Projects
These case studies show how I work and some of the projects I've worked on.
Achilles is a global provider of supply chain risk management, compliance, sustainability, and performance solutions. Established in 1990, the business began by helping Norway’s offshore oil and gas sector streamline pre-qualification and compliance processes, and has since grown into a global network that helps organisations manage supplier risk, enhance transparency, and report on ESG and regulatory requirements. Today Achilles operates in more than 120 countries, supporting buyers and suppliers across industries such as construction, manufacturing, energy, utilities and transport with data-driven risk assessment and continuous monitoring.
At its core, the Achilles platform aggregates verified supplier information and assessment data to help organisations react proactively to risk, rather than relying on fragmented internal workflows. The platform is designed to cover the full supplier lifecycle — onboarding, qualification, audit and ongoing performance — and to give both buyers and suppliers a shared, transparent view of compliance and capability. This not only reduces redundancy and operational burden but also strengthens resilience across complex, multinational supply chains.
In recent years Achilles has also expanded its capability in sustainability reporting and analytics, reflecting the growing importance of environmental, social and governance performance within procurement and risk management frameworks. Tools that track ESG metrics, carbon footprint, and compliance against emerging standards have become central to how clients use the platform to meet evolving regulatory demands and investor expectations.
From February 2014 to January 2015, I served as Software Development Manager at Achilles, leading the recovery and ongoing development of a high-scale inventory and supplier risk management system. The platform was not a simple back-office tool; it was a mission-critical application sitting at the heart of how the organisation delivered supply chain transparency and risk assurance to its global client base.
My remit included both hands-on development and technical leadership across a team of 11 developers. The technology stack was rooted in C# .NET for core services and back-end APIs, with client interfaces built using Angular and Razor views, and supported by NoSQL storage in Couchbase for scalable data handling. We applied automated testing with NUnit, and leveraged NCrunch to keep feedback loops tight during development. The breadth of the platform — its data volume, the global diversity of its users, and the complexity of its risk models — meant that performance, maintainability and predictability were all critical concerns.
Regaining momentum on the system required more than code. It required clear direction, consistent patterns, and a shared understanding of how features should evolve. My leadership role involved daily engagement with developers, mentoring across practices like modular design, automated testing and CI workflows, and ensuring that architectural decisions were driven by long-term clarity rather than short-term expediency.
Success in this context depended on working closely with executive management and heads of departments to align technical trade-offs with strategic priorities. Supply chain risk management is not a straightforward domain: the platform had to serve enterprise buyers looking for granular insight into supplier performance, auditors tracking compliance and reporting, and internal teams responsible for data quality and system reliability. Balancing these concerns alongside delivery timelines meant establishing trust, setting meaningful technical goals and making progress visible without sacrificing stability.
A significant element of this work involved coaching and skill sharing across the team. We were integrating newer technologies like Angular into a system with deep legacy roots, and there were spectrum gaps in expertise. Through structured pair programming, regular design discussions and explicit code quality goals, I helped bridge those gaps and elevate team capability. This wasn’t about imposing patterns from the outside, but about cultivating shared ownership of both problem and solution.
Looking back, the Achilles engagement was a reminder that the combination of technical complexity and organisational uncertainty is not unusual in large-scale business intelligence platforms. What distinguishes successful delivery is seldom a particular framework or library, but the clarity of purpose, communication and disciplined craft that enable teams to move forward together.
Achilles itself is a company rooted in making risk visible and manageable. In many ways, our work on its systems reflected that same principle: making complexity tractable, buildable and resilient. And while the platform continues to evolve beyond the period of my involvement, the patterns of work and the emphasis on clarity over assumption remain foundational.
