Curriculum Vitae
- Name:
- Christopher Mark Buckley M.Sc. (Dunelm)
- Email:
- chris@cmbuckley.co.uk
Summary
An accomplished architect & engineering leader with over 18 years’ experience building and evolving large-scale platforms and leading high-performing teams. Experienced in delivering complex digital transformations and modernisation programmes, specialising in API-first architectures and event-driven systems, working with legacy and modern estates in on-premises and cloud environments. Extensive hands-on experience in architecture, engineering and technical operations across financial services, retail and iGaming sectors. Skilled in establishing architecture governance, communicating with clients and aligning stakeholders at all organisational levels. Keen advocate of open-source technologies and communities.
Core Skills
Architecture
- Distributed systems & event-driven architecture
- API-first design & integration (REST, SOAP)
- Architecture assurance & governance
- Security & compliance (ISO 27001, CE+, SbD)
Technologies
- Event streaming (Kafka)
- High-performance RDBMS (MySQL)
- JavaScript / TypeScript ecosystems
Platform Engineering
- Terraform / infrastructure as code
- CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Jenkins)
- Docker / containerised environments
- AWS cloud native solutions
Practices
- Secure SDLC
- Test & release automation
- Agile delivery (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe)
Professional Experience
Lead Architect
- Ownership of strategic architecture roadmap for PIP, aligned to DWP reference architecture
- Represent the team at SLT, external governance boards & service standard assessments
- Collaborate with Enterprise Architects to evolve architecture principles across Health & Disability
- Support supplier Statements of Work, transformation budgeting & sustainability
Head of Engineering
- Led and scaled 15-person engineering team maintaining a B2B SaaS platform serving 7000+ clients, using Symfony microservices architecture deployed to Azure Kubernetes Services
- Established clear ownership boundaries across 4 Agile squads, building a culture of accountability, collaboration & operational excellence
- Defined engineering maturity roadmap delivering best practices in software development, quality assurance & continuous integration using DORA & SPACE metrics frameworks
- Responsible for technology budgets, forecasting, career progression framework, coaching & mentoring, strategic client/vendor relationships
Principal Architect
- Defined technical strategy & standards for architecture & engineering capabilities, account management with clients across healthcare, financial services & retail sectors
- Promoted adoption of DevOps practices, Terraform & AWS deployment blueprints
- Managed internal technical operations, coordinated vulnerability remediation across 120 user devices and introduced new BYOD policies to satisfy Cyber Essentials Plus audit
- Mentor for 5 senior architects & engineers supporting individual career paths & capability leadership
Interim CTPO, Preventx
- Overall responsibility for technology within Preventx, including the platform, target architecture, infrastructure, operations & quality management
- Responsible for IT budget, including forecasting, allocation, and expenditure tracking
- Senior leadership, mentorship & motivation of a 20-person blended technical team
Engineering Lead, Scottish Friendly Assurance
- Managed a blended team of 10 engineers distributed across multiple workstreams & locations
- Supported development & assurance testing for a successful multi-year platform upgrade
- Delivered organisation digital modernisation & maturity improvements for SDLC, software governance, continuous integration & ways of working
Principal Architect, Strike
- Architecture lead for Strike during acquisition of Purplebricks
- Technical appraisal of existing architecture, technology platforms, services & suppliers
- Defined consolidated target architecture, operating model, change roadmap & risk assessment, enabling accelerated re-launch of a single platform, brand & proposition within 6 months
Lead Architect, NHS England
- Architect & Account Manager for NHS COVID Pass programme
- Supported creation of target operating model for successful service transition from NHSX to NHS BSA, aligning commercials, policy & technical governance
- Responsible for architecture principles & Technical Design Authority overseeing programme change
- Led the initiative to embed SDLC best practices & release COVID Pass source code to the public
Senior Solutions Architect
- Technical Architect for Platform Engineering team responsible for on-premises Kubernetes cluster, internal tooling, Infrastructure as Code, Developer Experience & SRE practices
- Responsible for integration of games content aggregation platform with teams across the Flutter group, saving over £2m annually in third-party platform fees and driving platform independence
- Designed & launched Kafka data hub, enabling event-driven integration with multiple teams
- Oversaw vulnerability management initiative prioritising & resolving hundreds of vulnerabilities across the gaming estate in under 6 months
- Technical contact for third-party suppliers providing supporting services and delivery capability
Engineering Manager
- Provided leadership, management & coaching for 40+ full-stack Software, Test & Platform Engineers
- Built & led Agile engineering teams, growing from 4 to 10 cross-functional squads over 2 years
- Evolved & communicated SDLC, increasing deployment frequency from 10 to over 200 per week
- Managed third-party vendor relationships with Architects and Service Delivery Managers
- Responsible for recruiting and retaining diverse-skill teams, working closely with Talent Recruiters
Principal Engineer
- Technical lead for Sky Poker development team using Zend Framework & modular JavaScript
- Technical liaison for third-party supplier integration and overall software architecture
- Collaborated with Platform and Service Operations teams to ensure high availability
Senior Software Engineer
- Delivered multi-channel customer satisfaction survey platform using Zend Framework & ActiveMQ, enabling real-time customer feedback
- Established Agile delivery practices (Scrum, XP, Kanban) & supported organisation in Agile adoption
- Maintained Jenkins continuous integration platform & code analysis tools
Developer
- Development of PHP property management system with JavaScript Web frontend
- Maintained the LAMP platform, CVS repository, coding standards and Bugzilla
Qualifications
- Manager HD Programme
- Institute of Leadership & Management, April 2015
- Practitioner in Enterprise & Solution Architecture
- British Computer Society, December 2013
- Master of Science (Research)
- Faculty of Science, University of Durham, 2006–2009
- Bachelor of Science
- College of St. Hild and St. Bede, University of Durham, 2003–2006
- Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1)
- B.Sc. Natural Sciences (Computer Science & Mathematics)
Personal Interests
- Programming (contributions to several open-source projects)
- Home automation / IoT
- Rock climbing
- Snowboarding
- Cycling / mountain biking
- Languages (Polish, French)
- Music (guitar, live music events)