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Samuel Jackson

Senior Java Back End Developer & Contractor · 25 Years’ Experience

Profile

Senior Java Back End Developer and contractor with 25 years of commercial experience building production-grade systems across investment banking, government digital services, financial data platforms, energy, retail, and betting exchange technology. Core expertise in Java 21, Spring Boot, and Apache Kafka, with deep AWS infrastructure knowledge and a particular specialism in event-driven, real-time data architectures and high-frequency trading platform development. Consistently trusted to lead technical delivery, own production systems, and mentor teams throughout. Currently contracted to DWP Digital; available for focused freelance work alongside core hours.

Experience

Software Engineer Jan 2025 – Present
DWP Digital · Remote
  • Modernising the New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance platform — a mission-critical public service managing the full claimant journey from application through to bi-monthly payments at national scale.
  • Spring Boot microservices architecture with Apache Kafka for asynchronous, decoupled workflows and MongoDB persistence, following Hexagonal (Ports & Adapters) design for maximum testability and long-term maintainability.
  • Strong emphasis on idempotent processing, fault tolerance, and recoverability to meet the reliability and governance standards of a UK government digital service.
Software Engineer — Betfair Exchange Specialism 2024 – 2025
Samuel Jackson Ltd · Remote (Self-Directed)
  • Architected and delivered a high-frequency trading framework integrated with the Betfair Exchange and Streaming APIs, implementing automated strategies driven by proprietary real-time metrics: Weight of Money trends, Last Traded Price dynamics, price velocity, and order flow imbalance.
  • Spring Boot event-driven architecture deployed on AWS with GitHub Actions CI/CD — low-latency, scalable, and reliable in production under dynamic market conditions.
Software Engineer Oct 2022 – Feb 2024
Mosaic Smart Data · London
  • Delivered a fault-tolerant, real-time API service for ingesting complex transactional data from major financial institutions across FX, fixed income, credit, and repo markets.
  • Serverless AWS architecture (API Gateway, Lambda, SNS/SQS/S3) with cross-region disaster recovery fanout via Ansible-templated CloudFormation; Java and Python data pipeline for enrichment into Apache Druid.
Software Engineer Feb 2021 – Aug 2022
ESG Global · Chorley, Lancashire
  • Developed and maintained the business orchestration layer for smart metering data exchange between energy suppliers and the Data Communications Company — Java 11, Spring, Hibernate, MS SQL Server, RabbitMQ, Apache NiFi.
  • Owned product roadmap prioritisation, approved production change requests, and provided 3rd-line incident support under Agile Kanban with GitFlow and Confluence documentation.
Java Consultant Sep 2015 – Jan 2021
Samuel Jackson Ltd · Ribby Hall Village (2018–2021) · Co-op Food Retail (2015–2018)
  • Ribby Hall Village: Built a Spring Boot microservice data warehouse integrating Xledger, Campaign Monitor, and third-party providers via REST, SOAP, and GraphQL; containerised with Docker and deployed to GKE via GitLab CI/CD pipeline.
  • Co-op Food Retail BI: Developed Java worker services integrating competitor pricing and weather forecast data into the enterprise data warehouse via REST APIs, with full TDD discipline throughout.
Java Developer Sep 2006 – Aug 2015
Trinity Logic Ltd · Remote
  • Designed and delivered bespoke software solutions for commercial and individual clients using Spring, Struts 2, Hibernate, and MySQL on Linux VPS infrastructure.
  • Delivered a high-engagement social media platform for venue photography with significant UK user growth; strong focus on Agile delivery and client satisfaction.
Java Developer Apr 2000 – Aug 2006
UBS Warburg · London
  • Developed and enhanced Sesame, a Java market adaptor standardising CORBA interfaces between UBS’s internal trading systems and European equity and derivative exchanges.
  • Rigorous bug fixing, testing, and 3rd-line support for the London trading desk in a high-stakes financial environment.

Skills

Languages & Frameworks Java 21 · Spring Boot · Apache Kafka · Python · JavaScript · TypeScript · VBA
AWS & Cloud Lambda · API Gateway · SNS/SQS/S3 · CDK · CloudFormation · Ansible · GCP (GKE)
Data PostgreSQL · MySQL · MS SQL Server · MongoDB · Apache Druid · DynamoDB · Hibernate/JPA
DevOps & Tooling GitHub Actions · Docker · Kubernetes · Jenkins · Linux · GitFlow · JIRA · Confluence

Education

MEng Mechanical Engineering — First Class Honours 1994 – 1998
Lancaster University, Pendle College · Lancaster
Certificate of Higher Education — ACDMM (Design, Manufacture & Management) 1998 – 1999
University of Cambridge, Wolfson College · Cambridge
A Levels — Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Engineering Drawing 1992 – 1994
Blackpool Sixth Form College · Blackpool

Certifications & Personal

ACCA — Association of Chartered Certified Accountants · September 1999 – Present

UK Driving Licence — Cars & Motorcycles · Eligible to work in the UK