"Can it be done?" is the question that usually lands on my desk
David NealeCardiff, UK
I started in application support at Avon and Somerset Constabulary in 2007 and moved into
development. Since then I've architected platforms for Google's open-source programmes (users
in 123 countries), and designed the performance testing and led the cloud portability work
for the 2021 UK Census platform, which went on to peak at 30,186 requests per second. Since
2019 I've been Chief Architect at Admiral Money, where the loan book has grown from £400m to
£1.8bn.
People usually come to me with an idea and a question: is this possible, how hard will it
be, and how do we plan it? I give a straight answer, then help turn it into a delivery plan.
Lately that's often about AI: giving a regulated business governed access to LLMs, and
rolling out agentic coding tools across an engineering team.
What I help with
Feasibility and risk assessment for ambitious technical ideas
Cloud and platform architecture (AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform)
Scaling and performance testing for high-stakes launches
Practical, governed adoption of generative AI and AI-assisted development
Technical strategy that engineers and executives can both act on
I'm still very hands on. I always have a terminal open although it's more likely to be
running Claude Code than vim.
Outside work I fly gliders. I hold a Sailplane Pilot Licence,
I'm Safety Officer at South Wales Gliding Club, and I'm building a new instrument panel
for my PIK 20D. I also cook, tinker with electronics, play piano and guitar, and take
the camper van away when I can.
Featured work
2021 UK Digital-First Census
One huge event, every ten years.
Case study · Office for National Statistics2018 – 2019
Client
Office for National Statistics
Dates
2018 – 2019
Role
Technical Lead / Architect
Scale
~1M concurrent users
The UK holds a census once a decade and 2021 was the first to be designed digital-first.
The challenge
The existing survey data collection platform was running on AWS. The architectural
team had two mandates: prove that the system was cloud-portable by migrating it to
Google Cloud Platform, and show that it could handle the expected peak load:
roughly one million households trying to complete it at the same time on census day.
My role
I joined the ONS architecture team as a technical lead for the electronic questionnaire
(eQ) application. I subsequently moved into the Cloud Architecture team to work
across software engineering, DevOps and architecture. I led the AWS-to-GCP cloud portability work,
introducing Kubernetes-native deployments as part of the migration. I also designed
the performance testing strategy. Generating a million realistic synthetic users at
once is hard in itself: it meant modelling how people submit and how much headroom the
infrastructure needed. We worked closely with Google engineers, because our load was
beyond what they normally planned for.
The outcome
On 21 March 2021 the census launched and the digital collection system held. It peaked
at 30,186 requests per second, with 427,838 submissions in the peak hour.
Own the technology strategy. Joined when the company had £400m of loan balances
and wasn't yet profitable; in 2025 it managed £1.8bn with £26m profit.
Direct integration with price comparison websites offering real-rate loan quotes, including a high-performance decision engine.
Designed and delivered the company's microservice platform on Kubernetes (EKS).
Designed and implemented a loan originations system; extended into wider CRM capabilities.
Drove AI adoption across the business: governed self-hosted AI chat platform, Claude Code for agentic dev tooling, early contact-centre experiments.
Kubernetes
AWS
Go
Python
Terraform
Docker
2018 — 2019ONS · 1y 5m
Technical Lead
Office for National Statistics
Tech lead on a multidisciplinary team developing the dynamic form builder
powering online surveys. Moved into the architectural team focused on the 2021
UK digital-first census systems.
Led cloud portability: AWS to GCP migration with Kubernetes-native deployments.
Designed a scalable perf testing solution simulating 1M concurrent users.
Worked across engineering, DevOps and architecture disciplines.
Kubernetes
GCP
AWS
Python
Go
Terraform
React
Docker
2012 — 2018London · 5y 10m
Senior Developer
Potato London Ltd
Joined as a contractor working on Google projects and was offered a permanent
role; promoted to senior developer not long after.
Architected two web applications for Google's open-source programmes — Summer of Code and Code-in — tech lead on a team of up to 18. The project cost around $2m and had users in 123 countries.
Designed Google Partners' global incentivisation programme with 30-language support and a fault-tolerant distributed transaction system.
Tech lead for the backend API of Google Ideas' (Jigsaw) Montage - collaborative YouTube discovery platform, later sold to Storyful and open-sourced.
Rewrote engineering hiring test to be both more revealing and more respectful of candidates' time.
Python
JS
App Engine
Django
Angular
MySQL
2011 — 2012Cardiff · 1y 1m
Senior Web Developer
The Number UK Ltd (118 118)
Continued development of the ASP.NET MVC website, then co-architected a
cloud-hosted global search API used across kgb's international group. Wrote a
durable, multi-threaded distribution system keeping data indexed across SQL,
MongoDB and ElasticSearch.
C#
Python
ASP.NET MVC
Django
AWS
MongoDB
ElasticSearch
RabbitMQ
2010 — 2011Cardiff · 11m
Senior Web Developer
Zipporah Ltd
Re-architected a suite of solutions in use across local government in UK and
Australia. Guided a team of six in MVC, NHibernate, IoC and unit testing;
introduced continuous integration.
C#
JS
ASP.NET MVC
MS SQL Server
2007 — 2010Bristol · 3y 4m
Software Engineer
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Started in second-line application support, then moved into software
development.
Totals carried forward19 yrs6 companies80+ engineers led£1.8bn loan book
Projects
Personal projects
Things I’ve built, mostly for gliding. All open source.
A CAD-style tool in the browser for planning a glider instrument panel: front, rear and wiring from one model. It outputs 1:1 cutting templates, a wiring diagram, a wire list and a bill of materials.
A browser-only tool for hand therapists: mark problem areas on a hand diagram, tag them with issue types and export a PNG for the case file. Nothing is saved or sent, and the tests prove it.
Drop a glider flight log in the browser and get a soaring debrief: the phase split, the climbs and their circle geometry, the wind, and the energy balance of the straight legs.
Interactive polar curve visualiser for gliders. Fetches real data from XCSoar, applies MacCready speed-to-fly theory, and supports ballast adjustments.
