Summary
Overview
Work history
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Certification
References
Timeline
Generic

Kay Olan-George

Summary

Experienced software engineer with over ten years in delivering high-performance solutions in fintech, medical technology, and geospatial domains. Expertise in driving legacy modernisation initiatives, converting monolithic systems to cloud-native microservices on Azure and AWS, while maintaining compliance with ISO 13485 and PSD2. Hands-on leader skilled in cultivating engineering cultures of trust and mentoring senior talent, effectively aligning technical initiatives with business strategies.

Overview

11
11
years of professional experience
6043
6043
years of post-secondary education
1
1
Certification

Work history

lead software engineer (contract)

1Spatial
Remote
2020.03 - 2024.03
  • Facilitated mentorship and technical coaching for senior and mid-level engineers, enhancing time-to-productivity for new joiners from three months to six weeks while elevating overall team throughput by approximately 20%.
  • Influenced engineering practices through rigorous design reviews and strategic architectural proposals, ensuring alignment of 1Spatial's best practices with Ordnance Survey's operational standards.
  • Collaborated with non-engineering stakeholders to define problems and ensure backend solutions meet user needs, preventing approximately £150k in wasted development time on non-viable features.
  • Worked closely with product, data, and QA to validate assumptions with real-world signals, iterating systems based on observed outcomes to increase data processing efficiency by 15% (saving ~20 compute hours weekly).
  • Directed technical strategy for distributed backend services at Ordnance Survey, influencing architecture and delivery decisions across multiple teams and long-running initiatives.
  • Reduced systemic delivery risk by streamlining architecture and defining service boundaries to enhance clarity and efficiency in delivering geospatial job planning performance initiative for national geographic database.
  • Ensured effective communication with key stakeholders through detailed progress reports and milestone updates to facilitate informed decision-making.
  • Engaged with key stakeholders to ensure translation of technical needs into successful product development strategies.
  • Engineered observability and recovery mechanisms to achieve reduction in mean time to recovery for core mapping services from 4 hours to approximately 15 minutes.

lead software engineer (contract)

Innovation Group UK
London
2019.01 - 2020.02
  • Facilitate regular brainstorming sessions and workshops, employing collaborative tools to drive continuous enhancement in development practices.
  • Facilitated architectural transition of flagship 'gateway' claims platform to optimise domain-driven design (DDD) for improved collaboration and accelerated feature delivery.
  • Employed Azure Service Bus and Event Grid to decouple complex claims workflows, significantly improving system throughput during peak hours.
  • Implemented active-passive failover regions in Azure to enhance disaster recovery strategy, achieving significant improvements in recovery point objectives and compliance with insurer SLAs.
  • Integrated robust logging and monitoring solutions, leveraging Application Insights to support teams in efficiently addressing and resolving tier 1 issues without developer involvement.
  • Implemented blue-green deployment pipelines that eliminated downtime during software updates, allowing for daily deployment of patches to swiftly address client needs.
  • Implemented framework for technical autonomy, assigning architectural responsibilities of microservices to senior engineers, resulting in improved retention and increased lead time for strategic roadmap focus.
  • Facilitated knowledge sharing within development squad to improve understanding of modern .NET Core best practices through regular "lunch and learn" sessions.

sr. software engineer (contract)

Nikon Optos
, Fife
2017.04 - 2018.12
  • Utilised agile methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban, to streamline workflows and accelerate project delivery.
  • Utilised C# and .NET to deliver critical feature enhancements for flagship review software, facilitating clearer visualisation of ultra-wide field retinal images for clinicians.
  • Optimised image handling subsystems by implementing multi-threaded data processing techniques, significantly reducing image loading latency by approximately 25%, thereby directly improving patient throughput in busy clinical settings.
  • Engineered modular plugin architecture that facilitates multi-modal imaging, enabling Silverstone scan-head to execute concurrent optomap-guided OCT scanning across the retina.
  • Facilitated knowledge sharing and skill development amongst junior engineers contributing to overall team growth and success.
  • Executed UWF algorithms enabling 200° single-capture imaging within 500ms, significantly surpassing legacy standards for retinal coverage.
  • Ensured compliance with strict regulatory frameworks (ISO 13485 / FDA) to uphold high standards in design documentation and traceability matrices, thereby maintaining operational integrity during external audits.
  • Implemented detailed reviews of pull requests, focusing on maintainability and SOLID principles, which effectively reduced defect injection rates.

