Roger Thomas

Lead the technical direction and the team automating the tracing and recovery of lost workplace pensions using AI/ML, on a platform acquired by one of the UK’s largest pension providers in 2024.

• Built an event-driven platform for automated document storage, analysis, and processing of all incoming communications at scale.
• Applied AI/ML to classify and extract data from unstructured pension documents.
• Designed and operated the data pipelines feeding the tracing and recovery workflow.
• Implemented secure document handling: background virus scanning and a spam/threat-isolation rule system.
• Ran the platform on Kubernetes for scalable, resilient processing.

Bespoke software, product development, and applied AI across regulated, high-stakes sectors, including fintech, renewable energy, and medical.

• As founder, lead the business end to end: technical direction, team, and delivery from first conversation through to production and beyond.
• Lead multi-sector delivery where reliability, security, and compliance are non-negotiable.
• Conceived, built, and released several software products, taking each from concept through launch and ongoing operation.
• Integrate AI and machine learning into client solutions and in-house products, from intelligent automation to data analysis and decision support.
• Build and lead the team: hiring, mentoring, and coordinating engineers and specialist partners around each project.

Joined on contract and moved into a permanent leadership role, owning end-to-end delivery of complex software across multiple strategic initiatives.

• Led and mentored a high-performing software engineering team, setting a culture of technical excellence and innovation.
• Drafted the organisation's initial ethical-AI policies, establishing early guidelines for the responsible, governed use of AI.
• Spearheaded the development and launch of a carbon-emission calculation tool supporting the business's sustainability goals.
• Directed engineering on Kubernetes-native automations for a multi-tenant, headless CMS platform.
• Designed and implemented CI/CD pipelines for a microservices architecture and optimised container-driven infrastructure.
• Introduced a model for quantifying and systematically paying down technical debt.

Co-founded a social app for sharing travel adventures, building the product and engineering function from the ground up.

• Co-founded the company and led development, taking the app from concept to a live product in users’ hands.
• Owned the technical direction and managed delivery across the full mobile and backend stack.
• Built and led the development team, setting engineering practices and priorities for an early-stage product.

Led the development team behind highly scalable mobile game APIs, built primarily in Python on Google Cloud.

• Owned both the people and the infrastructure behind a live, high-traffic gaming platform.
• Architected scalable game APIs using RESTful and socket-based services for real-time gameplay.
• Built core platform services: in-app purchases, matchmaking, data storage and backup, reporting, and profanity filtering.
• Continuously evolved the Google Cloud stack (App Engine, Compute Engine, Datastore, Cloud Storage) for performance and reliability.

Led key client projects to on-time, on-budget delivery across a MongoDB, PHP, and MySQL stack.

Designed and maintained RESTful services and front-end features in an enterprise PHP/Zend architecture, with hands-on Linux administration and security hardening.

Led software development across EMEA, owning hands-on technical delivery on key projects and supporting the wider development team.

Built developer-focused diagnostic services for pinpointing application points of failure across multiple industries, and mentored junior developers in avoiding common pitfalls.