Duncan Cosser

Head of Product / Engineering Manager

Highly skilled natural leader in tech with 9+ years of relevant experience. Motivated and enthusiastic with good leadership and interpersonal skills. Strong organisational focus with expertise in product management, software development, and technical communication. Technically proficient throughout the software stack. Uses experience with varied companies to push for strong team organisation and pragmatic solutions. Brings enthusiasm and a focus on data to the team. Holds an MSc in Bioinformatics, BSc Honours in Genetics, BSc in Molecular Biology, and a Higher Certificate in Game Design.

Core competencies

Product management · Cross-functional leadership · Data engineering · Technical communication · System architecture · Software development · Developer operations

Professional experience

Hohm Energy 2024 - present
Head of Data and Systems Remote · Johannesburg, South Africa

• Managed Data and Systems team to deliver insights to stakeholders in management and across the business
• Owned the team’s development and process deliverables and roadmap
• Oversaw several projects including data analytics, process mapping, and metric dashboards for 10+ product owners
• Managed the team’s development systems, CI, analysis code, and infrastructure

Hohm Energy 2023 - 2024
Business Operations Project Lead Remote · Johannesburg, South Africa

• Implemented Hubspot CRM (including migration from Asana and manual processes) and managed 2 full time developers on the project. Since implementation, this has delivered 150+ completed deals in the new sales pipeline with 2000+ new contacts tracked. 110+ automation workflows in regular use, with 400+ individual reports created across 20+ dashboards. 500+ meetings booked with sales agents through the pipeline

mySOS SA 2023
Software Development Manager Remote · Johannesburg, South Africa

• Managed DevOps, deployments, issue tracking / support system, and infrastructure (cloud and local)
• Worked on critical systems handling emergency management
• Co-managed the operations team and support team

Babylonstoren wine farm 2021 - 2023
Museum technology developer Hybrid · Paarl and Johannesburg, South Africa

• Designed, developed, sourced, and managed installation of 6 multimedia exhibits for Babylonstoren wine museum
• Implemented a Raspberry Pi based video player system with IR sensors for multimedia exhibits
• Designed and implemented projection mapping video player system on a 10x6m wall of wine barrels
• Developed custom iPad based video player web apps and content management server for remote updates
• Implemented remote tablet based control system for networked control over MQTT
• Managed remote deployment system for VR exhibits

Ends of Invention 2019 - 2023
Software Developer Remote · Johannesburg, South Africa

• Developed features for several cross-platform mobile applications in React Native
• Implemented frontend system for handling video conference calling

mySOS SA 2018 - 2019
Software Developer Hybrid · Johannesburg, South Africa

• Built features on a large multi-codebase PHP system
• Migrated codebases from Laravel 4.x to 8

Formula D Interactive 2016 - 2017
Interactive Media Software Developer On site · Cape Town, South Africa

• Led development on an internationally acclaimed VR exhibit (Shark Senses, installed at Frost Science Museum, Miami)
• Designed and developed a multiplayer touch-table game for the Cape Town aquarium (now a whitelabeled product in the company’s stable)
• Developed a rudimentary MOOC platform for a neuroscience teaching group (NPSA)
• Implemented and managed the company’s Jira

Action iT (Pty) Ltd 2014 - 2016
Junior Software Developer Hybrid · Cape Town, South Africa

• General web development (HTML and PHP)

Technical proficiencies

• CRM and Task Management: Jira, Hubspot, Asana, Linear, Notion
• DevOps and Infrastructure: Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket, Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, Vercel, Azure, Jenkins, Heroku
• Data and BI: RStudio, Looker, Google Analytics, Sentry, DataDog
• Media and 3D: Blender, Unity, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, FL Studio
• Code: R, Javascript + Typescript (Nodejs, React, Feathers, React Native), C#, Python, PHP, LaTeX, shell script, HTML, CSS

Education

Bioinformatics 2020 - 2022
Master of Science University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Genetics and Developmental Biology 2019
Bachelor of Science Honours University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Molecular and Cell Biology 2018
Bachelor of Science University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Game and Interactive Media Design 2015
Higher Certificate (NQF 5) Friends of Design - Academy of Digital Arts, South Africa