Public profile
Experience
Startup Engineering Leader | Founding Engineer | Product Systems & AI-Native Delivery
Career highlights
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Johnny Butler - Startup Engineering Leader | Founding Engineer | Product Systems & AI-Native Delivery
Startup engineering leader and founding-engineer type with 20+ years of experience turning ambitious ideas, messy workflows, and business complexity into scalable software systems. I work at the intersection of product, engineering, delivery, and operations, shaping what should be built, how it should work in practice, and how to get it delivered in a way that is fast, safe, and verifiable. Most recently, I have focused on AI-native delivery, agent-ready products, and governance embedded into execution rather than added afterwards.
Top summary points
- Head of Engineering (hands-on) - startups & scale-ups - Ruby on Rails
- End-to-end ownership: architecture -> delivery -> on-call -> stewardship
- Location: Sunderland, UK
Selected experience
Founder / Founding Engineer at Explore My Profile
2026-03 to present
- Building Explore My Profile, an agent-accessible product that turns static professional profiles into richer, more inspectable experiences for both people and AI agents
- Own the product end to end across concept, UX, onboarding, profile rendering, public delivery, and supporting integrations, while using it as a live proving ground for AI-assisted, evidence-backed delivery and agent-ready product design
First Engineer / Head of Engineering / Tech Lead at Materials Market
2021-11 to present
- Joined as the first technical hire and helped transition the company from agency dependence to an in-house engineering function
- Built and evolved the platform across pricing, checkout, fulfilment, invoicing, and post-order operations, and developed a Software Dark Factory delivery approach inside a live Rails monolith to improve speed, reduce ambiguity, and make complex changes easier to trust
Tech Lead, Ruby on Rails at Kudocs
2020-09 to 2021-11
- Led development of a LegalTech SaaS platform, owning delivery across product features, integrations, and operational maintenance
- Built internal APIs and third-party integrations while improving release discipline and engineering standards
Tech Lead, Ruby on Rails at Happity
2018-02 to 2020-09
- Led development of an e-commerce Rails platform spanning subscriptions, customer journeys, and complex back-office workflows
- Improved reliability, security, and integration maturity across a high-usage product, including Stripe, Intercom, SendGrid, and Google services
Tech Lead, Ruby on Rails at Clixifix
2013-01 to 2017-09
- Led a small team building a SaaS platform for defect and repair management in construction
- Owned end-to-end delivery across design, testing, deployment, support, and maintenance, helping scale operational throughput and customer communications
Ruby on Rails Developer / Software Developer / IP Security Engineer / Applications Developer at Earlier roles
2005-01 to 2018-01
- Earlier experience across Savantis, CNS Group, Beef, O2 Ireland, and Procter & Gamble, spanning software delivery, consulting, and placement roles that built strong foundations in Rails, full-stack product development, and operationally reliable systems