Need an empathetic engineering leader to develop something new or complex? Hire me!

I’m looking for work. 

My experience doesn't neatly fit standard job titles or sectors, and I've got an eclectic set of criteria for what I want to do, so maybe you can help me find a job which brings them together.

I've got a broad set of management, tech and sustainability skills. I've experience with products, operations, organisations; with open stuff and non-profit stuff and systems engineering and shared infrastructure and communities. I'm great at coordinating and supporting people and projects, especially across different specialisms or sectors. I can figure out how to explore and make progress on complex challenges. My work is usually with newer technologies and ideas, before they become mainstream, so the path is not clear.

Maybe you've got a problem to solve that I could help with?  Or do you know someone who has? Then get in touch. I’m an empathetic interdisciplinary engineering leader and I’m looking for work. Specifically, paid work, fully remote, working from the UK.

I'd like to do something useful, with decent people and good work that stands a chance of making a difference long term. Lots of things interest me, but there's two areas in particular I'd be keen to work in. The first is alternative (better) ways of building and operating computer and internet tech; more co-operatively, more commons-inspired. I'd love to be working on public interest technology, with decent governance and incentives, for more equitable and resilient tech than so much of what we have today.  The second area is around production and maintenance of things - physical objects - in ways that are sustainable. This could be regenerative manufacturing, new ways of doing production and repair, or how we care for and renew infrastructure. And I'm open to other ideas - some of the best jobs I've done have been unexpected ones. Surprise me! Email: hire.me@lbj.org.uk

Read on to find out more about what I can do, some highlights of what I've done, and ideas for what I'd like to be working on next.

What I can do

I’m best at helping groups of people with different skills or backgrounds, to work together on hard challenges, or in complex problem spaces or systems. I can enable specialists in very different fields to collaborate well, even when there’s a lot of uncertainty. This could be wrangling technologies from research into practice, or novel systems engineering, or designing and nurturing new ecosystems, or pioneering new ways of doing things.

My job titles have been many and varied. They don’t matter. The work and the mission are what matter to me. 

managed teams and developed product engineering and quality systems at a geospatial machine learning / remote sensing climate tech startup (Overstory)

worked in an incredible team at a think tank, using research and prototyping to provoke change in how tech is made and used so that it is better for everyone (Doteveryone)

coordinated user research into scholarly practices, and managed collaborative open source development and operations of critical university learning and research infrastructure (at the Centre for Applied Research on Educational Technologies)

You need my skills when there isn’t a roadmap to follow. (If there’s well defined practices and processes for what you are doing, there will be a specialist who will be better than me!) I can figure out and implement suitable processes to get things done operationally in many situations; and I can survey enough of the landscape to sketch and iterate on a strategy. This could be for a change-making organisation or a project or product. I work well alongside visionary leaders, bringing in the pragmatic decisions and practices that turn novel ideas into reality.

I was the first employee, given a three word brief "broadband home security", from which I built engineering teams and developed the product architecture for a secure and resilient consumer internet of things product (at AlertMe)

I supported projects and organisational development at a humanitarian NGO (Field Ready) using local manufacturing to make relief and reconstruction supplies where they are needed. The photo shows a colleague 3D printing custom water pipe fittings in a camp for displaced people in Nepal

currently board chair at Now Play This, an annual festival of experimental playful art and games

I do ‘deep tech’ or ‘high tech’ more than I do regular 'digital' or web or app stuff (unless it’s digital in a particularly unusual setting, or proper innovative stuff, where there’s risks and uncertainties). You don’t want me writing production code, unless there’s plenty of time for me to skill up first. (I do enjoy a hands-on learning opportunity, and would happily dive into a new technology if that was useful.) I'm good at finding bugs. I can get up to speed in whatever technology quickly enough to effectively support a team of engineers, hardware or software, and wrangle architectural ideas and systems design.

I hold a PhD in engineering (on error behaviour in high speed optical networks) from the University of Cambridge. I collaborated with, and was sponsored by, Intel Research

I managed the technical team training the AI, and also supported product development, to create conversational AI Evi (which later became Alexa) at True Knowledge, a natural language semantic search engine startup

managed the growth and launch of a collaborative open source hardware chip project (silicon root of trust OpenTitan, hosted at non-profit LowRISC)

I’m good at leading, defining and shaping initiatives; and coordinating, collaborating and bringing people together. I work with empathy and care, prioritising the team's shared mission. I don’t need to be a figurehead, or top of a hierarchy, to be effective when working with people inside or outside my organisation, or in a community. I can build and maintain relationships with formal and informal stakeholders/collaborators/funders. I can also foster connections folks from diverse fields and sectors, with radically different approaches and perspectives. I’ve worked with academics, activists, sales people, policy wonks and more. I’ve coached and managed teams of people with different backgrounds, countries, and skillsets - from the deepest technical experts, to specialists in communications or policy or arts and humanities.

co-founded (and set up from empty space) a community workshop, Makespace Cambridge, which is still thriving 11 years later with hundreds of members

led a global civil society / civic tech network using advocacy, technology and training to open up data and knowledge (as co-CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation, whilst it doubled in size year on year)

I designed and ran activities supporting tech startups to become more responsible and ethical (at the Digital Catapult’s Machine Intelligence Garage) and served on the Digital Catapult Ethics Committee

