My CV

Summary
Hardware and software engineer and project manager with a broad range of technical experience, including board level hardware design, RTL for FPGAs and ASICs, hardware verification, and software development. I have planned, quoted for, and managed technology development projects with budgets of up to £300k and up to a year in duration. I have line-managed a group of 5 engineers, ensuring that they were able to work productively and develop in their careers. I am looking for opportunities to work on interesting and challenging technology projects, ideally in a small and dynamic team.
Core Skills
RTL, Board-level hardware, FPGA, Embedded software, Project and Team managementVerilog, Python, C, Allegro, OrCAD, Vivado, Quartus, UVM, Git
Experience
*App Development for Crypt (February 2025 – present)* Crypt is an Android app to help people get into cryptic crosswords and to help them when they get stuck. It has an SQLite backend, which stores dictionary content, and a frontend written in Kotlin. It’s my own personal project and I’m currently making revisions after initial user testing, aiming to release it in May 2025. You can see more about it here: https://acelg.com/crypt/ Member of the Engineering Team at Graphcore (June 2021 – October 2024) Graphcore is a unicorn startup developing next-generation AI hardware, recently acquired by Softbank. I worked on the silicon verification team, on both UVM-based testbenches, and also an in-house C++ and Python-based test framework. I also worked on converting an FPGA-based design to an eASICI design, as well as on a “from scratch” ASIC design, mostly on modules peripheral to bought-in PCIe blocks. This involved reading and understanding the specifications for the various designs, as well as information about the PCIe blocks, producing C/C++ models of new modules, and writing tests and coverage collection for modules and closing coverage. I also made a small contribution to the company’s coverage display system, using SQL, Python, and JavaScript. *Group Leader at Broadcom (May 2019 – June 2021)* Broadcom is a global semiconductor and software company focused on infrastructure solutions. I joined Broadcom as part of its acquisition of Argon Design.As a Group Leader, I line-managed five engineers, scheduling work for them with the help of other Group Leaders and our Director. I ensured that my group’s members had the support they needed in order to carry out their work effectively. During the Coronavirus pandemic, this required more focus on supporting group members and ensuring their wellbeing. I also helped my group to develop their skills and careers in the ways that they wanted, and carried out formal reviews of their performance every year.Alongside my Group Leader role, I carried out engineering and project management tasks. I managed the Cambridge-based team of a project delivering a complete software stack for a video transcoding chip for a hyperscaler customer. This involved determining what features to add support for, managing the work to add or improve features, delivering work on time, and coordinating with software and QA teams in Canada, India, and the US. Group Leader at Argon Design (January 2018 – May 2019) Argon Design was a technology consultancy engaging in the development of board-level hardware, RTL for FPGAs and ASICs, low-level software, algorithms, and system architectures. It worked as an outsourced development team for other companies on a project basis. Its customers ranged from multinationals to individual entrepreneurs.My role as Group Leader was similar to that at Broadcom, but, as the turnover of projects was faster, I did more work scheduling engineers for new projects and quoting for new work. *Principal Engineer at Argon Design (February 2012 – May 2019)* As well as Group Leader, I also had the responsibilities of Principal Engineer. This included development of prototype hardware for embedded products, software development and testing, RTL development and testing, system level design of electronic products, algorithm development, researching and writing proposals and quotations for potential projects, mentoring other employees, and maintaining the company’s lab area. When managing projects, I acted as the main point of contact between my company and the customer.In my engineering role I took responsibility for low level implementation decisions through to those at the system level. As projects vary widely in scope, a key part of my job was researching new technologies and on-the-job learning. I enjoy this constant challenge of learning new skills and being exposed to a variety of different technologies. Below are summaries of a few of the projects I worked on at Argon. *Development of Video Format Conversion System (August 2014 – March 2016)* I lead a team of 3 on a project with a budget of £300K to produce a system of interchangeable video processing cards. The system consisted of a backplane and three cards. I was responsible for carrying out a feasibility analysis, planning the order of work, estimating the required budget and duration of the project, managing the work within the agreed budget, leading the design team, reporting progress to the customer, carrying out hardware, software, and FPGA design work, and writing specification and test documentation. The product has been very successful and has been used in live shows all over the world, including Eurovision and Superbowl performances. Argon continued to do further projects for the customer, which I led following the success of the initial project. *Development of High Frequency Trading Platforms (March 2016 – May 2017)* I worked on two separate FPGA-based high-frequency trading platforms used on the CME, one with minimal tick-to-trade latency and one providing infrastructure for algorithms written in HLS. I wrote modules for each of the systems in Verilog, wrote simulation testbenches for them, and wrote software in Python for testing the FPGA system. *Development of Analogue to Digital PCIe Card (May 2012 – September 2012)* I was responsible for the hardware development of an 80 MHz Analogue to Digital PCI Express card that formed part of a medical imaging sensor. I researched and wrote the hardware specification for the card, sourced components, produced the circuit diagram, simulated the analogue input stage, and designed the PCB. I worked closely with the customer to review the schematic and PCB and agree on a solution that met their needs.
Education
2007-11: University of Oxford \| Master of Physics \| 2.1 2002-07: Shrewsbury School \| A grade A-Levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry