Gavin Jackson
A Staff / Principal Frontend Engineer with 20+ years of experience. Building engineering platforms, developer tooling and frontend architecture that scale teams, not just applications.Based in Bath, UK.
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Portfolio Stuff I've done
Technical leadership
- Frontend architecture, technical strategy and engineering leadership
- Design systems, component libraries and low-code platforms
- Developer experience, CI/CD, testing and AI-assisted delivery
I build scalable frontend platforms and engineering ecosystems that help teams ship complex products quickly without accumulating technical debt.
I’m a frontend engineering leader with 20+ years’ experience spanning wealth management, enterprise software and agency delivery. I created ICX, a metadata-driven platform that powers enterprise applications across 14 products and supports clients managing over £400 billion in assets.
My work spans technical strategy, architecture, design systems, developer experience, testing and mentoring. I’ve also delivered digital products for Nike, Disney, Intel, HP, Mattel and Estée Lauder, and I enjoy building tools that make engineering teams faster and more effective.
What people say about me Testimonials
I like to make an impression, here are some words from people I've worked with.
Jake Hollins
Founder, Topp PerformanceGavin was a vital part of the Topp team. He took my rough MVP and turned it into a polished, market ready product, aligning everything tightly with our existing designs and brand. He works fast, communicates clearly, and consistently delivers a high quality finish. I’d happily work with him again and would recommend him to anyone who needs front end work done properly.
Ihab El-Saie
CEO, Dunstan Thomas
I have had the pleasure of working with Gavin for over a decade in two companies. He is exceptionally talented as a frontend architect/engineer having created several innovative complex software products. He is astoundingly productive and creative.
The combination of his background as a big brand graphics designer combined with his unparalleled technical software skills is very rare. Gavin is one of those lucky individuals who is driven by his passion and love for software technology and frontend aesthetics. I would not hesitate in recommending him.
Graeme Gets
Founder, Digital Keystone
In my 30 odd years of developing software, running teams and running my business, there were only two developers that I hired that were world class. Gavin Jackson was one of them. Gavin's ability, from design, to coding to leadership was extraordinary. He was able to code at twice the speed of my other top developers, with accuracy and at very high standard.
If you have the chance to work with Gavin then I recommend him above any other front end developer.
Justin Belcher
Innovate UK, Business GrowthI’ve worked closely with Gavin for over ten years on front-end projects spanning FinTech and innovation-driven programmes. He is an exceptional developer whose work is consistently creative, reliable, and delivered to a very high professional standard.
Greg Duncan
Frontend Developer, Dunstan Thomas
I had the pleasure of working for Gavin, an exceptionally experienced front-end developer who is both mission-driven and highly skilled. Gavin has a rare ability to combine deep technical expertise with clear, thoughtful communication, making complex ideas easy to understand for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
He consistently takes the time to fully understand requirements before proposing solutions, which results in well-considered, high-quality outcomes. Gavin is also an excellent presenter and collaborator, and his calm, considered approach brings clarity and confidence to any project. He would be a huge asset to any team or initiative.
Basar Niron
Backend Developer, Dunstan ThomasGavin is an exceptionally talented frontend developer with a rare combination of technical excellence, creativity, and professionalism. He consistently delivers high-quality, well-structured solutions while maintaining a strong focus on user experience and visual detail. Gavin is highly reliable, proactive, and a pleasure to work with, bringing clarity and calm even to complex projects. I would recommend him without hesitation for any frontend or UI-focused engagement.
Frontend Engineering Leadership How I help teams
I help organisations turn complex requirements into scalable frontend platforms, engineering standards and high-quality product experiences.
I work at the intersection of engineering leadership, product delivery and frontend architecture. I help teams shape technical strategy, create reusable component ecosystems, improve developer experience and build the tooling that makes delivery faster without compromising quality.
My experience spans startups, large enterprises and regulated financial services, and I’m especially effective when a product needs to scale quickly while remaining maintainable and accessible.
In 2025 I consulted for a startup building an AI powered training platform for cycling coaches and athletes.
The founder had vibe-coded an MVP and I redesigned it to give it a more professional look and feel, as well as improving the user experience.
Screenshot // Testimonial
Between 2022 and 2024 I consulted a startup building a platform for users to manage multiple short time rentals (e.g. AirBnBs).
I worked closely with the founders to take their initial ideas and refined them into wireframes detailing how the system will work. I then built a prototype in HTML and CSS that showed how their application will look.
Screenshot
My life story (so far) Career summary
I’m an established engineering leader,
with 20+ years of experience building web experiences and frontend platforms
After graduating from De Montfort University with a first-class degree in Multimedia Computing, I began building web applications and quickly developed a strong focus on frontend development, interaction design and product delivery. My early career included agency work for global brands such as Nike, Disney, Intel, Mattel and Estée Lauder.
In 2011 I joined Digital Keystone, where I helped create the frontend foundation for an award-winning wealth management platform. Over time that evolved into ICX, a proprietary metadata-driven platform that now underpins 14 enterprise products and supports clients managing more than £400 billion in assets.
