Andrew Lawson

I’m an experienced software engineer currently working at Monzo Bank.

I’m most comfortable working with distributed systems and microservice platform design, though I have previous experience with monolithic and ‘many-service’ architectures.

Work Experience

  1. Monzo Bank

    Snr. Backend Engineer – Present

    In my time so far at Monzo I've been fortunate to have worked in a number of squads in different domains. Projects and squads I'd like to mention in particular:

    💰 Money Collective Risks
    In late 2019 I moved to a small squad set up to build out our risk controls processes within the Money Collective with the aim to reduce risk. The scope of the work involved was pretty broad, reaching into payment systems, internal financial processes, and our frameworks for escalating permissions for almost every way to move money at Monzo. We set up and built a number of new systems, but one in particular has paved the way for widening the scope and improving the maturity of the payment systems we can offer our customers.

    🇺🇸 US
    A project to build a new Monzo product in the US kicked off in early 2019 with 6 people including 3 engineers. Together we built everything we needed to launch an MVP in the US at launch events initially in LA, SF and NY. Amongst the things we built were new payment systems for new US-specific Monzo cards, product features, supplier integrations, and support for non-GBP customer currencies, all in time for our launch in the summer. It was a huge undertaking, but it was incredibly fulfilling to be a part of.

  2. OnTrack Retail

    CTO –

    Continuing again from my previous role in this company as the Head of Engineering, my role as CTO allows me to focus more on planning current projects and the future of the company's technology.

  3. Head of Engineering –

    Continuing from my previous role in this company as a Senior Developer, my role as the Head of Engineering involved organising our engineering and QA teams, shaping and simplifying our working processes, and meeting with technical clients and suppliers.

  4. Snr. Developer –

    This project involved building a complex product within several very tight deadlines to delivery a new train ticket retail system. It was built for some of the country’s largest train operators including Southern, Southeastern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express. The system was structured as a network of tens of services. I also lead a team; running agile sprint planning, daily stand-up meetings, and conducting interviews.

  5. Graze

    R&D Developer –

    A large part of my the work was to redevelop the core product dispatch system to help the software scale with the business. This system was the first to be separated from the core service into its own microservice. After many months of group and A/B testing, the new system was gradually released to the rest of the customer base. As of December 2014, its picking algorithms were used to create orders for tens of millions of customers.

    More information available upon request.

  6. BraveNewTalent

    Developer –

    More information available upon request.

  7. Fully Charged

    Developer/Director –

    More information available upon request.

Formal Education

  1. Northumbria University, GB –

    More information available upon request.

Last updated . Best viewed at adlawson.com/cv/. Also available in PDF.