Three recent engagements. Different organisations, different problems, the same shape of work.
A scale-up of ~110 people, ~70 in engineering. Grown fast and hired inconsistently. The CTO had made "team leads" out of engineers with no leadership experience. Hiring and salaries were inconsistent across teams. ICs were asking for growth paths. Senior leadership wanted more predictable delivery. The org had outgrown its structure and the middle wasn't there.
Built interview rubrics and trained interviewers. Hired six senior and Group EMs and promoted three internally. Renamed Team Leads to EMs and coached them on the people side of the role. Defined how Product and Engineering needed to collaborate, and ran 1-1-1 meetings with each PM/EM pair. Ran the engineering side of the company's first annual performance review — training managers, balancing across the org, owning the final calls. Coached the CTO on resource and budget planning. Ran a weekly EM forum so the EMs could problem-solve with each other rather than always coming through me. Stayed through the handover to their incoming VP Engineering.
Pay and roles standardised across engineering. The org had a coherent middle layer for the first time. Two of the Group EMs I hired are now Director and Senior Director, and are still there three years on.
"You joined at a time with no leadership in Engineering, and in a short time are leaving us in a place where we have a fully staffed, well led Engineering department with a proper structure. That should set us up for success long term."
— Josh Goldman, COO at Veed
"There's so much to learn from you, especially on the human side and on how to work together. It would be a shame if smaller companies decided to 'grow up' without really investing in the things you've shown Veed."
— Alberto Guarino, Director of Engineering, Veed
"Provided a framework to me and the EMs to use to understand their role. Growing the leadership team with senior EMs and Group EMs is really great for company stability and the support of less experienced EMs."
— Diana Teodorescu, Engineering Manager, Veed
A ~50–60 person engineering org with a struggling leadership layer and a culture of under-delivery. A long-overdue platform migration was in its final stretch, being held together effectively by the Chief Architect because the EM nominally in charge wasn't up to it.
Embedded as EM and Delivery Manager across several teams, managing 16 people directly. Cleaned up Jira processes and raised the bar on cross-team communication. Took the lead on incident response — there was no real process. Ran hiring pipelines, PIPed and exited one underperformer, extended another's probation; they turned into a strong performer. Built a custom progression framework with HR.
The platform-rebuild team had clear leadership and stakeholder communication for the first time. Delivery picked up across the teams I took on. The wider engineering leadership layer was reset.
"Gavin is simply one of, if not the best Engineering manager I have had in my 25+ year career in IT. His managing of the team is clear, effective and highly knowledgeable. He has the ability to bring the best out in people by working closely with them to understand what skills they bring, and then letting them apply those skills directly to projects."
— Fulvio Baroni, QA & Software Testing Consultant
"I was struck by how quickly he built a network within our org, becoming a connected and trusted presence across all levels. He approaches coaching with clarity and directness and a great deal of experience, doesn't shy away from difficult conversations, and has a natural gift for being able to understand and empathise with people, while pushing them to improve and grow."
— Christopher Gough, Senior Software Engineer
"Exceptional leadership and communication skills. Gavin broke down silos, improving internal and external communication within our team."
— Tom Creamer, Platform Product Manager
Joined a large delivery programme migrating from decades-old systems to a new platform, split between old teams supporting legacy and new teams building the future. Around half the staff were contractors from multiple organisations — IBM, Mastek, others. Multiple clashing cultures. A top-down agile ways-of-working programme being rolled out across all of it.
Adapted and delivered the ways-of-working programme. Set up core leadership groups in each team (tech lead, delivery manager, product manager, design lead) and coached them. Ran conflict-resolution and problem-discovery workshops where teams were stuck. In a presentation to the senior leadership team, I named the layer of leadership between the teams and the SLT the messy middle — and argued it needed reorganisation, with SLT ownership not benign neglect.
They adopted both the term and the argument, and restructured around it. Individual teams had effective leadership. The term stuck with me too. Most of the work I do now is helping leaders see and fix their messy middle before it becomes a crisis.
"He listened, then listened some more. He watched how the team worked, and he took notes — lots of notes. And, after a week or so, he started to give feedback. He was very firm, but very fair. Confident, but without ego. His external viewpoint was exactly what we needed. In a very short amount of time, he made the team materially better."
— Graham Jackson, Tech Lead, NHS England
"He has facilitated a number of sessions in and around the profession lead space, creating greater cohesion and clarity, with an eye for setting us up for success."
— Joe Knowles, Lead Service Designer, NHS England
