passport renewal automation (from 1% to 20%) and accelerated release velocity from weekly to daily.
  • Cut AWS costs by 25% over three years while doubling system capacity annually through a successful migration to microservices and event-driven architecture.
  • Halved release cycle times and cut production defects by 50% by introducing and coaching Test-Driven Development (TDD).
  • Strengthened platform security by achieving a 50% reduction in issues found during penetration testing.

CAREER HISTORY

**Engineering Manager, PDF Pro – Windows, MacOS, iOS Nitro Software Jan 2023 – Jan 2025**

Nitro Software provides document productivity tools used by millions worldwide.

  • Took over a Windows desktop team with a history of unreliable releases and low delivery confidence.
  • Introduced disciplined CI/CD practices and value-flow tracking, restoring fortnightly release cadence within 5 months.
  • Shifted from reactive, tactical fixes to a sustainable, predictable delivery model.
  • Rebuilt trust between engineering and the wider company — the team went from least to most reliable in the business.
  • Applied cloud-style delivery principles to native applications, proving CI/CD works beyond web environments.
  • The PDF Pro group consisted of 2 teams, 22 engineers, with 15 reporting directly to me

Result: Cut failed releases from 40% to below 10%, reduced BugSplat crash reports by 50%, and restored confidence in both engineering and product stability.

**Engineering Manager, Nitro Sign Nitro Software Jan 2022 – Jan 2023**
  • Continued improvement work from Team Lead role, embedding WIP limits and clear work breakdowns to maintain consistent delivery.
  • Onboarded and integrated a newly acquired team (Connective) into Nitro’s engineering culture, aligning tooling, practices, and expectations.
  • Working with the Architecture Group we championed re-use of microservices across the 2 distinct signing platforms, Connective and Nitro Sign.
  • Maintained sustainable pace while meeting delivery commitments.

Result: Improved uptime to 99.9%+ while delivering almost daily to production, and achieved a 50% reduction in issues found during penetration testing.

**Senior Platform Engineer / Team Lead Nitro Sign Apr 2019 – Jan 2022**
  • Hands-on Scala development for eSigning features while leading the team.
  • Led migration from monolith to microservices, improving scalability and resilience.
  • Transitioned to an event-driven architecture, reducing performance bottlenecks from synchronous patterns.
  • Embedded CI/CD pipeline improvements using GitHub Actions and Kubernetes.

Result: Doubled signing request capacity each year while reducing AWS costs by 25% over three years.

**Senior Scala/Java Developer /Technical Lead Equal Experts Sep 2017 – Nov 2018**

Boston Consulting Group – Built a secure SSO-based authentication platform for containerised applications.

HM Passport Office (DAP) – Led development of automated systems to process passport applications, integrating with and replacing legacy systems.

  • Delivered core services for application validation, binary storage, and scaling.
  • Introduced tools to identify minimal change sets for release, increasing release cadence from monthly to daily.
  • Migrated services from REST to async PUB/SUB to improve throughput.

Result: Increased automation from ~1% to 20% of passport renewals.

**Senior Scala Developer Moneyfarm Apr 2017 – Sep 2017**

Delivered software enhancements, technical analysis, and architectural improvements across multiple projects, embedding TDD and CI/CD.

**Senior Scala Developer / Tech Team Lead Equal Experts – HMRC (CATO) Jun 2014 – Apr 2017**
  • Took over a failing team; within 6 months, achieved daily deployments, low incident rates, and top performance among 100 HMRC Digital teams.
  • Improved architecture using Scala, MongoDB, and microservices, embedding CI/CD and Docker.

Result: Highest-performing team in HMRC Digital based on frequency of delivery, uptime and low failure rate

EARLIER CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

**Senior Scala Developer / Technical Team Lead Beamly (Sep 2012 – Jun 2014)**
  • Automated deployments and reduced errors by introducing CI/CD pipelines.
  • Delivered a unified TV guide data ingest platform, improving data accuracy and cutting ingestion time by 60%.
**Senior Java Developer / Technical Team Lead (Contract) Mediaocean (Jun 2011 – Jul 2012)**
  • Led platform build for internal and external services, reducing service response times by 40%.
**Senior Java Developer (Contract) PLUS Markets Group (Jul 2010 – May 2011)**
  • Delivered new trading platform components, improving reporting and compliance timeliness by 50%.
**Technical Lead / Agile Practices Coach base2 Services (Dec 2007 – May 2010)**
  • Introduced TDD across multiple teams, reducing production defects by 50% and cutting release cycle times in half.
**Senior Java Developer / Technical Lead (Contract) EDS Australia (Dec 2006 – Dec 2007)**
  • Delivered critical Telstra transformation components, enabling launch readiness for BigPond services ahead of schedule.
**Software Developer Geometry Pty Ltd (Jan 2002 – May 2005)**
  • Led Land Titles system implementation for Australian Capital Territory on time and under budget, reducing running and maintenance costs by 50%+.

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS

• Professional Academy Diploma in Leadership & Management – University College Dublin (Distinction, 2022)

• Bachelor of Computing – University of Tasmania (2003, Dean’s Roll of Excellence, Faculty of Science & Engineering)