Mat Catchlove

I cut my teeth over 8 years at IBM, on UK Government contracts. Complex, high-stakes work, at a scale most businesses never touch.

I started in technical support, bringing problem-solving know-how from an earlier career in the motor trade and applying it to tech. That's where I learned the fundamentals and began to understand the gap between how a system was supposed to work, and how it actually behaved under pressure.

Whilst working in support, I learnt the foundations of Big Data. The applications we looked after were all underpinned by a shared data platform. I learnt how the platform worked and why it was designed that way, working closely with the dedicated Data Platform Team in the process. That got me up close and personal with the reality of managing complex, event-driven data whilst I lead the triage and application of complex and high-risk manual data fixes.

From there I moved into Service Architecture. Interrogating raw systems, designs, and processes to work out not just how they worked, but where they broke and how that would impact the team looking after them. Fixing those issues took me into commercial discussions where I needed to understand the boundaries between delivery teams from different suppliers, and their contractual obligations.

Whilst in the Architect role, I started real development with a solo project on behalf of the Data Platform Team, to build a new piece of tooling to allow the support team to safely and securely apply data fixes.

My last role was Lead Data Engineer and Architect, leading both strategy and a team, delivering analytics and reporting with Databricks and Power BI. Setting direction, advising on hiring as the team grew, and untangling enterprise architecture and data problems on systems with little to no documentation.

IBM taught me how to make technical decisions that hold up under real scrutiny. It taught me to see the strategy around a system, not just the system itself. And it gave me a permanent "how's this actually going to work in the real world" instinct.

Next, I joined Vizora, a growing consultancy for small and medium-sized businesses, as its de facto VP Engineering. I led the technical strategy: what to build, what to buy, what to leave alone. Then I built it, architecture through delivery.

It's where I saw first-hand the technology problems small businesses actually face, and learned that for them especially, technology decisions are commercial decisions.

Now I'm doing this independently. Same judgement, same standards, without an employer or an agency sitting between me and the outcome.