Blue Shell Consultancy

Blue Shell Consultancy Ltd · Manchester

Tech Lead and Principal Engineer, on contract.

I’m Dave Mason. I work with software teams as a hands-on lead.

Get in touch Selected work
Dave Mason

How I can help

I usually contract as a Tech Lead or Principal Engineer, and I like to stay in the code. Agentic development is a big part of how I can help.

Agentic development

I build harnesses, MCP servers, and skills so an agent can take on a business process, not just answer a question. The gain is less manual work.

I look after that the same way as any other production system. It should be reliable, and easy for the team to change.

Tech Lead

I join a squad and help it deliver. That means the technical plan, the reviews, the trade-offs, and a fair share of the code.

It suits a team that wants a lead who is still an engineer: someone to unblock people, care about the quality of the work, and leave the system easier to change.

Principal Engineer

I help with problems that sit across a team or a platform. Architecture, a migration with a deadline, a launch, a system that has become expensive to change.

I work with the people who will own it afterwards, and I stay close enough to the code to see how the design is holding up.

On an engagement

  • Based in Manchester. I work remotely, and hybrid when the team is local.
  • You contract with Blue Shell Consultancy Ltd.
  • Recent delivery has been in Go, React, TypeScript, Node.js, AWS, and Terraform. I started in .NET, and I still work in it when that is the stack.
  • If I think there’s a simpler way, I’ll say so early, and we can decide together.

Selected work

The roles that shape how I contract now. Newest first.

  1. –

    DEFRA

    Technical Lead · Contract · Remote

    Technical lead for a team at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, making waste digital. The first iteration of the product is live. The contract runs to June 2027.

  2. –

    MirrorWeb

    Lead Software Engineer · Manchester, hybrid

    • Led a small squad that built and launched a mobile capture product for iMessage and WhatsApp compliance within twelve months.
    • Replaced third-party dependencies with an in-house design, raising product margins from 30% to 90%.
    • Built an MCP server and a Claude skill so agents could triage technical support tickets, and cut down the manual work.

    Go, React, Node.js, and AWS.

  3. –

    xDesign / CreateFuture

    Director of Engineering · Manchester, hybrid

    • Aligned engineering strategy for a 300-person consultancy during a period of fast growth.
    • Put structures in place so engineering output matched the business.
    • Represented the firm at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

  4. –

    Infinity Works, part of Accenture

    Principal Consultant · Manchester, hybrid

    • Designed a cloud-native data lake for Flutter Entertainment that processes 2.5 billion messages a day.
    • Enterprise architect for ITV’s Distributions group, on the HD streaming work for the launch of ITV X.
    • Introduced PACT testing and continuous delivery at Westfield Health.
    • Managed a team of consultants and led technical business development in Manchester.

  5. –

    LADbible Group

    Head of Engineering

    • Scaled three product squads — more than twenty engineers — on some of the UK’s highest-traffic media sites.
    • Reworked the cloud architecture to hold 99.9% uptime through large traffic spikes.

  6. –

    Zuto

    Head of Engineering

    • Led six engineering squads through a migration of more than fifty services to AWS, against a fixed regulatory deadline.
    • Introduced a competency framework so engineers had an objective career path.

Before those roles I was Head of Software Solutions at Risk Technology, a senior developer at Intechnica, Think Money, and Leasing.com, and an application analyst at Vertex.

About

I have spent more than twenty years building software in and around Manchester, from analyst and senior developer through to Head of Engineering and Director of Engineering.

Those leadership roles showed me how a department works, and how easy it is to drift away from the product. I came back to hands-on engineering because that’s the work I enjoy. These days I contract as a Tech Lead or Principal Engineer: in the squad, sharing the technical decisions, and still writing software.

What I like most is still the original job. Take a system that has become hard to change, and help the team make it something they can run with confidence.

That experience translates to technical decisions that are right first time round, as well as standing the test of time. He is by far the best person I’ve seen hire and run a team, creating an environment for individuals to grow and succeed.

Josh Nesbitt, recommendation on LinkedIn

Get in touch

If you’re looking for a Tech Lead, a Principal Engineer, or some help putting agents to work on a real process, send me a message on LinkedIn. It helps to know what you’re building and what’s getting in the way. I’m in Manchester, and I usually work remotely.

Message me on LinkedIn