Luke Watts
I am a creative problem solver with 15 years experience in product and agency environments. I thrive on learning new tools and technologies, whether for critical business projects or exploratory research.
I particularly enjoy projects where I can contribute from inception to completion, starting from loose requirements or a quick sketch and working collaboratively to create valuable and impactful solutions. I am happy working collaboratively or independently, my primary focus is on creating something useful that brings value to people.
Tools & Technologies
- Ways of Working – Agile, scrum, mentoring, coaching, design thinking, TDD & RDD
- Languages – Typescript, Javascript, Go, Python, PHP, Ruby
- Frameworks – Node.js, Express, React, Vue, Laravel, Slim, Kirby, PHPUnit, Vite, Jest & tap
- Datastores – PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis & BigQuery
- Tooling – Git, Infrastructure as Code & zsh
- Operations – Kubernetes, Docker, EC2, Openshift, Azure, Docker & Vagrant
Experience
Staff Software Engineer, Snyk Ltd
October 2022 – Present
Snyk provides software security tooling for developers, helping companies use open source software and stay secure.
- Collaborated across engineering units within the organization to prioritize, plan and deliver strategic business value.
- Coded in TypeScript and Go, deployed in a CI/CD workflow, and automated infrastructure configuration for our services and distributable applications.
- Exploratory design and architecture work to support the growth of the platform.
- Improved platform API performance, reliability, and usability through observation and analysis.
- Mentorship and coaching of engineers within the organization unit.
- Integrated our tools and products with partner systems.
- Participated in on-call rotation to maintain and support production services
Highlights
- 0 day gameday - a company wide event to simulate a zero day vulnerability affecting one of our dependencies and simulating far reaching consequences for our customers.
- Working with engineers across the company to secure their career development and growth.
Interim Engineering Director, Snyk Ltd
October – December 2023
- Responsible for the security intelligence and data engineering teams behind the open source security products.
- Worked with the wider engineering leadership team to shape the future direction of the group.
- Supported the engineering and product teams through a period of transition.
Previous Experience
Senior Software Engineer, Snyk Ltd
December 2021 – October 2022
- Shaped our product and guided the team across multiple components and projects.
- Innovated strategic design improvements for short-term gains and long-term advantages.
- Contributed code, prototyped, and developed testing strategies with a focus on iterative delivery.
- Fostered inclusion and growth through pairing, feedback, and mentoring.
- Collaborated with Product and Design teams to translate requirements into functional features.
- Ensured consistent developer experience across all Snyk products.
Highlights
- Introducing support for
critical severity across the entire Snyk platform. This involved working with the product and design teams to ensure the information was presented in a clear and actionable way.
Software Team Lead, Snyk Ltd
September 2019 – October 2020
- Providing team members with regular feedback, mentoring, and coaching.
- Hiring the right people to support the team's growth.
- Organizing and facilitating quarterly team planning sessions for our distributed team.
- Working with your team’s product manager to plan and achieve goals to ensure the team communicates proactively and sets realistic expectations with their stakeholders.
- Balance feature delivery with ongoing technical investment.
Highlights
- Introduced an experiments based methodology for the team which offered us the opportunity to explore and enhance the engagement and adoption of our features.
- Leading planning sessions as part of the annual all-hands meeting and presenting the results back to a 200 strong audience.
Developer, Snyk Ltd
October 2017 – September 2019
- Designing features with the product team based on user needs and outlining their implementation.
- Deliver a SaaS application incrementally in a full CI/CD workflow.
- Working as part of a distributed team, communicating clearly and proactively.
Highlights
- Introducing Vue to begin the migration from a server rendered application to one with more client side components to support more interactive user experiences.
- Migrated the e2e test suite from Nightwatch to Cypress making it easier for developers to run and author additional tests locally.
Technical Lead, Bravo Charlie Mike Hotel
January 2015 – October 2017
Design and branding agency working internationally to deliver projects for clients across a wide variety of sectors.
- Lead delivery of all digital projects within the company. This covers each step of a typical project life‑cycle and managing client relationships.
- Project scoping and management with clients to ensure their systems are delivered on time.
- Accompany the company directors to new business pitches, providing bid‑winning technical ideas.
- Work closely with designers to implement prototypes which demonstrate how their visuals can be achieved across devices.
- Provide documentation and training during the project completion process.
- Design and implement feedback cycles with client’s to enable sprint based approach on larger projects.
Alongside the demands of client work I have also:
- Built bespoke invoice software for the company and introduced specialist accounting software to automate most of the financial tasks.
- Maintained the studio's suite of machines (primarily OSX)
- Introduced offsite backup procedures to ensure ultimate resilience for the company's data.
Highlights
- Working with the estates team at Kings Cross to put together a performance piece with fountains, powered by GIF imagery, to accompany a string quartet at Kings Cross Granary Square. As part of the designjunction event, it attracted over 25,000 visitors over the weekend.
- Introducing the team to new methodologies and techniques, such as weekly sprints, mobile first and responsive design patterns.
Director, LA Code & Design Ltd
December 2012 – 2014
Worked as full stack web developer on a contract basis with a number of London based design firms.
- Working alongside designers from the earliest stages of prototyping and scoping out projects through to completion, troubleshooting and handover.
- Providing in-office training as part of the hand-over with the client teams.
Highlights
- Working alongside multiple teams across different studios. This offered me the chance to experience different working methodologies.
- Being able to have the flexibility to attend industry events in the UK and abroad.
Developer, Signal Noise
September 2010 – November 2011
As the first hire at this data design agency, I worked directly with the design directors in building out web projects and physical prototypes.
Sessional Lecturer, University for the Arts London & University for the Creative Arts
September 2010 – June 2012
I focused on introducing web technologies as a medium for editorial output, across a few undergraduate and postgraduate level courses. The short course was split between introductory sessions and workshopping on a one to one level with individual students.
Developer, Inventive & Co
Summer 2010
Worked alongside a senior developer to design and build out a bespoke CMS for a production studio. Notably this system handled video uploads and transcoding of video formats for playback a custom Flash media player.
Volunteering
Board Member, One Army Foundation
January 2024 – Present
Maintainer, Community Platform for One Army Foundation
October 2021 – December 2023
Interests
Away from the computer, I’m a keen cyclist and can often be found meandering around the Dutch polders looking for a hill to roll down. I enjoy longer endurance rides, the longest one to date being ~250km.
I’m also in the early stages of learning Dutch, maar het is langzaam proces
Education
University for the Creative Arts
September 2007 – June 2010
BA Hons - Graphic Design New Media 2:1