Experience

My professional journey and work history

ATS Engine
04/2026 to Present
Location:Kirkcaldy

Founder & Product Owner — ATS Engine

Description

Founded DennisNowland Ltd (registered in Scotland, SC885995) and built ATS Engine, a multi-tenant recruitment platform for recruitment agencies around the world, and for the job seekers they place. Designed, built, deployed and operated end to end — product, architecture, code, infrastructure, billing and go-to-market.

What It Does
  • Criterion-by-criterion candidate matching, with the reasoning behind every score exposed rather than hidden.
  • Compliance document tracking across eight regulated sectors, with expiries raising recruiter tasks automatically.
  • Evidence-grounded document generation — every generated claim traced back to a line in the source CV.
  • An email agent that classifies recruiter and job-seeker mail over IMAP, read-only by protocol.
Key Responsibilities
  • Architected and built a Laravel REST API and a React single-page application against MySQL, deployed on a self-managed Linux VPS behind nginx.
  • Enforced multi-tenant isolation through a global scope applied to every tenant-owned model, with a data export that aborts rather than emit a row belonging to another organisation.
  • Integrated PayPal subscription billing including per-seat pricing brackets, plan revision on team growth, and a daily reconciliation job that survives a missed webhook.
  • Built the AI layer — CV analysis, matching, and document generation — with per-agent cost tracking and evidence grounding.
  • Designed and shipped the marketing site, an in-app help centre, and twenty-five narrated product walkthroughs.
  • Built a separate operations panel for system monitoring, campaign delivery, bounce handling, suppression and marketing attribution.
  • Owned SEO, analytics, directory listings and outbound campaigns, including UTM attribution and bot filtering.
Core Skills
Engineering & Architecture
PHP Laravel React JavaScript MySQL REST API Design Multi-Tenant SaaS Nginx Linux VPS CI & Release Scripting
AI & Data
LLM Integration Prompt Engineering Evidence Grounding Retrieval Context AI Cost Governance Document Parsing
Product & Commercial
Product Ownership Subscription Billing PayPal Integration Pricing Design Regulatory Compliance GDPR & Data Isolation SEO Marketing Attribution Technical Writing
CGI IT UK
01/2022 to 03/2026
Location:Remote

Senior Software Engineer Consultant

Description

Held multiple leadership roles across major government programmes, including SQA, NICTS, SmartDCC, Courts (CDE & DCF), M&T, and Glasgow Council. Delivered large-scale Agile transformations, multi-team coordination, and end-to-end delivery management across complex, multi-vendor environments.

Roles Held
  • Delivery Manager – SQA Account (2025)
  • Agile Coach / Senior Scrum Master – NICTS Account (2024–2025)
  • Agile Coach / Scrum Master – Courts (CDE), Courts (DCF), SmartDCC Account (2022–2024)
  • Agile Coach / Project Manager – M&T Programme (2022)
  • Agile Coach – Glasgow Council Refuse Service (OBS21) (2022)
Key Responsibilities
  • Directed delivery across Platform, Data, and development teams, improving productivity, managing dependencies, and maintaining delivery momentum.
  • Led Agile transformation initiatives across up to three cross-functional, multinational teams, embedding Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe practices.
  • Facilitated Scrum of Scrums, quarterly Iteration Planning, capacity forecasting, and roadmap alignment across multiple time zones.
  • Built executive-level dashboards for sprint progress, risk tracking, system changes, and stakeholder visibility.
  • Improved backlog refinement, estimation accuracy, and workflow efficiency; introduced Definitions of Ready/Done and Agile Ways of Working.
  • Optimised Jira, Confluence, and Azure DevOps environments, creating custom workflows, issue types, templates, and reporting structures.
  • Strengthened engineering practices by introducing Git standards, release workflows, and structured communication frameworks.
  • Acted as Agile Project Manager during critical periods, leading a 16-member delivery team and exceeding client expectations.
  • Guided discovery phases, structured requirements, and built high-quality backlogs meeting the Definition of Ready.
  • Coached junior and senior team members, PMs, and client stakeholders, improving collaboration, delivery discipline, and Agile maturity.
  • Owned end-to-end Release Management lifecycle across regulated government environments.
  • Chaired Release Readiness Reviews and Go/No-Go forums.
  • Managed change requests, impact assessments, deployment sequencing, and rollback strategies.
Core Skills
Agile Delivery & Transformation
Scrum Mastery Agile Delivery SAFe Agile Ceremonies Iteration Planning PI Planning Scrum of Scrums Ways of Working Design Governance Risks Management Agile Programme Management
Leadership & Stakeholder Management
Team Leadership Stakeholder Coaching Multi team Leadership Stakeholder Engagement Multi-National Team Leadership Decision Making Conflict Resolution Capability Building Development Management Project Management Risk Management Stakeholder Communication
Delivery & Workflow Tools
Jira Dashboards Reporting Custom Issue Types Release Management Release Planning Release Scheduling Reviews ServiceNow (Go/No-Go) Rollbacks Pipeline & Repository Awareness
Singula Decisions
01/2013 to 04/2022
Location:Hybrid

