David Hutchison
DevOps Architect
About
I am a seasoned Software Engineer turned DevOps Architect with a proven track record of leading teams, designing robust systems, and bridging development and operations. Over more than a decade at my current organisation, I’ve consistently expanded my role beyond what would be suggested by my job titles - evolving from Java Developer to Software Development Lead, to a technical authority on cloud platforms and system design.
I bring:
- End-to-end delivery expertise, from client requirements through to deployment, support, and continuous improvement.
- Hands-on leadership, mentoring teams toward autonomy and technical excellence, while preventing bottlenecks and enabling delivery.
- Architectural thinking, with deep technical breadth spanning Java, Python, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, Containerisation, Linux, and AWS platform engineering.
- A mindset for sustainable engineering - passionate about building robust, maintainable systems and leveraging automation to improve speed, consistency, and reliability.
I thrive in environments where I can lead by example - solving complex technical challenges, supporting team growth, and improving how systems are built and run. I’m always seeking the next challenge that lets me keep learning and building better systems.
Employment
DevOps Architect
Software Development Lead
Software Developer
My role at SEEMiS has grown as my experience, judgement, and technical breadth have been proven. I started as a Java software developer, moved into a development lead role, and now work as a DevOps Architect with a broad remit across platform architecture, software build and deployment, automated testing, observability, legacy platform risk, and senior technical assurance.
I combine hands-on engineering with technical leadership and work across the delivery lifecycle, from early requirements and architectural direction through implementation, release, support, and continuous improvement. This often means working across team or technology boundaries, adapting the level of detail for technical teams, delivery colleagues, suppliers, and senior management while keeping risks visible. Knowledge sharing is an important part of how I work: I mentor teams, promote maintainable engineering practices, and help people build the confidence to own systems and processes themselves.
Recent areas of focus include:
- Leading many aspects of the architecture and hands-on implementation of a new AWS-based Product Suite platform, replacing core parts of the existing MIS application suite with services built around Java/Jakarta EE, MicroProfile, Payara Micro, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Angular, and AWS-native tooling. I also developed reusable modules and service templates that allow backend teams to build and deploy their own services using the platform’s established patterns. My work across delivery, observability, release testing, and wider technical problem solving helped the first release reach readiness for go-live.
- Designing and maturing the platform’s CI/CD capabilities, including infrastructure deployment, quality controls, dependency handling, and the documentation needed for other teams to use and support them.
- Building release testing capabilities for Cypress UI tests, API acceptance tests, and reusable test data. This has included helping a primarily manual testing team move towards repeatable automation, while recognising that sustainable automation also requires clear processes and ownership.
- Developing operational readiness through tracing, centralised logging, AWS-native dashboards and metrics, monitoring strategy, and support processes, while helping development and platform teams understand how to use them in practice.
- Designing, developing, integrating, improving, and supporting a large Java/Jakarta EE application suite over many years - giving me a deep understanding of complex system dependencies, REST and SOAP services, shared frameworks, and the practical challenges of modernising long-lived systems without disrupting live services. Software Archaeology has been a recurring activity over the years.
- Providing senior technical leadership across technical debt and legacy platform risk. I also work with internal and external security specialists on penetration testing, vulnerability remediation, and pragmatic risk mitigation.
- Modernising legacy developer tooling by establishing and proving a project-by-project CVS to Git migration process. This also creates opportunities for wider CI and SonarQube quality improvements.
- Modernising our non-AWS deployment approach using Ansible and Semaphore UI, with Maven-style artifact publishing through Nexus.
- Acting as a senior escalation point for complex application, platform, and infrastructure issues where the root cause is not immediately clear. This includes deep troubleshooting of application server behaviour, protocols, performance, and production incidents.
- Designing performance-test plans from anticipated usage or evidence from smaller-scale releases, then using monitoring and analysis to identify tuning opportunities.
- Helping teams improve how they work across sprint events, ticket workflows, engineering practices, and developer experience. This included recruiting, mentoring, and technically screening developers, as well as strengthening shared standards and processes so teams were less dependent on individual specialists.
Across both agile and waterfall projects, I look for practical ways to remove repetitive work, shorten feedback loops, and make systems easier to build, test, release, observe, and support. I like automation, but the useful kind - automation that makes the process clearer and more reliable rather than simply moving the complexity somewhere less visible.
Education
AWS Certified AI Practitioner
Amazon Web Services Training and Certification
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Amazon Web Services Training and Certification
Training for Professional Scrum Master (QATPSM)
QA
AgilePM (2014) Foundation
Training ByteSize / APMG International
Java SE 6 Programmer
Oracle Certified Professional
2.1 BSc. Hons. Computer Science
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Skills
I have built up a broad technical base through professional, academic, open-source, and personal software development. I enjoy learning new technologies when they help solve real problems, and I try to stay close enough to wider industry change to make pragmatic decisions about when a new tool or approach is worth adopting.
Outside of my day-to-day work I explore adjacent technologies through side projects, open-source contributions, and home automation. That self-directed research often feeds back into professional work, either as practical solutions to problems I have encountered or as proposals for better tools, automation, and engineering practices.
I am comfortable digging into the internals of open-source libraries to understand behaviour, diagnose awkward issues, and contribute feedback or fixes where appropriate. My open-source work includes contributions to cloud-radar, a Python library for testing AWS CloudFormation templates locally, alongside smaller tooling and plugin work.
Programming languages: Java, TypeScript, Python, Bash, JavaScript, Ruby, HTML, CSS, SCSS/LESS
Application libraries: Java/Jakarta EE (JAX-RS, JAX-WS, CDI, EJB), MicroProfile, Angular, Swing, JasperReports, iText, JSP
Build tools: Maven, Ant, Poetry
Databases: Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite
Testing tools/frameworks: JUnit, Testcontainers, Mockito, JMeter, SoapUI, Postman, REST Assured, WireMock, Cypress, Jest, Jasmine
Continuous integration and quality: Jenkins, AWS CodeBuild/CodePipeline, GitHub Actions, Sonatype Nexus, SonarQube
Cloud, observability and infrastructure: AWS, Docker, OpenTelemetry, AppDynamics, Ansible, Semaphore UI, Git
Application platforms: Payara, GlassFish, JBoss, Tomcat, Apache HTTP Server, ApacheDS, nginx