AHSAN KHAN

MBCS, CITP, MCMI

DETAILS

Nationality: British

Availability: Flexible (available to start next role very soon)

Current Salary: GBP £120k base + 25% bonus (flexible about package in the next role)

DOB: March 1979

Email: acuh78@r.postjobfree.com

Mobile: 0044 771-***-**** (please do leave a voicemail if I cannot pickup)

Current Location: Live and work near St Paul’s, Central London (relocation considered)

Desired Roles: VP Software Engineering, Solutions Director, Director Software Development, CTO

PROFILE

A highly experienced, insightful, solutions-driven, and strategic technology leader offering nearly twenty years of achievements spanning all aspects of full life-cycle software development, management, and strategy.

Goal-driven approach to product and project management; known for driving product roadmaps, and design of best-in-class software and product innovations that generate multimillion pound revenue.

An exceptionally motivated leader with strong execution focus. Expert in improving employee experiences and work practices to deliver efficiency gains and unlock areas of value.

Skilled in team growth and driving the right cultural behaviours to deliver performance.

Always striving to deliver on time and within budget.

Experience in managing multi-cultural and on-shore/off-shore teams in India, Eastern Europe, multiple locations in England, and Spain.

Strong software engineering background and hands-on experience in several technologies, tools, and methodologies including ASP.NET, C#, C++, MVC, MS SQL Server, WCF, web APIs, SaaS, PaaS, SOA, HTML 5, CSS3, Objective C and iOS, SSRS, Cystal Reports, SSIS, OOD, XSD, LINQ, XML, TeamCity, MS TFS, Jira, Entity Framework, R#, UML, Azure, Amazon AWS, nUnit, nDbUnit, jQuery, Javascript, Moq, system integration, TDD, Agile Scrum, Agile XP, Prince 2, DevOps, TOGAF, Prince 2, ITIL, Kanban, etc. etc.

Distinction in postgraduate study in Software Engineering at University of Oxford.

EDUCATION

2011 Postgraduate study in Software Engineering (Distinction)

University of Oxford

2014 - 2017 MSc in Software & System Security (part-time on-campus executive study)

University of Oxford

CAREER HISTORY

Helix International Group – Sustainware Ltd, City of London

Helix is an established group, which provides GRC Solutions - governance, risk management & compliance. Sustainware, a start-up, is the software business stream at Helix Group and is responsible for providing the software platform for risk management, compliance, and governance of operations, information security, government and industry regulations, and health & safety. Clients include BT, The Shard London, British Land, Workman LLP, Prudential, BAE Systems, Sainsbury’s, Credit Suisse, London Stock Exchange, Broadgate Estates, KPMG, etc.

Director & Head of Software Development Jun 2015 - Now

Associate Director & Head of Software Development Oct 2014 - May 2015

Software Development Manager & Head of Software Development Apr 2013 - Oct 2014

Software Development Lead Oct 2012 - Apr 2013

Key Responsibilities as the Head of the Software Business Stream at Helix Group:

Originally recruited by the CEO on a five-month contract to build a prototype of a SaaS based GRC software. The prototype was based on a fourteen-year-old legacy system. In March 2013, convinced the board of directors of the Group to approve funding for the two-year project to build a full-scale SaaS/PaaS based software platform. Since then the business stream has been experiencing 80% year-on-year growth and the software platform is now competing with market leading GRC systems.

Responsible for providing leadership, direction, and co-ordination across functional areas to drive integrated delivery of risk management software platform.

Direct and execute strategy to improve the results of the individual work streams.

Oversee all phases of product development lifecycle, from initial concept and requirements definition through to architecture, UX, software development, testing and quality control, and release.

Accountable for the delivery of a highly competitive, reliable, robust, scalable, and optimised platform in a dynamic and challenging environment.

Built result focused work streams to create a dynamic collaborative environment, focusing on innovation, organisational strategy, and business goals.

Develop, implement, and manage a process to make DevOps a part of the engineering development, quality assurance, service deployment, and operations lifecycle for rapid and continuous delivery, and monitoring. The decision to heavily use DevOps was made to take advantage of the latest technologies as well to increase consistency and to decrease human error.

Key contributor to development and launch of the software platform, skilfully guiding product strategy and roadmaps as well as design and implementation of critical maintenance patches, enhancements, and features based on weighted factors including customer requirements, roadmap, competitive market analysis, sales forecasts, and industry and governmental regulations.

Worked hard to increase the efficiency of the software development team by using past intensive experience in software development, by choosing the right technology for the right job, and with leading by example.

Providing monthly budget and progress report for the board of directors and investors.

Responsible for strategic planning of the work streams in the business (architecture, support, system test, software development, project management, service delivery, release management, and system & software security).

Ensure software coding adheres to the latest software engineering standards and practices.

Mentor software developers and quality assurance teams every step of the way to ensure that good software quality is achieved without compromising the deadlines.

Plan the Agile four-week sprint cycle with the Product Owner and the Project Manager.

Facilitate communication and collaborative problem solving among staff.

Actively participate in the hiring of highly skilled team members in all work streams of the business.

