Dan Hughes is a Principal Software Engineer with 12 years of commercial experience, currently splitting senior technical leadership between Blackfinch Group and Thrive in Gloucestershire. He has progressed from junior engineering roles to principal positions, delivering production software across finance and services companies while blending hands-on development with architecture and team mentorship. Comfortable across the full stack and IT management — a role he previously held — Dan emphasizes pragmatic, testable solutions (he quips "better to try and catch an exception than never to try at all"). Based in Cheltenham, he brings steady delivery experience from long tenures at Interax and 9 Group through to recent leadership at Blackfinch, making him effective at stabilizing and scaling legacy systems as well as guiding new initiatives. A background in computing, maths and electronics underpins a practical engineering style that favors reliability and incremental improvement.
12 years of coding experience
16 years of employment as a software developer
GCSEs, GCSEs at Cheltenham Bournside School
A-Level Computing Mathematics Physics Electronics, A-Level Computing Mathematics Physics Electronics at Gloucestershire College
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Dan Hughes - Principal Software Engineer at Blackfinch Group