Kids. Code. Chaos. Home.
West Yorkshire born and bred. Somehow still standing.
The only good picture out of 21!
I'm Alex. Senior Product Leader from Ilkley, West Yorkshire. I ship software for a living and wrangle three boys for everything else. One of those jobs has a roadmap. The other one has Weetabix on the walls.
I've been in product for twelve years, across retail, finance, energy, and tech. Before that I worked in Singapore, Phuket, and Hong Kong, which taught me how to hold my own in rooms where I was the youngest, the only foreigner, or occasionally both.
I write about product work, leadership, and the bits nobody puts in their case studies. No thought-leadership waffle. No "10 habits of highly effective" anything. Just honest takes from someone who's been in the room when things went wrong and stayed to fix it.
At a glance
Growing up everywhere
I was born in West Yorkshire, which is the correct place to be born. Then, at age five, my parents moved us to Spain. It was massively disruptive, a bit chaotic, and probably explains everything about why I'm comfortable operating in ambiguity today. We came back when I was around eleven, by which point I had a strange accent, strong opinions about sunshine, and absolutely no idea what anyone at school was on about.
In my twenties I went back out into the world, this time on my own terms. Singapore, Phuket, Hong Kong. It taught me how different cultures approach work, hierarchy, and the very flexible concept of a deadline. I came back to Yorkshire sharper, more patient, and with a genuine appreciation for a good summer's day.
The career break
When I was made redundant from Jugo in 2024, Victoria and I made a deliberate decision: she'd go back to full-time work, and I'd take on the kids. Three boys under seven. No shortcuts, no part-time workarounds. I was their primary carer for the best part of a year and I'm genuinely proud of it.
The product industry has a weird relationship with career breaks. People tiptoe around them like they're something to apologise for. I'm not apologising. I did something hard, I did it well, and I came out the other side with better prioritisation skills than any framework ever gave me. The boys are settled, Victoria's thriving, and I'm ready to get back to work I'm good at.
When I'm not working
Luna and I walk Ilkley Moor most mornings. She's a Fox Red Labrador and better company than most sprint reviews. The moor does something useful to your brain when a project's going sideways or someone's rewritten the brief at 4pm on a Friday. I'd recommend it over most coaching programmes.
I mountain bike when the weather allows, which in West Yorkshire means occasionally. I also ride a Ducati Panigale, which is a completely impractical vehicle for a man with three kids, a dog, and a mortgage in Ilkley. Worth every penny. And when the house is finally quiet and everyone's asleep, there's a reasonable chance I'm watching Star Trek: Voyager and pretending it's the first time.
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