Stephen Rowles

InfoSum - Scale up privacy safe data collaboration platform

• Created and ran multiple successful engineering teams
• Interviewed and on-boarded new hires
• Built automated global multi-cloud instance provisioning system
• Lead developed innovative and cost effective multi-cloud system which was pivotal in the successful acquisition of InfoSum

IBM Cloud - Public cloud Kubernetes service

• 6th Employee in the UK in the new IBM Cloud division, formed a brand new network and security automation team.
• Built a global automated firewall configuration deployment system.
• Built malicious activity monitoring and automatic shutdown system; terminating thousands of systems a week without human intervention.
• Re-designed IBM UK graduate recruitment technical assessment day.

Green Hat - Software testing start-up

• 2nd Employee in new office, built team up to 8 prior to acquisition.
• Built the first server component which was directly responsible for landing GreenHat's first 6 figure deal and key to acquisition by IBM.
• Made an x8 performance enhancement to HTTP and MQ messaging.

Leading development of the integration of InfoSum's world leading privacy safe data processing tools across multiple cloud providers

Worked closely with the VP of Engineering and Chief Architect to build the engineering department from 15 to 40+ developers. Interviewing new back-end software engineers / contractors as well as helping to design and refine the interview assessment process.

Hands-on individual contribution creating new Go microservices deployed in Kubernetes running in Amazon EKS and IBM IKS in multiple global regions. Built common horizontal scaling patterns and worked closely with teams to ensure good practices through regular knowledge sharing. Ran the backend practice with education and design sessions.

Improved software quality, observability, and resilience. Educated developers to move towards a more dev-ops and SRE focused mindset.

Frequently embedded in product teams during complicated or difficult projects to ensure timely delivery or well-built solutions.

Streamlined release processes and tooling and built an in-house system testing framework to facilitate improved back-end integration testing.

Created the second IBM cloud team at Hursley development labs as part of IBM’s public cloud initiative to compete with Azure. Built, from scratch, a system to automatically deploy global firewall configuration, including VPN, routing, OSPF and firewall rules, able to deploy 40 times a day to over 100 global locations with zero downtime while meeting SOC2 and other audit and security requirements.

Built a system to detect and shut down malicious usage of free-tier kubernetes clusters. This system monitored tens of thousands of clusters rapidly shutting down bitcoin miners and other malicious activity within minutes of it starting and was so effective that the people abusing the service stopped trying.

As a side project I helped redesign IBM’s UKs developer graduate recruitment assessment, on-boarding and education programs.

Oversaw a team of 10 developers at the Hursley site, while working closely with the chief architect, product management, and 6 further developers located at the London offices.

Presented at an IBM conference in Florida, and at 2 London based external conferences. Spent time on-site with customers to implement solutions and trouble-shoot problems.

Enhanced performance of messaging within the product for both HTTP and WebSphere MQ with an up to 8x performance gain. Added multi-tenant security to the product solutions to allow for multi-department deployments.

Second employee hired into a new satellite office for Green Hat in Winchester. Conducted interviews and grew the team to 8 people prior to acquisition by IBM.

Designed and implemented the first Server side components that Green Hat deployed using Java/GWT, Spring and REST interfaces taking the offering from a stand-alone desktop tool to collaborative solution which as key to our acquisition

Responsible for profiling of code, tracking down and resolving locking and performance issues. Built an improved thread-safe processing system that was reused by other teams and developer testing tooling to ease testing and profiling.

Also built a brand new GWT based server application to provide a web interface onto one of Infor’s existing financial processing tools using Java, GWT and spring with a connection to COBOL and .Net server back-ends.

Maintained and developed Java payments applications, built diagnostic and repair tooling for fixing configuration problems with WebSphere MQ.

Various roles within the WebSphere MQ organisation including:

• Leading a team of 8 developers to build a new cross-platform Java/Eclipse RCP based configuration and management tooling
• C code development within the WebSphere MQ Queue Manager
• Stress Testing and test automation

Supported undergraduate students with program debugging and providing implementation advice. Maintained existing RedHat Linux desktop machines and servers as well as the installation and deployment of new systems. Developed internal web based tooling. Deployed and maintained a LVS based load-balanced Linux cluster.

Programming Languages

Frameworks & Libraries

Tools & Technologies

Non Technical

Post Graduate Certificate in Object Technology

Oxford University - March 2008

BEng (hons) Computer Engineering (2.1)

University of Southampton - 2000

A-Levels: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Electronics

Bedford Modern School - 1996

Systems and methods for partially securing data

US11822375B1 - 2023

Database system with data security employing knowledge partitioning

US11461492B1 - 2022

Conforming data structure instances to schema versions

US09442964B2 - 2016

Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award

RYA Level 2 Dingy Sailing / Level 3 Keel Boat

ISEB Foundation Certificate in Software Testing

Certified WMQ v6 System Administrator.

Certified WMQ v6 Solution Designer