Kroo Bank

Tech Lead – Mobile Platform ● Apr 2023 – present

Who you bank with matters.

At Kroo, I am responsible for the Mobile Platform function. Having recently formed brand-new platform teams, I joined Kroo to head up the mobile side of the platform.

This role plays to my love of improving the developer experience in mobile, whilst presenting a new challenge to me in being my first role leading React Native development.

Since I joined, we've launched a full app redesign with no interruption of functionality, of which I'm incredibly proud. We've also improved performance, made the app feel more native, and increased the speed at which the product teams can deliver their features in the app.

The Body Coach

Engineering Manager ● Apr 2022 – Jan 2023

Join fitness star Joe Wicks in The Body Coach app and find workout and nutrition plans, PB challenges and weekly live workouts with the fitness star himself.

I managed a team of developers when the Body Coach app development was brought in-house from a project started with UsTwo and Novoda.

During my time, I led a team reconfiguration from an Android and an iOS team into two cross-platform mission-based teams. This included the organisation, communication, and bootstrapping of the teams.

As Engineering Manager of the Get Moving mission team (install to first 30 days in-app) I led a team of developers to deliver multiple features, including an Easy Start week intended to help beginners; in-app messaging from Joe and the trainers to drive momentum; and a highly successful A/B test on our paywall which saw our Intent to Subscribe metric increase significantly.

I was sadly made redundant after 10 months in the role.

Freetrade

Staff Engineer ● Oct 2019 – Apr 2022

Freetrade is a investment platform aiming to make investing open to all.

In my two and a half years there, I was a significant part of the team as one of the few with mobile expertise. I oversaw launches of many features across numerous teams (including Discovery & Insights, Onboarding, and Pensions). Towards the end of my time there I was responsible for hiring, onboarding, and aligning a team of mobile engineers who would be embdedded into teams other than my own.

I focused on making the apps better for our users, with features including dark mode, a brand-new iPad UI and performance improvements.

I was also responsible for making the developer experience better for non-mobile developers, including encouraging non-mobile developers to write about mobile topics, making our codebases easier to work on, and increasing our visibility in the sector.

Backen.de & Novoda

Principle Engineer/Tech Lead ● May 2018 – Aug 2018

Backen.de was produced in collaboration with Oetker Digital, of the Dr. Oetker brand.

We delivered a high quality MVP in 4,5 months across two platforms, with absolute consistency.

My proudest moment of this project was starting with 3 Android engineers and three iOS engineers, and ending the project with 6 multiplatform engineers. Work on features was done pairing an Android developer with an iOS one, who would then implement the feature across both platforms one after another.

You can find out more on the Play Store and the App Store.

myBlu & Novoda

Principle Engineer/Tech Lead ● Jan 2019 – Oct 2020

My final project with Novoda was a small but vibrant app for a new client.

We are working on a product that interfaces with a Bluetooth device and a web backend, to give the user information about usage patterns.

Whilst small, this project required my strong technical knowledge and project planning to ensure that the three teams (app, backend, and firmware) work in harmony to deliver the end product on time. It has also required strong project planning in order to ensure the team adapts to the changes in size it underwent undergone during the year I was working on it.

Harman Spark & Novoda

Principle Engineer/Tech Lead ● Sept 2018 – Dec 2018

Harman Spark is a connected car app developed in collaboration with Harman and Tantalum Corporation.

My work on this project included ensuring work was properly planned and that the developers had enough say and influence in what they were working on. I also was responsible for the sub-project of making the app compatible for white-labelling for other clients.

Find out more on the Play Store and the App Store.

AutoScout24 & Novoda

Project Lead ● 2017

Helping the current team skill up and handle technical debt.

ImmoScout24 & Novoda

Project Lead ● 2016-2017

Scaling up the teams and helping their technical process.

Oddschecker & Novoda

Senior Software Engineer ● 2015

Building a brand new gambling app.

All 4 & Novoda

Software Engineer ● 2014

Continuing my work in video playback to build a new All 4 app from scratch.

iPlayer for Chromecast

Software Engineer ● 2014

Building Chromecast functionality into the iPlayer app in collaboration with Google.

Downloads on iPlayer

Junior Software Engineer ● 2013-2014

Building and improving the video download and DRM solutions into iPlayer.

BBC Android Video Player

Junior Software Engineer ● 2014

Building the next generation of video playback into the Android iPlayer app using ExoPlayer.
ALEX CURRAN © 2024