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Gerard Wilkinson

Gerard Wilkinson

@gerrywilko.bsky.social

Staff Gen AI Research Engineer | Cloud-Native Systems & Scalable Architecture | ex-Microsoft Research | PhD in Ubiquitous Computing

Staff Gen AI Research Engineer at NatWest Group

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I’m a Staff Gen AI Research Engineer and senior software engineer with over 10 years of experience building and operating scalable, cloud-native systems across regulated domains including finance, health, and transport.

My background is rooted in designing and delivering production systems: resilient backend architectures, event-driven platforms, and multi-tenant SaaS products, supported by pragmatic DevOps and reliability practices. I’m most effective at the intersection of system design, product thinking, and execution—turning ambiguous requirements into robust, maintainable software.

Alongside my engineering roles, I’ve founded and run my own company, where I’ve led projects end-to-end: shaping technical strategy, working directly with customers, hiring and mentoring engineers, and taking responsibility for delivery in production. This experience has strongly shaped how I approach engineering—prioritising impact, clarity, and long-term ownership over novelty.

More recently, I’ve moved into Gen AI research and applied AI work, building on my background in distributed systems and data-intensive platforms. I’m deliberately focused on learning and applying AI in a practical, product-driven way rather than positioning it as a wholesale career reset.

I hold a PhD in Computing Science, with research in distributed sensing systems conducted in collaboration with industry partners. I’m interested in roles where I can contribute as a senior, product-minded engineer—particularly in fintech, healthtech, or platform and infrastructure-focused teams.

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Career: 6

Staff Gen AI Research Engineer

NatWest Group

Jan 2026 - Present

Working within the CAIRO team on applied AI initiatives across NatWest Group. Contributing to the design and development of AI-enabled systems, with a focus on production-ready engineering, data-intensive platforms, and responsible use of emerging AI technologies within a regulated financial environment.

Director

Think Active Labs

Mar 2019 - Present

• Developed custom energy expenditure algorithm from wrist-worn accelerometer. 1000+ units deployed with patients via NHS supplier. • Built and operating a sensor data collection SaaS platform evolving from deployments of activity tracking solution with Newcastle United Foundation. • Building an OEM Car Telematics system for integration of datasets from manufacturers such as Ford, Tesla, Volvo, Mercedes Benz and more. • Annual revenue £100k+ within first 2 years with 80%+ of revenue from returning customers.

Lead Software Engineer

Ignite Insurance Systems

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

Apr 2019 - Oct 2025

• Lead a project to implement a novel approach to building insurance customer portals using Nuxt Content, FormKit and TRPC. Also worked on a number of Open Source contributions during this project fixing issues in projects we were using and contributing new features to the community. • Developed and implemented Ignite’s “next-generation” architecture with a full Kubernetes cloud-native stack. Trained a 12 strong development team in Kubernetes and Docker. Isolating legacy Windows components of solution into Windows containers. • Gained experience modernising legacy solutions, developing and implementing DevOps and agile processes. Ignite’s Wintrix solution is a multi-tenant, multiple integration partner system with a millions of web requests processed every month. • Implemented peer-review coding practices (via PRs) with 3 years experience reviewing code with team before integrating into production branches. • Lead a smaller team of four Software Engineers in delivering two full stack solutions to clients in 2019. Project used many modern web technologies (Vue.JS, TypeScript, Web API, PWA, Docker). Produced a deeply configurable, multi-tenant modern web application. Currently in production on four of Ignite’s tenants. • Promoted from Senior Software Engineer to Lead within first 6 months working at Ignite. • Spearheaded internal DevOps improvements, migration of build services and code practices. Constructed a complete CI/CD pipeline that now supports all of Ignite’s day to day operations.

Research Intern

Microsoft

Redmond, Washington, United States

May 2016 - Sep 2016

We conducted research into live streaming applications experimenting with event-wide live streaming scenarios and methods to coordinate live streamers pre- and during the event. We also investigated a means to facilitate chat message communication at scale with feedback to a single or multiple streamers.

