“Ask Ian to come into a highly ambiguous space and he will quickly make sense of the chaos and find a way to bring order and deliver results.
Ian is a brilliant collaboration partner. His team value his leadership style and this means everyone around him goes above and beyond to succeed in the mission.”
— Fran Gillibrand — Product Manager, NHS England
“I just wanted to take note of what an asset Ian is to the NHS App team.
His well-roundedness as a Team Lead is impressive. He has both the technical knowledge and ability to apply it to ensure all components within the project have a good foundation. Ian has a superb eye for detail and is great at conveying how and why things should be implemented to the wider team, via code review, in stand-ups, and other technical discussions.
One of Ian’s greatest abilities is his patience. It is difficult working in a large team with a lot of different opinions coming from a lot of different angles. Policing these opinions to ensure things get delivered efficiently and to a high standard is a great challenge. I find Ian’s ability to stay calm under these scenarios impressive. He is able to approach problems with a cool head (no matter how sporadic or urgent the issue). He is able to mediate technical discussions and finds the right balance of listening to people’s opinions, while also being stern so that all team members are on the same page.
Last of all, and probably most importantly, Ian cares a great deal. Both about the team (his cell and the wider team as well) and about delivering high-quality software for the user. This is extremely important when delivering for the public sector, in particular healthcare. It also makes Ian a pleasure to work with."
— Sean Devlin — Technical Architect, Kainos
“The biggest problem with working with Ian F. Nelson is the Ian F. Nelson shaped hole he leaves behind. We’re going to have to use a patchwork of devs to make up for all the excellent work you’ve done here and your loss will be felt for some time to come.”
— Steve Hine — Lead Engineer, Financial Conduct Authority
“I wanted to call out Ian Nelson for his excellent work on the NHS App. Ian has been fantastic to work with over the past six months. Of all the tech leads I found Ian to be the most approachable, often seeking technical advice from him, which really helped me settle into both my role and the project.
Ian really looks out for everyone on his team and does his utmost to ensure they are comfortable with their workload and aware of what is required from them on the project. He is excellent during stand-ups and in our planning sessions.
A particular example I would like to single out was this past weekend. Ian flagged that a complex piece of Cosmos DB work was at risk of missing the 1.0.0 cut-off. Rather than letting it slip, he worked through the weekend to pull the team’s work together and finalise it.
Ian is a consummate professional, a real asset to the project in my opinion and it has been a pleasure to work with him.”
— Kevin O’Hara — Business Analyst, Kainos
“You’ve been simply awesome, and I truly mean that. You’ve made life so much easier for all of us; absolutely loved working with you – a true professional! FCA is lucky to have you looking after one of the most important parts of the software.”
— Christophe Kalista — Solution Architect, Kainos
“I worked with Ian for nearly two years as joint senior developer — he was the back-end specialist and overall technical architect.
I have been incredibly impressed with Ian’s ability to take on serious back-end challenges, sometimes with fairly minimal to no requirements and create an incredibly robust, highly-scalable enterprise-grade architecture.
His ability to work with the latest emerging technology stacks to deliver state-of-the-art services holds no parallel I have ever witnessed. Many times developers get used to a particular stack they are familiar with and stick with those tried-and-tested methods; but Ian’s ability to turn his hand to brand new technologies shows someone who is extremely adaptable with an incredible capacity to learn. I witnessed this first hand with his use of Azure which received Microsoft’s approval.
Ian can create architectures which are simple to follow with minimal architectural knowledge, yet powerful and dynamic enough to deal with pretty much any situation. This has been crucial in our relatively small team where in just 6 month we were loading real customers onto our system and have continually been adding features to support over 1,000 clients. In addition, being a small team Ian has had to speak and present to every level of the business and also deal with third-party providers and partners – and has done so with the highest grade of professionalism which has earned him the respect of his colleagues.
I can confidently say I am a better developer because I have worked alongside him, and between us we have created some state-of-the-art services which are well-respected within the PR industry.”
— James West – Freelance Software Developer, Access Intelligence Plc
“I worked with Ian on a relatively complex distributed, ReSTful system for the NHS IC.
Ian is an exceptional software developer, who produces well thought through, clean and tested code adhering strongly to SOLID principles.
His knowledge of OO design principles, architectural patterns and his ability to reduce friction in a multi developer environment has an extremely positive effect on both the systems he works on and the people he works with. Coupled with his expertise in data modelling and access patterns, you can be sure your project is in safe hands.
I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Ian.”
— Paul Campbell — Freelance Software Developer and Service Architect, Health and Social Care Information Centre
“Ian is one of the most hard-working and professional individuals that I have had the pleasure to work with. His methodical approach allows him to digest the problem put before him prior to making a reasoned and rational suggestion. Ian’s development skills and knowledge were able to cope with every challenge, identifying one or more solutions for every scenario that I put forward as Product Owner. This allowed me to then pick the best solution for the project.
Ian’s expertise and problem-solving skills have helped to drive the project forward and I am extremely grateful for the contribution that he has made. He will be greatly missed, not just by me, but by the whole of the team. I wish him the best of luck with any future projects he undertakes and I hope to be able to work with him again in the future.”
— Robin Hackshall — Senior Information Analyst, Health and Social Care Information Centre
“Ian worked on a particularly troublesome project for me for eight months at NHS Choices without complaint. His development skills and knowledge are exemplary and his NHibernate knowledge is second to none. He worked well with all the members of the team and helped me to introduce pair programming and push the test driven development agenda. I will employ Ian whenever I have the chance.”
— Nick Porthouse — Development Manager, NHS Choices
“I worked with Ian for nearly 3 years in NHS Digital. Ian is dependable, forward-thinking, and quite possibly the most level-headed person I’ve come across!”
— Jack Morris — Platform Architect, Kainos
“Ian is certainly one of the smartest and most productive developers that I have had the pleasure of working with. His knowledge of existing and emerging technologies and trends, coupled with a keen sense of where they can be best utilised within a business environment ensures that the applications he produces are fully fit for purpose and are easy to maintain.
During his time at Marshalls, Ian produced several high-profile business critical applications that continue to function effectively day-in day-out.”
— Colin Lowe — Development Team Leader, Marshalls Plc