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Leeds, UK · working remotely

Mark Austin Senior Software Engineer

9+ years across backend and full-stack engineering, currently building and scaling production systems at Uberall.

In my spare time I run Austin Tech Solutions, building and running websites for businesses across Yorkshire and the North East.

Get in touchView my work
Mark Austin driving a Lotus Elise on track

off the clock: track days & motorsport

Mark Austin

about

About Mark Austin

I'm a senior software engineer with 9+ years of experience, specialising in backend systems, data pipelines and API integrations. I take ambiguous problems from R&D through architecture and requirements into production.

My strongest areas are Kotlin and the JVM, AWS, APIs and data pipelines. I use Claude Code and MCP day to day for R&D, unfamiliar codebases and incident investigation, and I check what it gives me against the code and the data before I act on it. Outside work I'm into motorsport and track days.

tech & tools

Backend

  • Kotlin
  • Micronaut
  • Ktor
  • Java
  • Groovy
  • Spring Boot

Cloud and infrastructure

  • AWS
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • Jenkins

Messaging

  • Kafka
  • AWS SQS

Data

  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • Databricks
  • Elasticsearch
  • Redis

Observability

  • Grafana
  • Prometheus
  • Sentry

AI

  • Claude Code
  • Claude Agent SDK
  • MCP
  • Agent Skills
  • cmux (parallel agents)

Web

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Next.js
  • Node.js

impact

Engineering highlights

  • 2026

    Uberall

    At the end of October I became a one-person pilot team on a new product feature, reporting directly to the VP of Engineering and the CTO. V1 is in production. I do all of it: planning, product, backend, data engineering, frontend and QA. I turned a product brief into requirements, an architecture and a ticket plan, wrote the architecture up for review by the VP of Engineering and the CTO, and built it across the stack, including the data work it depends on. Product decisions I can't make alone are written up as explicit open questions rather than assumed. V1 went to production behind a feature flag, and I tested it end to end myself. I demonstrated it to the VP of Engineering, recorded a separate walkthrough for the CTO, and wrote documentation for both the wider company and engineers. Along the way I found and fixed defects in services the feature depends on rather than working around them.

    KotlinGroovyDatabricks

  • 2026

    Uberall

    Meta removed metrics we depended on, and I owned the response from R&D through to a 9-ticket delivery plan, and all of it shipped ahead of Meta's deadline. Meta's Graph API v25 removed 10 Page and Post metrics on every API version, and because we requested metrics in batches, one removed metric failed the whole request. I wrote the R&D and took the decisions that belonged to Product to Product rather than guessing: whether to use the replacement metrics, how to handle history, and how to label the affected reports. I planned the work as 9 tickets with the dependencies mapped, and all nine shipped ahead of the deadline. I'd built the original Graph API integration in 2023.

    GroovyGrailsMySQL

  • 2026

    Austin Tech Solutions

    A custom-built replacement for the WordPress site of a Stockport glass specialist, whose first website I built in 2019. The old site had become a chore to run, so I built a new platform from scratch and moved their domain, hosting and three mailboxes over with the full email history. Every old WordPress address redirects to its new page, so the search visibility the old site had earned carried over. Customers can leave reviews that the owner approves from a one-click email link, and enquiries arrive as branded emails with rate limiting and spam protection. I look after the hosting, security, updates and SEO, and errors are flagged to me straight away.

    Next.jsTypeScriptVercel

  • 2026

    Uberall

    I led the Apple Insights move to Apple's Business API v1. It went live ahead of Apple's deadline with no rollback. Apple is retiring the old API on 31 October 2026. The change spanned four repositories and depended on another team migrating the token side alongside us. I scoped it, wrote the migration and rollback plans, coordinated with that team and wrote the code. I sequenced the cutover so reporting kept working, and watched it for 24 hours before closing it. The move also stopped the rate-limit errors and sped up requests for our largest accounts.

