I'm Tech Architect at Government Digital Service/Tech lead for GOV.UK. Having always been a little suspicious of the "architect" title, I liked the way Paul Downey explained the job:

In software development, “Architect” can become a term of abuse, implying someone who just assembles packages or engages in abstraction astronautics. After a day shadowing James and Mat, it’s obvious the GDS “Technical Architect” role is more akin to that of a Master Chef, someone who ensures kitchens are working well, menus makes sense across restaurants, thinks strategically and mentors colleagues (though without the enlarged ego). A good chef cares about the ingredients and it was great to hear how a recent technical choice was made with a Ruby versus Scala bake-off, coded by James and Mat.

I'm also founder/director of Ket Lai a web development consultancy. We don't take on many new projects, but if yours is very compelling we're happy to talk.

And outside of work I'm husband to klstewart and dad to Elisabeth & Aidan.