Gareth Hughes
Gareth Hughes

Gareth Hughes

Senior Engineering Manager · Sydney, Australia

Expert .NET and JavaScript engineer and technical leader with 20 years of experience across England and Australia, with over a decade of engineering leadership. Proven track record delivering technical transformation and platform modernisation at scale — across domains including real estate, compliance, travel, and digital media.

Core competencies: System design and architecture, event-driven architecture, cloud-native platforms, legacy modernisation, CI/CD pipeline development, agentic AI integration, and engineering team leadership — across delivery models from large enterprise waterfall projects to agile product-led organisations.


Skills

Architecture & Design: Event-Driven Architecture · Microservices · DDD · CQRS · System Design · Micro-FE

Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS (ECS, Fargate, Lambda, DynamoDB) · Kubernetes · Terraform · CDK · OpenTelemetry · Elastic

Languages & Frameworks: C# · .NET Framework · .NET 5+ · TypeScript · Node.js · React · Vue.js · PHP · GraphQL

Data & Messaging: PostgreSQL · SQL Server · DynamoDB · SNS/SQS · Kafka · Snowflake · Entity Framework

DevOps & Tooling: CI/CD · Docker · Azure DevOps · GitHub Actions · IaC · Serverless Framework · OpsGenie

AI & Automation: Agentic AI · Claude Code · Amazon Q · Gemini · AI workflow design

Security & Compliance: IAM Policy Design · Secrets Management · API Security · ISO 27001 · PCI DSS


Experience

Senior Engineering Manager — MyPass Global

Sydney · 2024–2026

Led software engineering and data across six cross-functional squads (25–30 engineers), responsible for re-platforming and platform stability including future-state architecture design in collaboration with engineering squads.

  • Architected and executed an engineering-wide AI enablement strategy, progressing from initial Amazon Q pilots to a mature agentic AI ecosystem using Claude Code and Gemini — measurably increasing developer velocity
  • Directed a high-performance engineering department across six squads, establishing a new Platform Engineering function to bridge developer experience and operational stability
  • Acted as primary technical stakeholder in enterprise discovery, designing future-state architecture that secured a $6–8m ARR partnership
  • Authored a multi-year technical roadmap covering legacy infrastructure transition to event-driven architecture, including a comprehensive database migration strategy

Java · TypeScript · Neo4j · GraphQL · Kubernetes · AWS · Snowflake · Jenkins · Azure DevOps


Lead Engineer — A-Leagues

Sydney · 2023–2024

Established a new engineering team, building agile processes and optimising ways of working from the ground up.

  • Delivered aleagues.com.au for the 2023/24 season including full data migration from the legacy platform
  • Built and launched 13 club websites including complete data migration
  • Led initiative to rebuild data ingestion pipelines, reducing cloud costs by 70% through event-driven architecture
  • Established engineering standards and CI/CD practices for the new team structure

PHP · WordPress · TypeScript · React · AWS (Lambda, SNS/SQS, DynamoDB) · Azure DevOps · CDK


Senior Developer — Pluralsight

Remote · 2022–2023

Technical integration between A Cloud Guru and Pluralsight platforms following acquisition, working across distributed systems and event-driven architecture.

  • Led large-scale Node.js version upgrade across multiple services, improving security posture and enabling modern tooling
  • Developed custom Serverless Framework plugin to standardise secrets management across 50+ Lambda functions
  • Architected integration with Pluralsight's Kafka-based event platform using Inbox/Outbox pattern for reliable message delivery

TypeScript · Node.js · GraphQL · Serverless Framework · Kafka · AWS (Lambda, DynamoDB, Secrets Manager)


Software Engineering Team Lead — Wilbur

Remote · 2020–2022

Brought in to take over from an outgoing engineering team; established agile methodologies and modernised legacy systems while maintaining business continuity.

  • Migrated legacy .NET application from Azure VMs to AWS Fargate, reducing infrastructure costs and improving deployment velocity
  • Architected and developed a new repair portal using cloud-native technologies with CQRS/MediatR patterns
  • Modernised application stack from .NET Framework to .NET 6+
  • Created and deployed build pipelines using Azure DevOps with Terraform

C# · .NET 6 · AWS (ECS, Fargate, SQS/SNS, Lambda) · SQL Server · PostgreSQL · Terraform · Vue.js


Software Engineering Team Lead — Domain

Sydney · 2019–2020

Responsible for the billing platform, managing complex stakeholder relationships across Strategy, Salesforce, and Operations teams.

  • Delivered a complex price change project introducing a price-banding system, coordinating across multiple business units
  • Designed and delivered architecture for migration from bulk billing to real-time billing with Zuora and Salesforce integrations
  • Improved platform stability through service modernisation and caching strategies

C# · .NET Framework · AWS (EC2, SQS/SNS, Lambda) · SQL Server · Elasticsearch · Salesforce


Technical Director — Helium

Sydney · 2016–2019

Responsible for all technical aspects of the consultancy including strategy, team resourcing, and engineering processes. Combined hands-on technical leadership with client-facing responsibilities.

  • Established technical strategy and engineering processes for a growing consultancy
  • Led technical engagement for major clients including NSW Government and ALDI
  • Delivered end-to-end solutions from pre-sales through to production handover

C# · .NET Framework · Node.js · React · Vue.js · PHP · AWS


Earlier roles

CompanyRole
Corporate Travel ManagementSenior Developer
HotelsCombinedSenior Developer
NineContractor
TechnoPhobiaJunior → Developer → Senior Developer

Education

Sheffield Hallam University BSc (Hons) Computing — Software Engineering — First Class