Curriculum Vitae
- Name:
- Christopher Mark Buckley M.Sc. (Dunelm)
- Email:
- chris@cmbuckley.co.uk
Summary
An accomplished technology leader and mentor with over 17 years’ experience driving large-scale engineering transformations and leading high-performing teams. Proven ability to define and execute technical strategies, ensure engineering excellence and build scalable, fault-tolerant solutions. Excellent hands-on experience in architecture, engineering and technical operations. Known for creating culture of collaboration, continuous learning and technical ownership, while effectively communicating with clients and aligning stakeholders at all organisational levels. Keen advocate of open-source technologies and communities.
Professional Experience
Head of Engineering
- Lead and scale the engineering team, establishing a high-performance culture
- Develop & execute technical strategy & innovation in collaboration with executive leadership
- Drive technical excellence and organisational maturity through best practices in software delivery, code quality, testing and deployment
- Own the engineering roadmap, resource allocation and delivery schedules
- Manage budgets, resource & progression planning and vendor relationships
Principal Consultant
- Defined tech strategy for architecture & engineering capabilities, client engagement & account management with clients across healthcare, financial services & retail sectors
- Mentor for 5 senior architects & engineers supporting individual career paths & capability leadership
- Defined company-wide mission, roadmap & progression plans with heads of capability
- Managed internal technical operations, coordinated vulnerability remediation across 120 user devices and introduced new BYOD policies to satisfy Cyber Essentials Plus audit
- Experienced in delivering tech strategy, M&A technical due diligence & ISO 27001 / CE+ compliance
Interim CTPO, Preventx
- Ownership, management and execution of the Preventx technology strategy
- Overall responsibility for the technology within Preventx, including the platform, infrastructure, operations & quality management
- Responsible for IT budget, including forecasting, allocation, and expenditure tracking
- Product strategy and alignment of commercial aspirations with technical capabilities
- Senior leadership, mentorship & motivation of a 20-person blended technical team
- Fostered a culture of innovation and collaboration, representing the technical team at board level
Engineering Lead, Scottish Friendly Assurance
- Managed a blended team of 10 engineers distributed across multiple workstreams & locations
- Supported development & assurance testing for a successful multi-year platform upgrade & introduction of Consumer Duty
- Delivered organisation digital maturity improvements for SDLC, software governance, Continuous Integration & ways of working
Principal Architect, Strike
- Architecture lead for Strike during acquisition of Purplebricks
- Technical appraisal of existing technology platforms, services & suppliers to inform target operating model, consolidated target landscape, change roadmap & risk assessment, enabling accelerated re-launch under a single brand & proposition within 6 months
Lead Architect, NHS England
- Architect & Account Manager for NHS COVID Pass programme
- Supported creation of target operating model for successful service transition from NHSX to NHS BSA, aligning commercials, policy & technical governance
- Responsible for Technical Design Authority process overseeing programme change
- Led the initiative to embed SDLC best practices & release COVID Pass source code to the public
Senior Solutions Architect
- Launched a product-agnostic games content aggregation platform with teams across the Flutter group, saving over £2m annually in third-party platform fees and driving platform independence
- Pioneered real-time Kafka data streaming platform to standardise communication with Data teams
- Oversaw vulnerability management initiative prioritising & resolving hundreds of vulnerabilities across the gaming estate in under 6 months
- Incident Commander providing measured support to on-call teams during incidents and major events
- Technical contact for third-party suppliers providing supporting services and delivery capability
- Mentor to other architects and engineers in teams across gaming products and services
Engineering Manager
- Provided leadership, management & coaching for 40+ full-stack Software, Test & Platform Engineers
- Built & led agile engineering teams, growing from 4 to 10 cross-functional squads over 2 years
- Implemented and communicated secure SDLC, increasing deployment frequency from 10 to over 200 per week
- Managed third-party vendor relationships with Architects and Service Delivery Managers
- Responsible for recruiting and retaining diverse-skill teams, working closely with Talent Recruiters
- Championed corporate open-source contribution and technical community involvement
Principal Engineer
- Technical lead for Sky Poker in-house LAMP development team
- Delivered and maintained a JavaScript poker application integrating with a third-party engine
- Technical liaison for third-party supplier integration and software architecture
- Defined product roadmap and strategic direction with Director of Product
- Collaborated with Platform and Service Operations teams to ensure high availability
- Worked with Architects to evolve company technical roadmap
Senior Software Engineer
- Delivered CSAT tooling & SMS-based PHP applications using Zend Framework & ActiveMQ
- End-to-end accountability for key projects from design to launch
- Maintained Continuous Integration and code analysis tools
- Design authority and development of standards for RESTful Web services
- Participated in team recruitment process (interviewing, technical tests)
Developer
- Development of PHP property management system with JavaScript Web frontend
- Refactored existing implementation for cross-browser compatibility
- Maintained the LAMP platform, CVS repository, coding standards and Bugzilla
Qualifications
- BPSS & SC Clearance
- UKSV, January 2023
- Manager HD Programme
- Institute of Leadership & Management, April 2015
- Practitioner in Enterprise & Solution Architecture
- British Computer Society, December 2013
- Master of Science (Research)
- Faculty of Science, University of Durham, 2006–2009
- Bachelor of Science
- College of St. Hild and St. Bede, University of Durham, 2003–2006
- Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1)
- B.Sc. Natural Sciences (Computer Science & Mathematics)
Personal Interests
- Programming (contributions to several open-source projects)
- Rock climbing
- Snowboarding
- Cycling / mountain biking
- Languages (Polish, French)
- Music (guitar, live music events)