Alex Edwards
alex@lexedwards.com - https://lexedwards.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexedwards
Summary
Senior Software Engineer operating at Staff-level scope, with experience shaping iPlayer architecture and shipping services across web, mobile and TV. I lead ambiguous technical work, mentor engineers, and improve delivery through platform engineering, DevSecOps and responsible use of AI. I enjoy building reliable systems and developer tooling that make products easier to evolve.
Professional Experience
Senior Software Engineer - iPlayer Business Layer
BBC, UK
2024–Present
- Turned an ambiguous target architecture into an approved internal-platform roadmap for two core Business Layer teams, with incremental milestones for personalisation, catalogue data and page orchestration. Kept delivery on track through a six-month leadership gap while engineers took ownership of architecture decisions.
- Architected and shipped a shared related-content capability used by Web, iOS, Android, TV and Apple TV, with contributions from engineers I mentored across two teams. Its request, caching, error-handling and operational patterns were reused in later work.
- Designed a recommendation experiment that vertically ranked five iPlayer homepage rows and increased signed-in user plays by 18.7%, then coordinated its rollout across teams.
- Reworked agent harnesses to pass scoped work to role-specific agents and load context only when needed. Resumable correction flows cut repeated token use and human correction, while private knowledge bases supplied internal engineering guidance.
- Developed AI-assisted SDLC practices that the team adopted. Mentoring, demonstrations and relevant industry research prompted other engineers to test the practices themselves, question ineffective uses of AI and make informed tooling choices while remaining accountable for the work.
- Coordinated the immediate response to Shai-Hulud and wrote broader supply-chain guidance across three Business Layer teams. Moved security scans, quality checks, tests and deployment controls into CI/CD for more than 50 services. This made releases safer and gave reviewers more time to focus on product behaviour.
Senior Software Engineer - iPlayer Web
BBC, UK
2023–2024
- Strengthened secure production delivery by leading DevSecOps workshops on practical security practices.
- Strengthened reliability and operational readiness by defining load-testing strategy and driving technical debt improvements.
Software Engineer - iPlayer Web
BBC, UK
2022–2023
- Improved test maintainability and developer experience across multiple teams and micro front-ends by standardising use of a bespoke testing framework and reducing technical debt.
Software Engineer
Imaginative Software Ltd, UK
2020–2022
Web Developer
Vietnam
2017
Lead Developer
Coventry University
2014
Expertise and Skills
AI
Agentic Engineering, AI-Augmented Software Development, Context Engineering, OpenCode, Github Copilot, Claude Code
Cloud
AWS (Compute, IAM, Security), Infrastructure as Code (Cfn, CDK, Terraform), DevOps and CI/CD, Linux SysOps, Containerisation (Docker, ECS, EKS)
Languages and Frameworks
Node.js, TypeScript, Go, Rust, Bash, React
Architecture & Design
Distributed Systems, Microservices, Containerisation, Data Modelling, RESTful APIs, Cloud Security, Threat Modelling, Agile Methodologies
DevOps & CI/CD
Git, Pipeline Automation, Security Champion
Communication & Collaboration
Project Leadership, Technical Documentation, Knowledge Sharing Presentations, Agile Methodologies, ADR/RFC Processes
Certifications
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional (SAP-C02)
AWS
Target: Q3 2026
Security Engineering on AWS
QA
2024
Advanced Developing on AWS
QA
2024
Advanced Architecting on AWS
QA
2023
Threat Modelling
JBI
2023
SSL/TLS and Internet PKI
Feisty Duck
2022
Education
BA (Hons.) Photography
Coventry University, UK