Ben Humphreys-Newman
Technical Director – Cloud & AWS at IBM
Professional Summary
A hands-on Technical Director bridging deep technical delivery and strategic leadership at IBM. I lead large-scale AWS cloud migrations across multiple concurrent programmes — architecting solutions, guiding teams through lift-and-shift to re-architect patterns, and turning technical excellence into measurable business outcomes.
Beyond delivery, I contribute directly to business growth — bringing technical credibility into bids and proposals, owning senior client relationships that convert programmes into long-term partnerships, and shaping technology roadmaps that keep IBM positioned for the next engagement.
Employment History
Technical Director – Cloud & AWS, IBM Jan 2025 – Present
Primarily a hands-on Technical Director, I work directly alongside engineering teams to design, deliver, and govern large-scale AWS cloud migrations across multiple concurrent programmes at IBM. I architect solutions, review infrastructure-as-code, and provide expert technical guidance at the point of delivery — while holding strategic oversight of technical direction, standards, and commercial alignment.
- Hands-on lead across multi-team AWS cloud migration programmes — designing target architectures, authoring and reviewing IaC, and guiding teams through lift-and-shift, re-platform, and re-architect patterns.
- Work directly alongside engineers in the codebase and architecture sessions — not directing from the sidelines, but contributing as the most senior technical voice on the project.
- Define and own the technical strategy across multiple delivery teams, aligning engineering roadmaps with business goals.
- Establish engineering standards, architectural patterns, and governance frameworks adopted across teams.
- Partner closely with commercial teams to advise on resourcing, technology selection, and supplier engagement — ensuring delivery remains profitable and technically sound.
- Lead delivery transformation programmes, measurably improving deployment frequency and reducing time-to-resolve.
- Pioneer AI tooling adoption (Claude Code, Gemini, Amazon Bedrock, IBM Project Bob), running active pilots to extend AI-assisted workflows across multiple client deliveries.
- Serve as the trusted technical authority to senior stakeholders, clients, and commercial teams.
DevOps Engineer, IBM Jul 2019 – Dec 2024
As a Senior DevOps Engineer at IBM, I designed and operated cloud-native AWS infrastructure for enterprise-scale systems, with a focus on automation, reliability, and secure delivery.
- Architected and operated scalable AWS environments (EC2, Lambda, CloudFormation, CloudWatch) across multiple production workloads.
- Drove adoption of containerised workloads with Kubernetes and OpenShift, improving deployment consistency and portability.
- Built end-to-end CI/CD pipelines with Jenkins and GitLab, significantly reducing release cycle time and manual toil.
- Established monitoring and observability practices to maintain high availability across critical services.
Software Engineer, BT Sep 2013 – Jul 2019
As a Software Engineer at BT, I was responsible for refreshing and dockerising a legacy system deployed globally — writing new services in Python and setting them up as microservices, with inter-service communication via a Qpid message broker and orchestration through Docker and Rancher.
- Wrote services in Python and set them up as microservices.
- Integrated services using a Qpid message broker to improve communication efficiency.
- Containerised applications with Docker and managed orchestration through Rancher.
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to troubleshoot and optimise system performance.
Skills
Cloud & Infrastructure
- AWS Cloud Architecture
- EC2
- Lambda
- CloudFormation
- CDK
- Terraform
- Kubernetes
- OpenShift
- Docker
Automation & DevOps
- GitLab CI
- CodePipeline
- Helm
- ArgoCD
- Ansible
- Playwright
- DevSecOps
AI & Emerging Technology
- Claude Code
- Amazon Bedrock
- Gemini
- IBM Project Bob
- AI-assisted DevOps
- Developer Workflow Automation
Leadership & Delivery
- Technical Strategy
- Architecture Governance
- Team Leadership
- Stakeholder Management
- Agile / SAFe
- Executive Communication
- Bid & Proposal Support
- Client Relationship Management
Education
Aston University 2010 – 2013
BSc (Hons) Computer Science, Second Class Honours.
Final Year Project: Developed an online system for the School of Engineering to manage final year projects, including advertising potential projects, allocating projects to students, and delivering project grades.
Founding member of the Aston Computer Science Society.