Research Associate

Newcastle University

Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom

Jun 2015 - Sep 2015

I worked as a Research Associate at Open Lab formerly the Culture Lab for 4 months. During the final year of my Computing Science degree I worked with the Culture Lab on my dissertation project, Expressive Touch. I continued my work on the project since joining the lab. I was also involved in several of the projects in the lab such as Bootlegger and Change Explorer.

Bespoke Software Development: Consultant

Waterstons

Durham, England, United Kingdom

Jul 2013 - Jul 2014

I undertook a industrial placement year at Waterstons, (IT Consultancy and Microsoft Gold Partner) where I worked with Microsoft technologies on a range of projects including an asset database for our clients using ASP.NET MVC and Entity Framework and pre-sales and documentation writing.

Skills: 45

Technical

.NET FrameworkContinuous IntegrationContinuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)DevOpsFull-Stack DevelopmentGitGoGo (Programming Language)
iOSLinuxMicrosoft AzureMicrosoft SQL ServerPostgreSQLRedis

Other

ASP.NETC#C++CIContinuous DeliveryCortexCSSDocker
Entity FrameworkHTML5iOS DevelopmentJavaJavaScriptKubernetesLeading Development TeamsMicrosoft TechnologiesNetworkingNode.jsOpen Source SoftwareOperations ManagementPersuasive SpeakerPHPPresentation SkillsProject ManagementPrometheus.ioRabbitMQSASSSelf-Directed LearningSwiftTypeScriptVue.js

Education: 2

Newcastle University

PhD Computing Science

2015 - 2019

• Fusion of vision, wearable and embedded sensors in broadcast video production and consumption environments to generate inferences and provide intelligent labelling of media assets. • Ingested vast amounts of data from sensors in production studios using message queues (RabbitMQ) and activity recognisers. Coordinated BBC’s first sensor-based real-world cookery show using an instrumented production studio. • Explored the emergence of Object-based Broadcasting experiences, moving away from video media as a linear, pre-packaged medium towards more responsive and immersive experience. • Using wrist-worn sensing to investigate gestural control to complement these immersive media consumption experiences. • Open Lab – highest ranked lab in Human Computer Interaction outside of the US. • TVX ’16 PhD Best Paper Award and CHI ’18 Honourable Mention Award.

Activities / Societies: Running, Cycling, Squash, Football.

Newcastle University

BSc Hons Computing Science

2011 - 2015

• Top student in a year of 152 (overall mark of 86%). Highest honours project mark (also published at major international conference, CHI ’16) and won the School of Computing Science prize for performance in all three years. • School of Computing ranked 1st for research impact in the REF2014 (National Research Excellence Framework). • Awarded a Faculty prize, the British Computer Society prize, and the Netcraft Programming Award.

Activities / Societies: Squash, Football, Kickboxing.

Courses: 1

  • Cambridge University: Machine Learning

Awards: 6

  • ACM CHI 2018: Honourable Mention for Media of Things

    Feb 2018

  • TVX 2016: PhD Best Paper Award

    Jun 2016

  • Waterstons Computing Science Award

    Jul 2015

    During my Computing Science degree at Newcastle University I achieved the highest final mark in my year.

  • Thomas Young Hall Prize

    Sep 2012

    I was selected for an award for my performance during my first year of Computing Science at Newcastle University. The school put my name forward and I was selected for the award across the Faculty of Science.

  • Best 1st Year Student 2012

    Sep 2012

    I was given an award by the BCS for achieving the highest mark in my first year of Computing Science at Newcastle University.

  • Netcraft Programming Award

    Sep 2012

    I was given an award by the company Netcraft for achieving the highest mark in the programming module in my first year of Computing Science at Newcastle University.

Also find Gerard Wilkinson on…

Bluesky (@gerrywilko.bsky.social)

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