sr. software engineer

Anoto
Basingstoke, Hampshire
2015.03 - 2017.04
  • Facilitated knowledge sharing and skill development amongst junior engineers contributing to overall team growth and success.
  • Implemented advanced techniques in stroke rendering pipeline, resulting in reduced input latency from 50ms to less than 15ms, ensuring fluid writing interface.
  • Designed high-performance data processing modules for Anoto digital pen ecosystem to enhance efficiency of algorithms that decode proprietary dot-patterns into vector digital ink with sub-millimetre precision.
  • Executed automated simulation tools that replayed millions of archived pen strokes against new software builds, ensuring regression defects were caught pre-release and maintaining core stability at 99.9%.
  • Guided junior engineers in memory management and pointer safety, significantly reducing memory leaks and application crashes during long-running background services.

sr. backend engineer

MeDirect Bank
Paola, Malta
2013.06 - 2015.03
  • Designed and maintained ETL pipelines to facilitate secure integration of financial records from Finacle and Morningstar, enhancing data accuracy and reliability.
  • Designed and executed automated validation routines that reconcile investment portfolio data accurately, identifying and alerting on anomalies from external partners to safeguard customer ledgers.
  • Engineered high-concurrency transaction processing services using C# and .NET Core to ensure smooth handling of millions of euros in daily transfers.
  • Implemented critical T-SQL stored procedures for wealth management dashboards by restructuring execution plans and indexing strategies, significantly reducing portfolio reporting latency.
  • Designed and implemented high-throughput background jobs with Hangfire and Azure Functions, processing thousands of customer accounts within strict overnight batch windows.
  • Developed open banking APIs utilising OAuth2 and mTLS protocols, ensuring compliance with PSD2/RTS regulations and providing robust security for third-party integrations.
  • Implemented security-as-code practices by integrating static code analysis and vulnerability scanning into build pipeline.

Education

Postgraduate Certificate - Artificial Intelligence

University of St Andrews
St Andrews, Fife

Master of Science - Software Engineering

University of Portsmouth
Portsmouth

Bachelor of Science - Computing

University of Portsmouth
Portsmouth

Skills

  • Azure Core Management and Developer Tools: Portal, Cloud Shell, CLI, PowerShell, DevOps
  • Azure Networking & Integration: Key vault, Azure Monitor, Service Bus, Event Hub, Logic Apps
  • AWS Compute & Storage: Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Lambda, Step Functions, Simple Storage Service (S3), Elastic Block Store (EBS)
  • AWS Database & Networking: RDS, DynamoDB, Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Route 53, CloudFront
  • AWS Management & Developer Tools: Identity & Management (IAM), CloudWatch, CloudFormation, CLI
  • AWS Messaging: Simple Notification Service (SNS), Simple Queue Service (SQS), EventBridge
  • Object Orientated Programming (OOP), Domain Drive Design (DDD), Service Orientated Architecture (SOA), Test-Driven Development (TDD)
  • Cross-functional team coordination
  • Software development
  • Full-stack development
  • Resilience under pressure
  • Agile and scrum frameworks
  • Software architecture designing

Accomplishments

  • Chartered Engineer - Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET/Engineering Council)
  • Chartered IT Professional - British Computing Society (BCS)
  • International Professional Engineer (IET/Engineering Council)

Certification

  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate
  • AWS Certified: Solutions Architect Associate
  • AWS Certified: Solutions Architect Professional
  • AWS Certified: Security Specialty

References

References available upon request.

Timeline

lead software engineer (contract)

1Spatial
2020.03 - 2024.03

lead software engineer (contract)

Innovation Group UK
2019.01 - 2020.02

sr. software engineer (contract)

Nikon Optos
2017.04 - 2018.12

sr. software engineer

Anoto
2015.03 - 2017.04

sr. backend engineer

MeDirect Bank
2013.06 - 2015.03

Postgraduate Certificate - Artificial Intelligence

University of St Andrews

Master of Science - Software Engineering

University of Portsmouth

Bachelor of Science - Computing

University of Portsmouth
Kay Olan-George