About Fred Blesser

Drove Agile transformation across four Desktop and Digital feature teams (25 engineers), coaching Engineering Managers, Product Owners, Scrum Masters and BAs to embed robust engineering practices at scale. Raised sprint commitment reliability from 70% to 90%, cut post-release defects by 50% through shift-left testing and AI-assisted tooling, and doubled deployment frequency through DORA metrics analysis. Key features delivered: Workchain Management, Smart Income & Expenditure, Third-Party Debt Buyback, Help Hub Integration, Notepad, Observability tooling.

Led the Phantom team responsible for business-critical finance tools including Integrated Banking, Takings settlements and PO/Receipt/Invoice reconciliation. Partnered with architects and stakeholders to define features and design, translating business needs into clear technical requirements while continuously delivering new features including EV charging stations and Supplier Direct Fulfilment.

Engaged by senior leadership to assess and improve engineering delivery processes across internal teams and supplier relationships. Unified fragmented issue tracking across JIRA, KPM and ServiceNow, establishing end-to-end traceability of software deliverables. Improved work reporting accuracy and provided Agile coaching to Feature Owners and Scrum Masters.

Led two product engineering teams (10–20 engineers) across Order Fulfilment and Store Fulfilment Services. Recovered at-risk delivery milestones through structured stakeholder management and requirements prioritisation. Combined hands-on technical leadership with full line management responsibility including objective setting, performance reviews and recruitment.

Delivered the new flagship DSI website (Angular, .NET MVC, Azure) from inception to launch as part of Project Integrate — a strategic programme to unify architecture across Masonite UK brands (DSI, Solidor). Scaled the team rapidly, introduced Agile methodologies and managed complex architectural decisions around OAuth, payments and fulfilment.

Led the M&S International team through a DevOps transformation, overseeing four Agile squads (25 engineers) responsible for the international eCommerce platform (SFCC). Designed and delivered a financial control system saving £100k per week. Implemented process changes following an EY audit delivering a further £50k/week in savings, and reduced sandbox costs by 30%.

Stabilised and transformed delivery of the Paris platform — a multi-sport data aggregation system (Node.js, Python, AWS). Led 15 remote developers and QA testers, improved team velocity by 20%, and delivered key architectural improvements including GraphQL adoption, ETL pipeline redesign and AI-assisted content generation.

Founded OCAPI to build tools for accelerated business intelligence — delivering an event management platform with secure contactless payments (Android/Java, C#/.NET Core, Azure) and an innovative survey solution. Acted as solution architect, product owner, delivery manager, and hands-on engineer.

Line management and mentoring of 25 developers and QA testers across five product teams delivering the Waters_connect portfolio (C#/.NET Core, Angular). Led the successful migration of all teams to Agile, resulting in continuous, significant velocity improvement.

Managed delivery of software projects across the full stack for clients including Amazon Lab126, Cadence, Honeywell and Cirrus Logic. Consistently delivered under-budget, on-time fixed price projects while improving profit margins through Agile management.

Business analysis and project management for warehouse management systems. Delivered successful bids and projects for DFS, Adidas and Tesco Direct — on time, on scope and under budget.

Built and led a team of 6 software engineers to design and deliver a complete contactless payment solution for ITSO smart ticketing (Java/Glassfish, Android, smartcard platforms).

Engineering and leadership roles spanning software engineering, product management and technical leadership — with experience in large-scale mobile platforms, embedded systems and open-source contributions.