    KotlinMicronautAWS+1

  • 2026 – Present

    Austin Tech Solutions

    My own product, built and run under Austin Tech Solutions: one calendar for track days, test days and race meetings across five circuits. The circuits are in and near Yorkshire, and spectator access is confirmed by people who were actually there rather than guessed. A daily job pulls events from several sources into one feed, and a source that breaks is logged and skipped rather than taking the others down. Around that sit email alerts, calendar subscriptions, a community photo gallery, an embeddable calendar for clubs and circuits, and a review queue that drafts weekend posts for Facebook and Instagram through Meta's Graph API. It's live and I maintain it.

    Next.jsTypeScriptPostgreSQL+1

  • 2026

    Uberall

    I built Uberdocs, an internal AI assistant used across Uberall. It answered over 1,500 questions in its first six months, about 60 a week. It started as my entry to an internal plugin competition, aimed at Customer Success and Product, who need sourced answers without reading code. It searches GitLab, Confluence and the help centre and answers Uberall questions in plain English with its sources cited, through a Slack command, a Claude Code plugin or an MCP server. It's used well beyond engineering, including to check and draft answers for customer RFPs. Because it sits in company-wide Slack, I locked down where it can run and moved every source behind an MCP server with typed tools. The model never handles credentials and has no shell or web access, so read-only is enforced rather than asked for. Every cited source gets a trust rating from its type and age, and when a document contradicts the code, Uberdocs says so and logs it, which gives us a running list of docs to fix. I benchmarked the models before choosing, and answers are now scored against real questions with engineers' own answers as the reference, an evaluation I reviewed and reran myself to confirm its results. I track usage, cost and source health in Grafana.

    ClaudePythonMCP+5

  • 2025

    Austin Tech Solutions

    A full rebuild for Performance Autocare, an independent Lotus specialist in Knaresborough, to mark its tenth year. Their old site didn't reflect a decade of reputation, and enquiries had nowhere reliable to land. I designed and built a new site around everything they do: a full services catalogue, a workshop tour and a live inventory of cars for sale, with enquiries going straight to their business email. Since launch I've run the hosting, deployment and security and kept the sales inventory up to date, so the team can focus on the workshop.

    Next.jsTypeScriptVercel

  • 2025

    Austin Tech Solutions

    A full rebuild, brand refresh and regional SEO for CTB, chartered surveyors and project managers in Leeds. Their website hadn't kept pace with the firm. I rebuilt it on a modern platform with a library of over 20 project case studies, a page for each director and a homepage that plays drone footage of the Leeds skyline, with a lighter version for phones. I wrote the content and set up the regional SEO. Since launch I've run the hosting and support, and errors on the site, including failed enquiries, are flagged to me straight away.

    Next.jsTypeScriptVercel

  • 2023 – Present

    Uberall

    Tech lead on Uberall's Apple Insights pipeline, from first design to production. It processes nearly 3 million requests a day. Uberall needed Apple Business Connect insights in its analytics product, and the quick option was to build it into the monolith. I made the case for a separate service instead, with a design document, R&D findings and a revised timeline, and engineering leadership approved it. I worked alongside a tech lead from another team, presented the design to Apple's technical team, and adapted the build when Apple changed its API partway through. It went live in 2024, on time and to the original design, and Uberall was the first in its industry to integrate Apple Insights. I still own it.

    KotlinMicronautAWS+5

experience

Software engineering career

  1. Uberall

    Uberall

    visit Uberall website (opens in a new tab)

    Senior Backend Engineer

    Berlin, Germany · Remote

    Mar 2023 – Present

    Joined as Backend Engineer and promoted to Senior Backend Engineer in July 2024. I'm the tech lead for Apple Insights and regularly lead technical planning and delivery for the Analytics & Reporting team, a distributed team of 9.

