me

Matt Johnson

an experienced leader in technology
[email protected]

Hey there 👋

Hello, I'm Matt Johnson, a multi-award winning and highly experienced technologist with a track record of success across a wide range of industries and technologies. With over two decades of engineering and technical leadership experience, I've tackled some of the most complex challenges in the field.

My accomplishments include:

  • CTO at a successful translation startup
  • I was the first hire and founding engineer for a translation company that eventually sold for £60 Million
  • I led over 815 engineers for the UK Government, and helped to recruit over 400
  • I kick-started an API-gateway revolution in UK Government, saving over £300 annually
  • I am a Webby Awards Honoree
  • I led an R&D team for UK Government, leading on many projects, including Blockchain & AI/ML
  • I was a Subject Matter Expert for UK Government (Cabinet Office)
  • I was a Technology advisor to over 24 UK Government organizations, helping them save money
  • I opened an overseas office, then built a team of 30 for a large UK consultancy
  • I created a large AI to match Jobs and Applicants
  • And many other things!

Throughout my career, I've been passionate about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in software engineering. Whether it's designing scalable systems, optimizing performance, or navigating complex regulatory environments, I thrive on tackling tough challenges and delivering innovative solutions.

  1. The Key icon

    Architect at Healthcare Startup, California Current

    • Mixture of hands-on and architecture in a startup environment
    • Led architecture and development of in-house backend systems (Typescript, NestJS, Google Cloud, Postgres, REST, WebSockets, gRPC, GraphQL/Apollo)
    • Extensive usage of Twilio, Workday and Salesforce
    • Lots of frontend work across various products (React/Redux, NextJS, TypeScript, HTML, CSS)
    • Mobile-app development (React Native)
  2. Scottish icon

    Lead Architect, Scottish Government

    • Innovation in Public Sector award
    • Founded and hired engineering teams
    • Cloud/AWS architecture design, strategy, architecture
    • Transformation away from legacy suppliers, with an emphasis on Digital First and GDS Service Standard compliance. As well as overall reduction in operating costs across several systems
  3. Union Jack icon

    Head of Engineering & DevOps, UK Government (DWP)

    • Led and managed over 815 engineers, in an organization of approximately 90,000 people overall
    • Implementing the Spotify model of squads, tribes and guilds working with other heads of roles, devolving responsibilities and leading by example
    • Complex and challenging working environment with multiple stakeholders across multiple lines of business
    • Defining technical standards & policies across DWP Digital
    • Advising and shaping critical work on core programmes of work across the organization
    • Founded a purposeful culture of devolved responsibilities, flat management, community engagement and servant-leader management in the Engineering community
    • Setting a vision for transformation away from Legacy systems with a practical strategy to reduce the dependency on COBOL working with local universities
  4. Union Jack icon

    Senior Architect, UK Government (GDS, Cabinet Office)

    • Advised HM Treasury and Cabinet Office Spend Controls
    • Worked across DVLA, DVSA, MMO, DEFRA, MOD, CPS, GLD, Companies House, DFE, DWP, DBS and MCA to advise on Service Standard compliance
    • Led internal Assessment of Gov.Verify, as a Subject Matter Expert on identity for the UK Government and produced a 14 page dossier on the gaps with the UK.Gov Verify product
    • Lead Cabinet Office representative on Identity, SSO, Authentication and Authorization standards.
    • Contributor to the Service Standard, Technology Code of Practice and Assessment design, structure and practice
    • Lead Technical Assessor in dozens of Service Assessments
    • Hands on across government
  5. Union Jack icon

    Senior Architect in R&D, UK Government (DWP)

    • Cross-discipline polyglot architect in the R&D and innovation function of the DWP working in a very hands-on capacity on bleeding-edge technologies (blockchain, RPA, AI, VR)
    • Introduced open-standards, new technologies and new engineering practices into central government using a polyglot cross-discipline approach involving Rust, Python, Ruby, LUA, Java, C#, Typescript, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, OpenStack, MESOS, Kubernetes, Docker, Kong, AI, hadoop, cassandra and lots more
    • Lead Architect of PIP Assessment Tool, which saved tens of millions of £ for the PIP program, and taxpayer
    • I architected and built the Integration API Gateway - which saves government more than £400 million every year - it is talked about here and here.
      This is National Critical Infrastructure built on Kong which I heavily modified to use Active Directory certificate-chaining to sign JWTs and encrypt JWEs
      It provides a zero-trust layer for key assets at DWP
  6. Workplace Icon

    Lots of other stuff

    I've done many more things over this period of my life, too much to list here. But if you're interested then you can browse my LinkedIn profile .
    I got my start in technology when I created websites, marketing material and business plans for my parents businesses back in 1995 when I was in my teenage years.