Mike Luck

Previous Work Experience

I was the Chief Engineer of Integration which included the Application Performance Manager (APM) for Highways England CHARM programme to replace the current legacy systems and serve as the next generation Advanced Traffic Management System supporting Smart Motorways, the NATS Enterprise Integration Service (EIS) project for the next generation UK Air Traffic Control system, and the Leidos Integration Service Technologies (LIFT) internal product development.

I was the Chief Engineer responsible for leading the Design, Development, and Test of the System Wide Information Management (SWIM) platform for the next generation UK Air Traffic Control system. EIS comprised an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), Messaging Middleware, and a secure API Gateway configured as a highly resilient solution for mission critical, safety related usage in support of Air Traffic Management.

Using SysML Model Based Systems Engineering to capture the design with full requirements traceability, a cloud based Development and Test environment, and Continuous Integration based Test Automation.

In anticipation of Copenhagen Airport contract award I worked with the named Chief Architect and Programme Manager to outline a sixty day start-up plan and establish engineering roles. A key part of the proposal was based on Internal Research and Development for a browser based Airport Operations Centre to provide a single pane of glass overview and actionable business intelligence.

In this role I was responsible for evolving and capturing the system architecture. In addition I introduced the Material Design User Interface look and feel, and created several User Interface elements including navigation and notifications. This role also gave me experience with Mule Enterprise Service Bus and DevOps using a combination of Google Kubernetes and Docker.

A temporary secondment to the Lockheed Martin Buckingham Palace Road office as the Operational Engineering Team Leader supporting the Operations Manager and Chief Engineer through the first deployment phase to transition the Ministry of Justice IT to a managed service tower model.

During this temporary secondment I established daily business rhythms and facilitated stand-up meetings to report status and update the team on priorities.

Working at the Lockheed Martin Whiteley office as a Systems Engineering Team Leader though the start-up phase of the of the Metropolitan Police Command and Control Futures programme to replace the legacy Command and Control system.

I provided leadership to a team of 5 Systems Engineers, guidance to the Software Engineering team, and was also responsible for system design as an individual. I scoped the initial Systems Engineering schedule through to operational deployment, and worked with the customer to understand, and then document all of the Metropolitan Police connecting systems and how each will interface through a new Enterprise Service Bus to the replacement Command and Control system. I designed Enterprise Service Bus logic to translate messages between legacy system protocol and data field structure to the new Command and Control system, and designed a legacy system interface simulator to be used for testing, training, and transition.

I introduced the Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect tool for SysML which formed the baseline for all system architecture and design and was reviewed with the customer on a weekly basis.

Working at the Lockheed Martin Whiteley office as a Systems Engineer on the MOD Marshall (formally Joint Military Air Traffic Systems) proposal to provide 22 years of air traffic management capability for MOD UK, overseas, and deployed operations. This year long assignment gave me great exposure to the company’s most talented senior Engineering staff, and enabled me to re-focus as a Systems Engineer following my stint in software leadership.

In this role I was responsible for designing and documenting all Tactical and Deployed elements of our proposed solution. I decomposed customer requirements, created partner Statements of Work, and defined a Bill of Materials of £2.7M with approximately £400K of scheduled labour. Several elements of my Tactical and Deployed solutions exploited new and advancing technologies such as LED based lighting for landing aircraft on temporary deployed landing strips to reduce size and weight while extending expected life in harsh transportation and operating conditions.

I introduced the Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect tool for MODAF which formed the baseline for all system architecture and design.

Working at the NATS Corporate and Technical Centre on the New En Route Centre (NERC) / London Area Control Centre (LACC) Air Traffic Control system as a Software Team Leader. Responsible for 24 staff (4 remote, in Washington DC). Tasks included planning, scheduling, technical risk management, technical performance, task prioritisation, workload balancing, and weekly status reporting to the customer using Earned Value Management.

As Team Leader I was responsible for the quality of all customer deliverables including design documentation, software, test documentation and evidence, and user manuals. Where possible I personally inspected or moderated all inspections for deliverable artefacts. Rework and refactoring was used to drive up quality and reduce technical debt. In this role I learned how each team member had different needs from me as Team Leader, different concern areas, and different working styles. Through taking time to understand this and strong building working relationships I was able to adjust the way I communicated to suit each individual and was able to drive consistently strong performance from the team as a whole.

Working at the NATS Corporate and Technical Centre on the New En Route Centre (NERC) / London Area Control Centre (LACC) Air Traffic Control system as a Software Engineer. I initially worked as a C Software Engineer on the Record and Replay Mass Storage Retrieval System (MSRS) subsystem. I then moved to the Record And Replay (RAP) team as an Ada83 Software Engineer, and ultimately to the Workstation Display Manager (WDM) team as an Ada83 and C Software Engineer on the most visible and complex part of the system. I then took on the additional responsibility of WDM Local Configuration Management.

After completing my Computer Systems Engineering BSc Degree I started fulltime employment as a Research and Development Software Engineer working on a range of Radio Frequency products. The radio electronics were configured, controlled and monitored by Microchip PIC Microcontrollers running firmware written in embedded C by me. I also produced Microsoft Windows C++ Graphical User Interface applications for setup, control, monitoring, and automated test of the radio products. The following products contain firmware developed by me:

Down Converter: An intelligent antenna mast mounted Radio Frequency Down Converter to convert from frequencies in the 2.4GHz L-Band microwave frequency range down to VHF to reduce loss in cables and allow use of standard tuners.

Digital Video for Moving Objects: A complete product family including a secure, robust, and ultra-low latency video, audio, and data encoder with COFDM 2.4GHz L-Band transmitter used for law enforcement surveillance and remote bomb disposal.

Dräger PSS Merlin: A telemetry system used in the USA to remotely monitor Firefighter distress signals, oxygen cylinder pressure, and various other stats using a custom self-organising and adapting mesh network.