    • Since the end of October I've been a one-person pilot team on a new product feature, reporting directly to the VP of Engineering and the CTO. I do the planning, product work, backend, data engineering, frontend and QA myself, and V1 is in production.
    • Led the design and delivery of Apple Insights, which processes nearly 3 million requests a day. I made the case for a dedicated service over the monolith, presented the design to Apple's technical team and still own it in production, along with the working relationship with Apple's API team.
    • Own the response when an external platform changes under us, from R&D through to a sequenced rollout. In 2026 I moved Apple Insights to Apple's Business API v1 with no rollback, which also stopped its rate-limit errors and sped up our largest accounts, and took our heaviest Databricks service off a retiring driver six weeks early. When Meta removed ten metrics we ingest, I led the response and took the decisions that belonged to Product to them with the options rather than guessing.
    • Built Uberdocs, an internal AI assistant, from an idea to something used across the company, answering over 1,500 questions in its first six months, with the access controls, source reliability checks and evaluation that make its answers trustworthy.
    • Lead root-cause investigations on production incidents, writing up the evidence, impact and options for a fix the same day. When a company-wide security patch landed, I worked out which of our 56 repositories were affected, raised the fixes for the six that needed code changes within a day, and had all six merged, neutralising the security issue. As the only UK-based engineer on a team spanning the Americas and Dubai, I cover client-facing and system-critical issues early in the day.
    • Contribute across teams. I wrote the design for our Lakebase migration, review design documents for other teams, and enabled QuickSight reporting for two sales partners. The first was live the same day by reusing the row-level security already on their data, and the second was made useful in under 48 hours with every figure checked against exports Customer Success had already sent. The onboarding guide I wrote lets future partners be added without a new data path.
    • Support the team and its hiring. I run its ceremonies, wrote its Definition of Ready and Definition of Done, onboard new engineers and interview backend candidates, including leading a full panel for a Lead Engineer role. I built the interview tracker the team uses to share interviews out.
  2. Austin Tech Solutions

    Austin Tech Solutions

    visit Austin Tech Solutions website (opens in a new tab)

    Director

    Leeds, UK · Hybrid

    Feb 2025 – Present

    Founded and run Austin Tech Solutions in my spare time, building websites for businesses across Yorkshire and the North East and owning discovery, design, development, hosting and support.

  3. AND Digital

    AND Digital

    visit AND Digital website (opens in a new tab)

    Senior Product Developer (Senior Software Engineer & Consultant)

    Leeds, UK · Hybrid

    Jan 2019 – Mar 2023

    I joined AND Digital as an Associate Developer in January 2019 and was promoted to Product Developer in 2021 and Senior Product Developer in 2022. From 2020 to 2023 I was a senior engineer at Sky Betting & Gaming on its horse racing and greyhound betting engines, building Kotlin and Kafka services, integrating new data providers, cutting processing latency with Kotlin Flow and mentoring junior and senior engineers. Before that I worked with clients including KCOM, N Brown and MKM Building Supplies.

  4. Baker Hughes, a GE company

    Baker Hughes, a GE company

    visit Baker Hughes, a GE company website (opens in a new tab)

    EID IT Intern

    Newcastle, UK · On-site

    Jun 2016 – Jul 2017

    My industrial placement year. I built data visualisations of machine performance for the pipeline factory and worked on a recruitment showcase web app.

  5. Sheffield Hallam University

    Sheffield Hallam University

    visit Sheffield Hallam University website (opens in a new tab)

    BSc (Hons) Computer Science

    Sheffield, UK · On-site

    Graduated 2018

    I graduated with a First Class BSc (Hons) in Computer Science, with an overall mark of 83%, the second highest in my cohort.

Austin Tech Solutions

austin tech solutions

I design, build and look after websites for businesses across Yorkshire and the North East

Austin Tech Solutions is my web design business. I work with any kind of business or organisation across Yorkshire and the North East, on new websites, redesigns, SEO, hosting, ongoing maintenance and Google Business Profile management. It's one senior engineer rather than an agency, and it's built to be hands-off: you give me a brief and approve the work at a few points, and I handle the content, the launch, the hosting and everything after.

Visit Austin Tech Solutions

say hello

Contact Mark Austin

Hiring, or want to talk engineering? Email me at mark@austintechsolutions.co.uk or use the form.

Need a website for your business? Say so in your message, or see Austin Tech Solutions.

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