I can manage people, projects and programmes, using a range of different approaches and practices. I’ve worked with teams to develop products and services with a wide range of computer and internet technologies, including hardware engineering. This has often included elements of (quite technical) product management. I adapt quickly to new technologies and sectors, and can translate useful ideas and practices from different domains to new ones. I am happy being hands-on with organisation and facilitation and whatever it takes to get the things done. I’m great at prioritising. I can also work at a more strategic level - and weave it and the operational day to day together. 

created tech strategy and supported collaborative infrastructure software maintenance ("club goods" style) for an international network of national-scale progressive activist organisations (the-OPEN.net)

established the Trust&Technology Initiative, at the University of Cambridge - an interdisciplinary research network exploring the dynamics of trust and distrust in relation to internet technologies, society and power

I have managed projects and worked on strategy at a selection of renewable energy ventures. These included: Product Health, actionable intelligence about battery systems; Polysolar, transparent architectural solar photovoltaic glazing solutions (shown here); and Hidden Layer Systems, smart residential energy demand control systems

I am most experienced in early stage, growing or evolving organisations. I’m not the person who has the big idea at the start of a new venture. Instead, I am very good at getting stuff done to put an idea into practice: I can work out what problems to focus on when, I can make pragmatic and strategic decisions, and motivate and support teams to make good progress, even in uncertainty. I've written plenty of grant proposals, and the reports on the projects they have funded. 

I have worked in fully remote (and often internationally distributed organisations) for nearly 15 years. I know how to build and sustain connection and care across teams who may not have the chance to meet.  

currently board chair at the Green Web Foundation, working towards a fossil-free internet by 2030 

 

co-founding trustee at Cofarm, creating agroecological community market gardens (we’re currently figuring out how to enable places other than Cambridge to have Cofarms, through social franchising)

 

instigated the Festival of Maintenance, a volunteer-run event series celebrating maintenance in many forms, and recognizing the often hidden work done in repair, custodianship, stewardship, tending and caring

You can see a more complete list of things I've done on my website… or get in touch for my CV.

What I’m looking for

Some things about my next job are clear and specific. It will be paid work, fully remote, working from the UK. Occasional travel or on-site days would be fine. Of course, I want to work in a healthy, humane culture, with decent colleagues sharing some useful, meaningful purpose. Beyond that, my requirements are a little more vague.  I need to believe in the endeavour, whatever it is - it needs to seem to me to be viable, to stand a chance of doing what it intends to do, and to be able to sustain or evolve for the longer term if necessary. Perhaps this still seems a wide field, but it’s surprising how many opportunities these criteria rule out. Many ‘mainstream tech’ projects around fintech or marketing or recruitment leave me cold. 

That still leaves a lot of scope for the right challenge for me. It needs to be something significant, where I feel I can make a difference. I like a tangible output, perhaps with physical objects or real users or resilient infrastructure. I prefer building, maintaining or operating things, over pure research or advocacy or teaching. I am at my best working with others, with teams or communities or diverse individual collaborators, rather than in isolation. 

Sure, I’m interested in working on “climate”. Who isn’t, these days? Yes, I’ve worked for a variety of renewable energy ventures, but the things that intrigue me the most aren’t just about green power or carbon. I’m interested in how we can do less damage to the environment, and also how we can repair and restore what we’ve lost. We have a nature crisis as well as a climate one. This could be mitigating the worst effects of a changing climate and ecosystems, and adapting, or building for greater resilience. We will need better, and new, physical and social infrastructures to weather the coming years, and to maintain and repair what we have. I would love to be working on how we can have enough biodiversity, thriving ecosystems, clean water and healthy food. Or perhaps something around alternative materials, handling waste, reuse/remaking, or regenerative manufacturing.

I would also like the incredible potential of computer and internet technologies to be more equitable, accessible, useful, resilient and secure. Most of my career has been working with these technologies, from embedded systems to high speed networks to internet of things to virtual learning environments to conversational AI to open source silicon chips. And yet it seems that we are spending huge amounts of effort to build things that are ephemeral, or problematic, or confusing, or unreliable. What a waste: too many people are not getting the benefits that these technologies could deliver if they were implemented in different ways, with different aims in mind. Maybe we need more (or different) open source hardware and software, or more publicly owned and controlled tech, or more commons and club-goods technologies. The shared infrastructure tech projects I've worked on have been inspiring - from the Sakai Learning Management System to OpenTitan to the member data and action platforms at the Online Progressive Engagement Network.  I’d love to be part of building computer systems that are better suited to the needs of more people, more public interest technology, in the years ahead. The right governance and ownership are critical to avoid enshittification of the tech we rely on everyday. 

I’m picky. I have high standards for where I invest my time and energy, and I’ve been very lucky to have incredible opportunities so far. I have time to wait for the right thing to come along. 

My last role was leading engineering teams in a climate tech startup, reducing the risk of wildfire and power outages, by helping utility companies manage vegetation and reduce tree risks to power lines using satellite imagery. This was a fascinating combination of infrastructure, maintenance, tech and impact, and it would be lovely to find something hitting a similarly sweet spot.

My preferences are weakly held. Many of the things I've done have been unexpected projects or ventures I hadn't imagined beforehand. I'm up for new things I can't imagine now, too.  Surprise me with ideas and introductions! Or let's chat over coffee or zoom. Email: hire.me@lbj.org.uk