Senior Software Engineer

Description

I joined a fast-growing start-up delivering subscription-based Pay Per View (PPV) event services, taking a lead role in building and evolving the platform using C#/.NET and modern web technologies. I engineered key components of the customer-facing application and backend services, ensuring the system could scale to handle extreme traffic spikes during live events. I owned performance monitoring, traffic analysis, and real-time optimisation, rapidly diagnosing and resolving issues under high-pressure conditions. During event nights, I led technical delivery and troubleshooting, ensuring a stable, responsive, and seamless user experience for thousands of concurrent viewers.

Roles Held
  • Senior Software Engineeer / Team Lead (Mar 2017 - Feb 2023)
  • Software Engineer (Feb 2015 - Mar 2017)
  • Trainee Software Engineer (Feb 2013– Feb 2015)
Key Responsibilities
  • Started as a C# Developer focused on user interfaces, later recognized for my expertise in PHP, web design (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), and Angular with TypeScript.
  • Frequently worked extended hours to ensure the delivery of a world-class product used globally for pay-per-view events.
  • Managed the complete Software Development Life Cycle, from design discussions to leading Agile teams for continuous delivery.
  • Developed BTSPORTS PPV Purchase and User Management systems using PHP and TypeScript with an Angular frontend, integrating REST APIs in C#.
  • Oversaw performance optimization for high-traffic systems, handling up to 50,000 purchases per hour during peak events.
  • Balanced demanding schedules by completing development tasks during evenings and weekends while attending full-day meetings.
  • Used Jira as a Scrum board to structure requirement breakdowns in collaboration with Business Analysts.
  • Applied Mind-Mapping techniques to decompose complex requirements into functional increments.
  • Collaborated with the Product Owner to define and prioritize backlog stories, ensuring strategic workflow management.
Primary Skills
Jira Confluence Team Mentoring Team Leadership Agile Delivery C#.Net PHP JavaScript CSS/SCSS AWS (S3 & EC2) Angular TypeScript REST api Team LeaderShip Work Allocation Stakeholder Management
Nowland Designs
01/2003 to 04/2013
Location:Remote

Freelance Software Engineer

Description

Full-Stack Development & Marketing, Following a motorcycle accident, I was unable to pursue traditional employment during my recovery and physiotherapy. To maintain professional momentum, I began securing freelance projects through multiple online platforms. While this provided valuable experience, it was also highly time-intensive. Managed freelance bidding across multiple platforms to secure development contracts.

Daily Tasks

Following a motorcycle accident, I was unable to pursue traditional employment during my recovery and physiotherapy. To maintain professional momentum, I began securing freelance projects through multiple online platforms. While this provided valuable experience, it was also highly time-intensive.

  • Managed freelance bidding across multiple platforms to secure development contracts.
  • Delivered projects using PHP and C#, with front-end development in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
  • Conducted regular client meetings to review upcoming work and demonstrate project progress.
  • Produced comprehensive user documentation in Word format to support web application usage.
  • Oversaw financial management of the freelance business, including bill payments, banking, and maintaining accurate financial records.
Primary Skills
Marketing SEO Optimisation Bid Processes Workload Management Client Representation C#.Net PHP JavaScript CSS/SCSS
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