Technical Director at Radley Yeldar

Three weeks ago I ended a 7.5 year run at Cogworks. I was planning on taking a big break, do some contracting, and see what the universe had to offer. Then came along a role which I could not pass up.

Where Did I Land?

Three days ago I started at Radley Yeldar (based in Shoreditch) as their new Technical Director. The organisation came from a business reporting background. They moved into print, brand & strategy, and now into digital.

Staff perks include a roof terrace with a BBQ and a hot tub, and yoga on Tuesdays.

What Will I Be Doing?

Organisational and production processes are the things which I find very interesting, and I have been hired to usher in a new age for the digital side of the company. In the coming months I will be putting my energy into educating people from various disciplines about what it means to be Agile. I will be talking about Scrum, Kanban, and Lean Agile at every level of the company.

I will also be looking at the current technology stack, how to optimise dealings with technical partners, project rituals, workflow management, and even sales incentives. Exciting right?!

What About Tech?

There is a lot of work coming up, and this is a very exciting opportunity. The team will help guide improvements in all of aspects, so this will be a clean slate where the team can choose the right technologies, the right tools, the right processes, the right training, and the right new people. I started this initiative on the second hour of my first day, where I held developer meeting and asked these questions:

What do we do well?
What can we do better?


And before you ask...Yes Umbraco all the way!

What About Developers?

To meet the needs of up coming work, the team needs to expand rapidly! I have already put together a plan to hire 7 more developers. I will immediately seek to hire 1 lead, 3 seniors, and 3 mid-weights, with an initial requirement of 5 contractors (Umbraco) until we fill those roles.

Final Thoughts

When I left Cogworks I didn't actually want to take on another a full-time role so quickly. However, this role at Radley Yeldar  was so appealing to me that I could not resist. Organisational & Production processes are really interesting to me, and the prospect of rapidly scaling a development discipline is too exciting to turn away.

Keep an eye out for great new tech deliveries coming soon from RY!