Sam Hill | Engineering Leader, CTO, Architect

All About Me

I have been involved in software engineering in many forms for over 25 years and I am currently Engineering Director at CSL Group, leading engineers, architects, QA and programme teams in the creation and operation of secure critical connectivity platforms with 24/7 reliability.

This site has always been a bit old-school in spirit: practical, direct, and focused on substance. The design is now modern and mobile friendly, but the same character stays.

My Recent Years In Technology

My major roles over the last nearly 20 years have included...

Engineering Director

CSL Group | Full-time

Jan 2025 - Present | United Kingdom

Currently the Engineering Director leading the Software engineers, Firmware engineers, DevOps Engineers, QA Engineers, Architects and Technocal Programme Managers in maintining the existing signalling ecosystem while simultaniously building a brand new platform ready for all future demands and needs. Signalling is all about getting a critical message from one place to another securely, reliably and with gauranteed delivery - vital for applications such as fire alarms, roadside infrasdtructure and building security systems to ensure people and property remain safe

CTO | VP of Technology

WildBrain | Full-time

Nov 2021 - Jan 2025 (3 years 3 months) | Greater London, England, United Kingdom // Toronto, Canada

Leader of the Data and Technology Group, responsible for data analytics, insights, engineering, data science, AI and ML, alongside the technology services for digital distribution, rights, finance, reporting, operations, workflow and media management.

Led and developed cross-functional capabilities including Software and Media Engineering, Data Analytics, Data Science, Data Engineering, Product Management, DevOps and Application Support.

Owned the full data and technology strategy: roadmap, legal, security, investment, budgets and capability plans.

Accountable for the platform ecosystem covering scheduling, distribution/transcoding, asset management (CMS, DAM, PAM), library and rights management, finance, metadata, data lake, cloud and on-site infrastructure, reporting, CI/CD and AI/ML applications.

Head of Software Engineering - BBC Platform (Director Level)

BBC | Full-time

Apr 2018 - Nov 2021 (3 years 8 months) | London // Salford, United Kingdom

Led around 250 engineering colleagues (Engineers, Testers and Architects) in the BBC Platform department, and also served as overall BBC Engineering Professional Lead for around 700 people in total, covering career paths, recruitment, learning and development.

Defined and delivered engineering strategy for current and future organisational needs, including role progression, training programmes, talent pipelines such as Step into Tech, and improvements to working practices.

The platform included around 30 teams across 5 locations, delivering continuous change through Agile, CI/CD, DevOps and SRE patterns, with ongoing focus on resource mobility, cost efficiency and strategic prioritisation.

Director of Platform and Technologies

Marks and Spencer | Full-time

Jan 2016 - Apr 2018 (2 years 4 months) | Paddington, London, United Kingdom

Direct leadership of around 70 people across cloud specialists, engineers, architects, testers, programme leads and delivery leads, including leadership of migration from mainframe and datacentre environments to Microsoft Azure.

Owned the platform and technology transformation, focused on DevOps culture, speed of change, automation, self-healing, security and quality.

Set architecture direction for digital transformation by integrating legacy and modern technology, and expanding services, micro-services and event-based platforms from digital products into broader retail capabilities.

Owned the Cloud Capability Centre and vision for a cloud-hosted PaaS and container platform (Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry) with full CI/CD automation, reliability, performance and architecture onboarding support. Cloud providers: Azure (primary), AWS and IBM Cloud.

Led technical product owners, operations engineers and cloud engineers in roadmap execution, and held budget sign-off responsibility for a 110 million GBP investment in cloud technology and migration programmes.

Head of Solution Architecture (Online Commerce)

Tesco | Full-time

Jan 2011 - Jan 2016 (5 years 1 month) | Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom

Led software architecture and engineering for the Online Grocery Home Shopping platform, moving from a UK and ROI proposition to an international rollout across 8 countries in 3 years while doubling UK sales volume and peaking above 80 orders per second at Christmas 2015 traffic.

Created and delivered architecture vision, translating business requirements into technical delivery plans through leadership and governance of architecture teams in the UK and India alongside multiple third parties.

Drove next-generation ecommerce architecture based on services, APIs and multi-tenanted patterns, helping power the multi-award-winning online grocery platform.

Awards: Retailing Systems Awards Best of the Best (2015), Retail Week Technology Awards International Solution of the Year (2013), Retailing Systems Awards IT Project of the Year (2012), Retailing Systems Awards International Retailer of the Year (2012).

Head of Infrastructure Architecture and Online Security

Tesco

Jun 2009 - Jan 2011 (1 year 8 months) | Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom

Led and managed the infrastructure design team for Tesco in Welwyn Garden City, including design of multiple new online platforms and setting infrastructure architecture strategy for technology choices.

Led online IT security for Tesco digital platforms, focusing on data security, data integrity and PCI-DSS compliance.

Read about the even earlier years

Conferences, Keynotes And Presentations

I regularly share practical engineering, architecture, cloud and DevOps ideas through conference talks and events.

If you would like me to speak at your meetup, conference, or event, please get in touch.

2022: Lifting the lid on incorporating AI, The Digital World: Artificial Intelligence.
2020: Predictions for DevOps and DevSecOps, CXO Sync.
2019: Enabling collaboration through storytelling, National DevOps Conference.
2018: Scaling a Platform, Building the BBC.
2017: Doing things differently with cloud, containers, and functions, Cognizant Quality Engineering Summit.
2016: Cloud platform transformation talks at IDC and eCommerce events.

My Career Journey With Technology

I started software development in the early 1990s, creating games on the Commodore Amiga and later building business software on Windows platforms.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I helped build and scale internet and telecom businesses, including work with NetDirect, Ision, and energis. During my PhD research, I created one of the earliest online AI agents based on Kohonen neural network concepts, known as The Virtual Bodies Project.

I co-founded NDO in 2002 as Development Director and later worked on tvMAX, one of the UKs earliest large-scale IP television platforms.

In 2006 I completed a near 300-mile charity walk in the Himalayas, documented at Sam Goes Walkies.

From there, I moved through leadership roles in publishing, retail, media and streaming, always focused on practical engineering excellence, platform scale, and better ways of working.

For my professional profile, visit linkedin.com/in/samhill.

And Finally

Outside of technology, I am a volunteer train driver and guard for the Gunpowder Railway at the Royal Gunpowder Mills in Waltham Abbey.

You can usually find me there most Saturdays helping keep this brilliant local heritage railway running.