Matthew Daubney

Staff Software Engineer / Integration Architect

Summary

Software engineer with 17 years building and operating enterprise Python systems end to end: requirements, architecture, delivery and long-term support. Strongest where systems meet each other: integrating distributed services over REST and GraphQL, designing OAuth authentication, and running the cloud and on-prem infrastructure underneath. Regularly the senior technical voice across multiple teams, and a consistent mentor to the developers around me.

Core skills

Languages	Python (expert), Rust, C#, Bash, SQL; working Java, C / C++
Backend & data	Flask, Django, Twisted, Axum, SQLAlchemy, Diesel, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, REST, GraphQL
Infrastructure & cloud	AWS, Oracle Cloud, Kubernetes, Helm, Docker / Docker Swarm, Terraform, Ansible, Salt, NGINX
Observability	Grafana, Kibana / ELK, CloudWatch, Consul
Security & practices	OAuth / OIDC, HashiCorp Vault, CI/CD, architecture & code review, mentoring, Agile / Scrum
AI-assisted development	Claude Code, ChatGPT, Ollama (local models)

Experience

Staff Software Development Engineer, DataCore Software

Aug 2023 – Sep 2026 · Media & Entertainment division (formerly Pixit Media)

The division builds high-performance GPFS storage and a workflow engine for moving and transforming media data across on-prem, cloud and third-party systems.

Cross-team technical advisor following the division’s acquisition, integrating separate software stacks over REST and GraphQL APIs and advising on OAuth authentication design.
Re-worked bespoke, single-customer workflow-engine plugins into a form that ships to many customers.
Wrote a Slurm plugin in Rust that talked to the storage platform’s data orchestration layer, so batch scheduling and data placement worked together.
Monitored and reduced AWS spend; mentored developers across teams.

Python · Rust · Flask · Salt · PostgreSQL / MySQL · NGINX · AWS

Software Developer, Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Dec 2018 – Aug 2023

Oxford Nanopore builds portable and benchtop DNA sequencers, used in the field, in the COVID-19 response, and on the ISS.

Ran the technical interface between IT and the company’s bioinformaticians and research scientists, turning their workflow requirements into delivered systems.
Built and ran R&D workflow systems for moving, processing and archiving data from every product the company makes.
Migrated the company Jupyter notebook service from a single server to a clustered Docker Swarm deployment serving ~100 analysts.
Introduced HashiCorp Vault to replace shared static database passwords with automatically rotated per-user credentials.
Ran a ~£1M procurement project for ~1 PB of new central HPC storage; delivered work across AWS and Oracle Cloud.
Mentored developers and helped evolve the team’s engineering process.

Python · Flask · Terraform · Ansible · ELK · Kubernetes · Helm · Nextflow · AWS · OCI

Senior Engineering Officer, DVLA

Jun 2018 – Dec 2018

Delivered analyst-raised stories as Dropwizard microservices and Play-framework web pages, part of DVLA’s programme to move legacy systems onto a microservice architecture.
Member of the security special-interest group defining common secure-development patterns across delivery squads.

Java · Play · Dropwizard · MongoDB · EventStore · Docker

Senior Software Developer, Osirium

Apr 2014 – Jun 2018

Privileged-access-management software that removes password visibility from sysadmins and records privileged activity, deployed across tens to thousands of devices.

Built PAM features test-first in Python and Twisted; led the push to re-architect the product from a monolith toward maintainable microservices.
Ported the Windows-only C# client to a cross-platform wxWidgets application.
Built an apt / dpkg mechanism that pulls all appliance packages, including OS updates, into the installer image.
Sourced and maintained company infrastructure: ESXi hosts, network rebuilds, and every critical VM described in Ansible so it could be rebuilt on demand.

Python · Twisted · SQLAlchemy · PostgreSQL · wxPython · Ansible

Chief Engineer, GBLabs

Oct 2009 – Mar 2014

Joined a high-speed-NAS manufacturer as a support engineer and grew into leading a team of five developers and a test engineer; clients ranged from small edit houses to the BBC, Reuters, Warner and the London 2012 Olympics.
Designed and shipped new storage products, working with suppliers to secure pre-release hardware for testing.
Helped design the BBC Archives quality-control workflow for ingesting archived material to digital form.
Ran all company infrastructure (web, mail, VPN, DNS, VM hosts); stood up Jenkins CI, Redmine and GitLab; moved the team onto Scrum.

Python · Django · PostgreSQL · C / C++ · Bash · JavaScript · MQTT

Selected personal projects

Recent self-directed work, mostly in Rust:

MachinieLibrary, full-stack asset catalogue: a Rust (Axum, Diesel / PostgreSQL) API with OIDC + JWT auth and an auto-generated OpenAPI spec, a TypeScript UI, containerised with a Gitea Actions pipeline.
mqttworker, Rust Cargo workspace implementing distributed job processing over MQTT with a PostgreSQL-backed queue and a web monitor.
Hugo blog pipeline, content-aggregation build pulling from the MediaWiki, YouTrack, Immich and Gitea APIs, deployed on scheduled CI.
Earlier: a Rust Prometheus exporter for OpenVPN, a hackspace RFID door-access system, a home-built spectrometer.

Education, certifications & community

Physics, Swansea University, 2005–2009. Coursework in statistical and quantum mechanics and particle physics; project work calibrating lasers for Raman spectroscopy on the KATRIN neutrino experiment.
PRINCE2 Practitioner (2012) · Cisco CCENT / CCNA (2009)
Code Club volunteer, Abingdon Library (2019–2023), teaching children to code with Scratch and Python.
Interests: electronics and microcontrollers, 3D printing, garden automation.