I’m Richard Bown — a software engineering leader with thirty years of experience across platform teams, DevOps, distributed systems, and engineering management. I work with organisations that are doing the right things but struggling to make them click.
My approach is hands-on and direct. I embed inside a team, not as an observer, but as someone who takes responsibility for outcomes. I deliver hands-on work and mentor and coach continuously because that’s how I do it.
What I Do
I work as either a Senior Engineer or an interim Engineering Manager. I make sure technical decisions fit the landscape, call out the anti-patterns and trust issues that slow teams down, and reduce complexity by removing unnecessary systems rather than adding more. The result: platforms that other teams actually want to use, and engineers who feel responsible and proud of what they produce.
Deep Technical Experience, Pragmatic by Default
Thirty years of professional experience across dozens of Fortune 500 companies — backend, frontend, microservices, distributed systems, Linux, Infrastructure as Code, and more languages and architectural styles than I care to list. I’m a strong believer in automating the right things, not automating for automation’s sake. If I don’t know a specific technology, I almost certainly know the underlying pattern.
DevOps & Platform Engineering That Developers Trust
I help organisations simplify and automate existing workflows, improve efficiency without slowing teams down, and deliver internal platforms as self-service products. Agile processes stay lightweight because I’m not a fan of ceremony for its own sake.
Selected Case Studies
From DevOps Coach to Platform Product Owner
Brought in as a DevOps coach, I quickly moved into a hands-on product role, building internal GitLab, Artifactory, and SonarQube platforms that became successful self-service products used across the organisation.
Requirements Over Specs
Hired as a technical product manager and asked to write detailed specs, I instead pushed for team autonomy – forcing managers to articulate requirements, not solutions. Management was uncomfortable. Developers thrived. Even though the management didn’t agree, the developers learnt a lot, but the organisation didn’t, and the project was ultimately of dubious value. I’d make the same call again.
Fixing a Broken Platform Team
Joined a platform team with toxic dynamics and unclear direction. I challenged blockers, forced strategic decisions, reduced technical debt, and helped rebuild the team into a smaller, stronger group that delivered more—and enjoyed the work again.
I’ve worked as a senior engineer, systems administrator, platform lead, product owner, technical product manager, and Head of Engineering. I prefer to work as either a Senior Engineer or an interim Engineering Manager.
If you want to build a high-performing, humane engineering organisation that delivers real value, let’s talk.