Provide oversight and direction for the design, implementation, release and maintenance of software deliverables that meet high standards for quality, stability, and performance and meet client expectations.

Responsible for design and execution of adequate Processes, Methodology, Practices and WoW (Ways of Working) in software development business stream shaping teams into efficient software factory. Key processes include:

oAgile software development methodologies using Scrum and XP

oSoftware factory approach

oCross-domain E2E design and implementation of complex features

oTest Driven Development where appropriate

Key focus on the distributed team itself and making sure it is performing optimally, working closely with managers and senior team members in ensuring on-time delivery of a quality software product.

Supplier selection, negotiations, and decision making based on their number of employees, geography, reputation in the market, certifications (for example, ISO 27001 for cloud infrastructure providers; Microsoft Gold partnership for outsourcing service providers), integrity, availability (for example, 24 hours for infrastructure support; weekend and late evening availability for software development outsourcing services), intellectual property, proactive approach, and cost.

Managing relationship with the third-party service providers of hosting infrastructure, IT, threat, vulnerability and pen-testing, ISO standards implementation, and software platform integration projects.

As the company is growing it is crucial to create a winning culture by empowering the team leads and managers, creating good communication and regular interaction between teams. Keeping the teams motivated, making sure importance and contributions of each team member is acknowledged by the management, regularly keeping team leads and managers aware of the strategy and direction of the business, and last but not least creating a culture of being open and honest about everything.

Making sure that the strong organisational values prevail and followed by all employees regardless of their geographical location while respecting culture of every team member.

Infonetica Ltd, Richmond

Infonetica provides clinical research solutions and its clients include NHS UK and Ministry of Health New Zealand.

Solutions Architect (consultant) Jul 2012 - Sep 2012

Responsible for delivering the architectural strategy for the existing and future products. Evaluated web architecture and security requirements of existing systems and future projects in the roadmap and designed an appropriate integration solution, which became the basis for the products.

Lead the improvements to the software architecture, and introduced best software engineering practices and latest development technologies.

Provided expert technical architectural support, mentoring, and guidance to group and individual software engineers based in the UK and in Eastern Europe.

Proposed technically feasible solutions and worked closely with business analysts, business development team and another solution architect, to establish success criteria and future road map for the architecture of the web systems.

Strategically designed, developed and implemented robust enterprise class system designs based on sound SOA practices that support modular integrated design concepts.

Promoted and ensured coding standards were consistently followed.

Designed and developed processes to handle intermittent failures, developed retry logics to keep the process running uninterrupted.

Satmap Systems Limited, Surrey

Satmap is a manufacturer of satellite navigation systems.

Applications Development Manager (consultant) Jan 2012 - Jul 2012

The primary responsibility was the overall leadership of multiple projects, establishing controls and guidance for the software development team.

Estimated and agreed development timescales and deliverables.

Provided weekly progress reports to the CEO.

Headed, managed and mentored a successful team.

Hands-on design and development using Microsoft technologies.

Responsible for the recruitment of software engineers.

Enhancement and support of the existing software applications.

Liaison with third-party service providers to deliver infrastructure and e-commerce services.

Responsible for company’s IT infrastructure (telephony, server farm, VMware vSphere).

Responsible for the software technical support team.

Cambridge Assessment, University of Cambridge

Cambridge Assessment is a not-for-profit department of the University of Cambridge, which provides education assessments to students all over the world.

Project Architect (consultant) Nov 2009 - Dec 2011

Analyse, design, document and build software systems, which conform to internal quality standards and ensure that external suppliers conform to those standards.

Manage teams in multiple geographic locations provided by multiple outsourcing companies in India, multiple UK locations, and Spain.

Training, leading and mentoring a team of developers to build systems, providing guidance to the team during development and testing.

Report on progress of developments to the project management for onwards dissemination to other stakeholders to ensure relevant parties are aware of projects' evolution.

Contribute to the setting and review of design and development standards for technologies within the department to maintain the quality of deliverables.

Contribute to project planning and resource allocation by providing resource requirements and estimates, identifying skills transfer requirements and any risks and issues.

Build and maintain effective relationships with the Business Stream and third party suppliers to facilitate effective delivery of quality-driven projects.

Collaborate with other Project Architects and Senior Developers to maintain the architectural integrity of the systems.

Work with Project Managers to ensure solutions meet product requirements.

Participate in architecture, design, and code reviews.

Provide on-going architectural support and guidance to project teams.

NHS - National Health Service, Somerset PCT

Technical Project Manager (consultant) Jul 2009 - Oct 2009

Midas Group Ltd, Exeter

Technical Project Manager (consultant) Nov 2008 - Jul 2009

Bray Leino Digital – The Mission Marketing Group, Exeter

Technical Project Manager (consultant) Jun 2008 - Oct 2008

Chapter Zero Limited, Exeter

Head of Software Development Feb 2007 - Jun 2008

Nexus Open Systems Limited, Exeter

Software Developer Feb 2006 - Feb 2007

Kingcrete Builders Limited

IT Manager Dec 2002 - Sep 2004

Software Developer/Graphics Designer Sep 1996 - Dec 2002

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