Built by someone who's worked in the systems they're fixing

I spent over a decade working inside one of Europe's largest meat processing operations — first keeping the systems running, then building the tools the business actually needed. That hands-on history is what Somvilla is built on.

Starting as a junior IT technician at a Dungannon manufacturing site in 2010, I worked through infrastructure, systems administration, and eventually into full software development. Over those years I watched the same problems repeat: data locked in systems that didn't communicate, reports that took someone an hour to produce every Monday morning, decisions made on instinct because the actual numbers were too slow to surface.

In 2021 I moved into a developer role at the same operation, building dashboards, reporting systems and full web applications. I've built a CAPEX request system managing capital approvals across 30+ sites, an accident reporting and investigation platform, a supplier onboarding portal integrated directly with ERP, a store visit app used with major UK retailers, a master data portal for product requests, and an IT asset management system. These aren't side projects — they're systems that have been running in production in a live enterprise environment.

The stack across those projects covers .NET, Minimal APIs, Dapper, SQL Server, JavaScript, TypeScript, Docker, and Azure DevOps — alongside the data and reporting work in SSRS, SSIS, Qlikview, and Power Automate.

I've been on the factory floor. I've sat with operations managers at 6am. I've maintained Emydex, wired up barcode scanners and label printers, and been on call when the line went down. That context is what separates a system that works in theory from one that works in a real operation.

Somvilla applies that experience commercially. Every project is a version of something I've already seen from the inside — which means less time working out what the problem actually is, and more time building the fix.