About
I'm Osmond James. 28 years building production systems across financial services, government, utilities, and media. I design and build platforms for organizations that need systems leadership, not just code.
Years shipping production
Platforms in development
Companies founded
Background
I started in 1996 writing client-server systems in Visual Basic and Clipper. By 1999, I was building Java applications at SKY. I've watched every major platform shift since—from J2EE to Spring, from VMs to containers, from on-prem to cloud-native. I've built systems through all of them. Now I'm completely language agnostic. The technology doesn't matter — I pick what's right for the problem.
My career has spanned regulated enterprise (HSBC, Barclays, Deutsche Bank), government security (SwissBit BSI, GOV.UK Verify), utilities (Severn Trent), and media (SKY, QVC). I've been Enterprise Architect setting company-wide technology direction, Head of Technology at startups, and founded three companies. Not just team leadership — technology leadership.
I founded OSTEC.IO because I wanted to build products, not just consult. HIVE is open source — 28 years of production experience you can verify in the code. Now I'm applying that same depth to Locactus and Boditree.
Sectors I've Shipped In
Production systems across regulated industries and consumer tech.
Financial Services
HSBC, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America
Government & Security
SwissBit BSI, Barclays GOV Verify, OpSec Security
Utilities
Severn Trent Water
Media & Retail
SKY, QVC, EMI
HealthTech
Dr Fertility
FinTech
Phoebus Software
Career Highlights
Key roles across enterprise and scale-up environments.
2024 - 2025
HSBC
Senior Technical Lead - Core Banking EU
Mainframe to microservices migration using 'strangle the monolith' approach. Java Spring Boot, Docker, Kubernetes.
2024
SwissBit
Software Engineering
German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) - high-security digital solutions, Google Cloud.
2021 - 2023
HSBC
Solutions Architect
Financial crime reporting, National Crime Agency integration, Google Cloud migration.
2017 - 2018
Barclays
Global Information Security API Consultant
CMA Open Banking Phase 1 & 2, GIS API security SDK, GOV.UK Verify
2020 - 2021
OpSec Security
Enterprise Architect
Company-wide security architecture, microservice security posture
2018 - 2020
Phoebus Software
Digital Architect Lead
FinTech transformation - digital mortgage platform for banking sector
2008 - 2010
Severn Trent Water
Team Leader / Architect
8-person team, ESB architecture, DataPower & MQ integration
Founder & Ventures
Not just building for others—building my own platforms.
2019 - Present
OSTEC.IO
Founder
Platform engineering consultancy and product studio. Building 8 platforms across DevOps, HealthTech, and Location Intelligence.
2014 - 2016
Locactus
CTO
Location-based social discovery platform. Real-time event matching using microservices architecture.
2002 - 2004
eLocus Systems
Managing Director
Pioneering Enterprise LBS middleware (Safe Angel) for tracking individuals and high-value assets.
How I Work
Production first
Everything I build is designed to operate. Not as a demo, not as a prototype—as a production system that needs to stay up.
Decisions over options
I get paid to make technical decisions, not present endless alternatives. Senior judgment is the product.
Constraints clarify
Hard constraints don't limit architecture—they clarify it. I start with the constraint that scares you.
Clean handovers
My goal is to make myself unnecessary. You should own everything completely when we're done.
Technical Approach
I don't have a stack. I have 28 years of picking the right tool for the problem. HIVE's agent is Go. The control plane is Java. The frontends are React and Next.js. Each choice made for a reason.
If I can think it, I can build it. The language doesn't matter — the architecture does. After enough technology cycles, you stop being defined by tools and start being defined by what you ship.
Let's Talk
If you're facing a platform challenge and want to discuss whether I can help, I'm happy to have that conversation.
Start a Conversation