Development Lead

RAVEN Team, Royal Air Force • Leeming, England, United Kingdom

May 2023 - February 2025

Certificates: Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) • ISO/IEC 27005 Risk Manager • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner • Spring Boot For Beginners • Certified in Cybersecurity (CC)
Honours & Awards: King’s Birthday Honours List • Individual 3* Commendation • RAF Talent Strategy Markered

Development Lead

Development Lead for an in-house developed, multi-classification secure communications system that transformed the RAF’s approach to capability delivery. Responsible for securely integrating data centre technologies within deployed networking environments to deliver a fully service-managed platform with comprehensive network and cyber monitoring. Lead and mentored a team of eight engineers, guiding technical delivery and fostering professional development to meet operational requirements. Oversee and innovate system operation across two UK hub sites and ~86 customer sites, ensuring resilience, security and continuous improvement in mission critical environments.

Key Achievements/Projects:

• Named on the King’s Birthday Honours List 2024 and awarded a three-star commendation (one of RAF/UK Defence’s highest active ranks) for scaling secure remote access to high-security MoD infrastructure. Took my original prototype designed and delivered within 1-month, recognised as a feat achieved by only one professional in the field, and enhanced it into a production-ready dual-hub redundant solution, delivering 8 additional nodes on end-user demand including a dedicated system for the UK Chief Joint Operations (Britain’s top military operational commander overseeing all global Defence missions), and all nodes are now live across active operations.
• Played a key role in ensuring the Raven system delivered resilient, secure communications on live military operations with a total spend of ~£15 million over five years, providing greater capability at a fraction of the ~£80 million projected cost just to scope/architect a lower-capability alternative, maximising operational effect and value for UK Defence.
• Technical lead for a £2M dual-site data centre and redundant NOC/SOC hubs, fully configuring the core infrastructure and coordinating Defence and industry partners to complete installation. This architecture now delivers 99.3% critical service availability at each hub site and increased remote-site mission-critical service availability from 92% to 100%, a net uplift of 8%.
• Architected the system to Secure by Design and Zero Trust principles in compliance with NIST SP 800 series, JSP 440, and JSP 604, ensuring robust protection and interoperability for multi-classification environments.
• Re-engineered the network architecture to align with service provider standards, significantly improving performance, resilience, and security across all system nodes.
• Managed a total infrastructure estate inclusive of 151 physical servers, 348 virtual machines, 300+ network devices, and 201 security appliances, ensuring operational reliability and compliance.
• Transitioned from existing IDS and PCAP tools to Corelight, streamlining workflows for SOC engineers, improving visibility, and enhancing real-time threat detection.
• Implemented CI/CD pipelines with enhanced Git version control, introducing structured code validation and ensuring secure, traceable deployments across the system.
• Overhauled backup and disaster recovery processes for MSSQL, VMware, Windows, and Linux, automating tasks and providing visualised insights for first-line operators to improve reliability and speed of recovery.
• Led technical discussions with VMware to scope and design migration from legacy architecture to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) using NSX, vSphere, and vSAN. Defined capabilities, benefits, and migration paths to improve scalability, performance, and security posture of deployed environments.
• Implemented a dual-site, single-cluster Splunk SIEM infrastructure, now recognised as the strategic analytics platform for Air Command’s deployed networks, funded for ongoing long-term adoption.
• Led technical engagement with Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, and VMware to test next-generation firewall, SD‑WAN, and SD‑routing solutions and design candidate architectures for the deployed communications stack. Conducted hands‑on evaluation and produced documented architecture options for secure, scalable, and robust remote site connectivity, informing the next evolution of the system’s technology roadmap.
• Led a 14-member remote recovery team during live operations, restoring CIS services following major equipment failure and ensuring NATO operations could continued without interruption.
• Enhanced automated system build tooling, enabling parallel environment provisioning, eliminating technical constraints and allowing the programme to scale effectively.
• Directed the design and rollout of Project ACHERON, a Multi-Domain Operating Area solution adopted by 50+ tri-service users, demonstrating advanced leadership and technical management.
• Developed a single-pane data fusion solution linking low-cost sensors with high-end air platforms, providing decision-makers with real-time situational awareness and mission agility.
• Served on the Cyberspace Profession Advisory Team (CPAT) and 90SU Shadow Board, mentoring junior personnel and contributing to the strategic growth of the RAF’s cyber profession.