Simon
McManus

An experienced leader with a hands-on technical background, I excel at leveraging data-driven insights to guide high-performing teams towards organisational alignment and technical excellence.

Experience

  1. Trainline.com - Engineering Team Lead

    October 2021 - present

    • Web Platform - Shareable Search. Leading a team of 6, formulated roadmap, coordinating between ~8 different teams to consolidate 9 different search widgets (the most impactful widget across entire web estate) into a single shared component. Improving lead time and ability to learn fast via experimentation.
    • Conversion Rate Optimisation. Leading a team of 6, collaborated with product, design, SEO, data science and platform teams to define team strategy, roadmap, and goals (OKRs). Hypothesis-driven development ensured early validation and feedback. Improved experimentation capabilities and delivering significant improvement in ticket sales.
  2. DREST - Tech Lead

    May 2020 - July 2021

    Led diverse cross functional, remote teams. Collaborated closely with product, design, fashion and data teams to ensure alignment and deliver products that engaged users.

    • DREST Core Loop. Rebuilt the DREST core loop using React Native and X-State. Worked with senior stakeholder, architecture and delivery.
    • Selfie Avatar. Led team of iOS/Android and Node/GraphQL developers to build a pipeline transforming 2d selfies into a 3d full-body model.
    • Gucci Wardrobe . Led build of React/X-State solution that let Gucci VIPs try on clothes. Intended audience was around 3000 but after the Gucci CEO tried it out it was sent to all of Gucci’s 30,000 VIPs.
  3. Limescan Senior Engineer (contract)

    June 2019 - March 2020
  4. Domino's Pizza Group Senior Engineer (contract)

    July 2019 - January 2020
  5. NearForm Senior Developer (contract)

    May 2016 - March 2019

I've also worked with Rare/Microsoft, Sainsburys, Tesco, Clock, News UK, The Sun, GoSquared, Volkswagen, AKQA, Nike and BT.

Education

  1. Staffordshire University
    • BSc(Hons) Internet Technology

Technologies

Frontend
HTML, CSS, Javascript, React, Vue.js, React Native, Android and iOS.
Backend
Node.js, REST, Express, Fastify, Hapi, GraphQL.
Continuous Integration / Delivery
AWS, Github Actions, Azure, Netlify, Jenkins, CircleCI.
Testing
TDD/BDD: React Testing Library, Jest, Playwright, Selenium, Cyprus, Typescript.
Monitoring
Kafka, NewRelic, SpeedCurve, Sentry and Apollo Studio.
Cloud
Ec2, Elasticache, Serverless, S3, Contentful.

Strengths

Leadership
Proven experience in steering remote technical teams towards organisational alignment, ensuring high technical standards, and achieving broader strategic objectives.
Mentoring
Skilled in nurturing engineers, fostering their technical and professional growth. Aligning individual growth with business objectives. Assisted senior engineers in their transition to leadership roles.
Business Impact
A track record of spearheading innovations from ideation to execution, with initiatives that have accelerated learning, provided valuable user insights, and boosted annual sales.
Technical Excellence
Established benchmarks for quality, enhanced testing mechanisms and contributed to development handbooks. A commitment to consistently high technical standards.
Delivery
Champion of results-oriented agile practices. Experienced in Scrum, Kanban and less formal implementations. Certified Scrum Alliance Product Owner.
Experimentation
Applying scientific method to product development through Hypothesis-driven development, emphasising early validation and continuous learning.

Interests

I enjoy presenting at events, particularly taking complex technical concepts and explaining them to diverse audiences. Some of my recent talks covered:

  • Accelerate - Secrets of high performing teams (DORA/Platform Edition)
  • Hypothesis-Driven Development
  • Progressive Enhancement Strategies

I've hosted the London Node User Group (LNUG) Podcast and have helped to run and mentor at London Node School events. In 2016 I organised, funded, branded, and curated a schedule of 14 speakers from around the world in the first conference dedicated to Progressive Enhancement.

I have written an article for Net magazine on 'Writing Maintainable Express applications' and have previously contributed evidence to the House of Lords Information Committee explaining the best ways to publish data on the web. My contribution was published and referenced several times in the committee report.

References

Available on request.