Three engagements
Case studies
One open-source skill shipped in 2026, one VP-level architecture engagement in FinTech derivatives, and three and a half years rebuilding a front-office asset trading platform on Azure.
Case 01 · 2026 · open source
mdjira
An open-source Claude Code skill that turns rough markdown product briefs into properly-sized Jira backlogs — INVEST-compliant stories, modified-Fibonacci sizing, BDD acceptance criteria, full epic / story / subtask hierarchy.
Headline result
48 Jira tickets generated in five minutes from a single deliberately rough markdown product brief. 17 stories totalling 91 points; sizing distribution 1×2pt, 3×3pt, 8×5pt, 5×8pt — zero 13s. Run on a representative product brief, 2026-04
- Tickets created
- 48 in Jira (epics, stories, subtasks).
- Stories
- 17, totalling 91 story points.
- Sizing distribution
- 1 × 2pt · 3 × 3pt · 8 × 5pt · 5 × 8pt · zero 13s.
- Priority spread
- 1 Highest · 5 High · 9 Medium · 2 Low. Defensible, not flat.
- Time to backlog
- ~5 minutes from markdown to live Jira tickets.
Methodology
The skill is not a wrapper around a generic LLM call. It encodes specific, citable practitioner standards and refuses to produce output that violates them.
Story shape — INVEST
Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable. As set out by Bill Wake in XP123 (2003) and refined by Mike Cohn in User Stories Applied. Each generated story is checked against all six.
Sizing — modified Fibonacci
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, per Cohn. The skill enforces the practitioner rule that a 13 is a smell and decomposes anything that lands there. The result above shows the rule in effect: zero 13s across 17 stories.
Acceptance criteria — Given / When / Then
As introduced by Dan North in Introducing BDD (2006). Each story carries explicit criteria, not vague success conditions.
Hierarchy — epic / story / subtask
Atlassian's epic / story / subtask hierarchy, with one anti-pattern explicitly suppressed: the "Miscellaneous Bug Fixes" epic that becomes a permanent dumping ground.
Decomposition — Pichler's split axes
Roman Pichler's compound-story decomposition: split by workflow step, by data variation, by interface, by CRUD, by non-functional concern (see Pichler's notes). The skill picks a split axis and explains the choice.
Case 02 · Oct 2024 – Feb 2025 · VP of Technology
Derivatives trading platform
VP of Technology for a buy-side FinTech derivatives platform. Owned the architecture for real-time trade execution, the Java backend on Azure, and the integration of agentic AI into trading workflows.
What I owned
- Architected and implemented FIX protocol messaging infrastructure for real-time trade execution and order management.
- Designed and deployed Java-based backend systems on Azure cloud infrastructure for trading-grade scalability and reliability.
- Pioneered integration of agentic AI into trading workflows and operational tooling — early production deployment, not pilot.
- Established cloud-native architecture patterns on Azure: microservices, containerisation, infrastructure-as-code.
- Implemented security and compliance frameworks aligned with financial-services regulatory requirements.
- Built and managed a cross-functional engineering team; ran the technical liaison between CEO/CPO and engineering, translating business requirements into technical roadmaps.
- Drove platform-evolution decisions in a live trading environment — balancing innovation against system stability.
Client name confidential — references on request
Case 03 · May 2021 – Oct 2024 · 3 years 6 months
Cult Wines · asset trading platform
Front-office architect on the green-field asset-trading platform for an alternative-investments firm. Drove the full-stack of the front office across React, Next.js, React Native, and an Azure-native event-driven backend.
What I owned
- Built a green-field asset trading platform with React and React Native, sharing logic across web and mobile to reduce delivery time and bug surface.
- Built a Next.js web app to meet SEO requirements where they mattered.
- Implemented Auth0 MFA across multiple platforms and applications.
- Reorganised the data-pipelines strategy and helped introduce Databricks on Azure.
- Introduced an OpenAPI strategy with Azure API Management.
- Led the front-office API layer with Azure Functions and a horizontally-scalable CosmosDB tuned for high read throughput.
- Set up an event-driven API strategy on Service Bus.
- Initiated Cypress end-to-end smoke testing for the new systems.
- Led migration of an old, technically-deprecated core business system onto the new platform.
- Helped the DevOps team migrate from PowerShell to Terraform-based IaC.
- Migrated app services into Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS).
- Built numerous microservices for operational and third-party integration needs.
- Introduced test-driven development with deployment gates blocking unsecure or untested code.
- Implemented a GraphQL layer on both UI and backend with Apollo.
Earlier engagements
Senior front-end at HomeToGo in Berlin (Apr 2019 – 2021), Node.js / GraphQL contracts via Trustflux Ltd (Dec 2017 – 2021), .NET backend in logistics (2016 – 17), full-stack on a cryptocurrency brokerage (2015 – 16), and freelance work on 10+ web applications (2014 – 15). Full chronology on the home page.
More detail on any of the above on request.