This is from 2012, an early Adaptive Portal prototype
I later became Group Head of Frontend Engineering, led the frontend function through two successful company acquisitions, and helped establish engineering standards across multiple product teams. In 2025 I moved to part-time hours at Dunstan Thomas so I could spend more time on Digital Mojo and independent product work.
Annual highlights
2025
Moved to part-time hours at Dunstan Thomas, giving me more time to focus on my Frontend Consultancy, Digital Mojo (and cycling).
2024
Wrote an automated site map generator tool which takes the screenshots artifacts from my automated testing engine and collates them into an interactive, self updating visual site map, using test suite hierarchy to organise the images.
Go to start (2022) >
2023
Began porting ICX to React replacing Knockout.js as the rendering engine of ICX because React is so well regarded in the JavaScript landscape. This is a multi-year side-project.
2022
Wrote my own compiler to allow screens in ICX to be written in HTML instead of JSON, and tooling to provide intellisense for ICX syntax directly in the code editors. Improving developer experience and reduces the barrier to entry for developers to work on ICX.
2021
I created ICX Lite, a disconnected, cut down version of ICX which allows it to be used in any project and hooked up to any backend, it includes my frontend testing framework built upon Cypress.io that does screenshot comparisons.
2020
Dunstan Thomas was acquired by Curtis Banks, and I sold my shares. I also wrote a testing framework which automatically captures and compares screenshots at different device sizes, performs a11y audits and validates performance.
2019
Was instrumental in winning the CanadaLife project, a multi-million pound project for Dunstan Thomas, I lead the frontend development team, reviewing each frontend Pull Request and supporting any core development needs.
2018
Became Group Head of Frontend Development across the whole Dunstan Thomas group of companies. Continued to lead the frontend of the Aegon project while also building the core frontend team.
2017
Led the frontend development to replace the entire platform for Financial Advisers for one of the UK's largest wealth management companies, Aegon
2016
Was part of a multi-million pound merger, where my stock options were realised, and the primary shareholders were able to execute their exit strategies. This happened when Dunstan Thomas acquired Digital Keystone, meeting our target valuation three years early. The Adaptive Portal also won the UK Platforms Award for best use of Platform Technology for our work with Aegon.
2015
Offered a partnership, and the permanent position of Head of Frontend Development in order to make Digital Keystone a more realistic proposition to sell in alignment with the founder's exit strategy.
2014
Designed and built the frontend of the multi award-winning Adaptive Portal, while working on client projects, primarily in financial services. The Adaptive Portal is a framework for rendering lazy loaded Apps onto a dashboard and for rendering dynamic complex forms, either as single forms or in complex multi screen workflow (which are used quite a bit in finance). Adaptive Portal also won the Platforum 'Best in show' award.
2013
Built the frontend of QuickPark which used an early build of the Adaptive Portal to render an SVG map showing available parking bays around various South African cities, the project was designed to work on tablets and phones.
2012
When Digital Keystone decided to move away from Flash as a technology I chose the frontend tech stack. I began work on the early prototypes of the Adaptive Portal as the company strategy shifted from purely an on-site programming services company to one that builds and ships it own product, configuring that product for clients.
2011
Joined Digital Keystone as a contract Flex Developer to build and maintain wealth management applications for Novia Financial and Aegon.
2010
Worked on the Jo Malone website for Estee Lauder as a Flex developer and did a number of other Flash/Flex contracts for clients ranging from Fisher Price to Drink Aware.
2009
In my role as Technical Lead at Oakwood DC I led up a team of 8 Flash Developers to deliver a £300k project for Radica the electronics division for Mattel US. We delivered the project on time and on budget.
2007 - 2008
As Senior Flash Developer at Oakwood DC, I worked on a number of Flash projects for globally recognised brands such as Barbie, Hotwheels, Disney's Cars, Scrabble and The Simpsons.
2006
Worked in Australia for Publicis Mojo as a Web Developer for clients such as Nike, Hertz, HP and the Victorian Government. A highlight was working on the Nike Football website for World Cup 2006 and promotions for Australia's big game against Brazil where they dared to believe that history would not repeat itself (but, it did!).
2002 - 2005
Graduated top of my class from De Montfort University in Leicester in 2002 with a first class degree with honours in Multimedia Computing and was also awarded the best student prize for finishing top of my class. My first few years out of university I worked as a Web Developer in Reading writing ASP and ASP.NET web and windows applications and services before travelling for 20 months.
Outside of work Bike, bikes, bikes!
Outside work I enjoy mountain biking, road cycling and skiing, and regularly build personal software projects to explore new technologies. My latest project, StravaDH, combines mapping, GPX processing and frontend engineering to solve a real-world problem for downhill mountain bikers.
I live in Bath with my wife, two children and our dog, Bobby, and I’m happy to connect on
Strava,
LinkedIn
or
GitHub.
Remote leadership
I have been working remotely since 2012, building distributed teams and maintaining productivity across time zones while keeping delivery quality high. That approach has helped me lead engineering work effectively while staying close to the product and the people involved.
Personal life
I met my wife while travelling and we now live in Bath with our two children and our dog, Bobby. I enjoy spending time with my family, riding and racing my bikes and building side projects that explore new technology.