Daniel Hollands
Product Engineer · Cannock / Remote
My Name is Daniel.
The market suggests I’m the Product Engineer you’re looking for.
Welcome to my curriculum vitae.
About Me
Product Engineer: I work out what's worth building, then build it. I've spent eleven years shipping software at an agency, first as a Ruby developer, then as Product Manager across up to nine concurrent client engagements.
That means I can prototype ideas myself, weigh trade-offs, challenge estimates, and translate between business and engineering.
Agency work taught me the difference between building what's asked for and building what's needed.
I'm looking for a small product team where engineers own problems end to end, from understanding users to shipping the solution, and where technical fluency, structured facilitation, and a bias for small, testable increments are valued.
Career Highlights
- Identified the need for a dedicated Product function at Foxsoft, made the case to leadership, and built it from scratch to run a multi-client portfolio
- Designed Foxsoft's end-to-end client process, from first contact to code: discovery calls, paid scoping into product requirements documents, roadmapping workshops, and 250+ three amigos sessions
- Proposed and led Amigo, an in-house Rails app replacing Foxsoft's Coda prototypes, now used daily by all eight staff across sales, finance, and operations
Key Skills
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Product Discovery
Finding the right problem before committing to a solution, through research, interviews, and a healthy scepticism about assumptions.
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Roadmapping & Prioritisation
Turning strategy into a plan people can actually follow, balancing user needs, business goals, and what the team can realistically deliver.
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Stakeholder Management
Keeping clients and stakeholders aligned, building trust, and managing expectations without losing sight of what actually needs to ship.
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Facilitation
Running sessions that produce real decisions, not just discussions, whether that's a discovery workshop, a roadmap review, or a difficult conversation.
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Leadership
Creating the conditions for cross-functional teams to do their best work, with clear ownership and no ambiguity about what matters.
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Technical Fluency
Eleven years of Ruby on Rails, so I can build what I propose, judge what's feasible, and spot complexity before it bites.
Employment
Product Engineer for Foxsoft Ltd.
- Remote / Tamworth
- Jan 2026 - Present
- Moved internal tools off Coda, whose flexibility made them easy to break by accident, into purpose-built Rails features, avoiding a £50 a month add-on charge
- Building Amigo's sales tooling, which automates admin and is contributing to a team goal of freeing ten hours a week for prospect work
Leadership Team for Foxsoft Ltd.
- Remote / Tamworth
- Jun 2024 - Present
- Turned around the weekly EOS Level 10 leadership meeting: now on time, resolving three or more issues a week, and consistently rated 9–10
- Own Foxsoft's EOS Core Process documentation across seven departments, written for the moment of use so it gets followed instead of filed
- Run quarterly process reviews combining training and self-assessment, with department metrics to judge whether each process change helps
Product Manager for Foxsoft Ltd.
- Remote / Tamworth
- Jun 2020 - Dec 2025
- Ran Foxsoft's Product function across up to nine concurrent client engagements, within a cross-functional team of ten
- Designed a paid scoping engagement that turns large client requests into PRDs answering "how much, how long, and when", several of which became signed projects
- Designed fixed-price roadmapping workshops that turn stakeholder needs into prioritised problem themes, success metrics, and a product vision
- Facilitated 250+ three amigos workshops, turning roadmap themes into small user stories, acceptance criteria, and Gherkin scenarios
Ruby Software Engineer for Foxsoft Ltd.
- Remote / Tamworth
- Jan 2016 - Jun 2020
- Built and maintained custom Rails applications modernising legacy FoxPro business systems for commercial clients
- Led requirements discovery and solution design directly with clients, bridging technical delivery and business needs
Ruby Software Engineer for Intercity UK
- Birmingham
- Nov 2014 - Dec 2015
- Contributed to a Ruby on Rails team building a customer billing and information portal
- Acted as liaison between the Ruby team and legacy Java developers to integrate data from multiple systems
- Delivered self-service reporting tools, giving clients direct access to their data without needing to raise requests
Education
University of Worcester
2006 - 2010BSc (Hons) Web Development, First Class Honours
Hobbies
I have an interest in running, cycling, and my own health and fitness in general. I've been running on and off since 2015, but picked it up again as a regular habit in 2023 when I joined Chasewater Runners. Since then I've competed in multiple 5k and 10k races, the Stratford half marathon, and an off-road sprint duathlon.
Living in Cannock means I have easy access to the mountain biking single track trails across Cannock Chase, which I ride on a regular basis. But I'm just as happy on my gravel bike riding along greenways such as the Tissington Trail, or along the many miles of canal in the local area.
I'm combining both interests in Apprehension, a location-based game for iOS and Android that gets you running around your local park. It's currently in alpha, and doubles as a place for me to practise product discovery and playtesting.
Fun Facts
- During my final year at university I was chairperson of the Worcester Ideas Network (WIN), a student entrepreneurship society. Taking on that role gave me my first real taste of stepping into a leadership position and getting people genuinely engaged in something.
- I founded Birmingham.IO and grew it from nothing into a thriving online community for the Birmingham tech scene, sustaining it for three years. An early lesson in product thinking, audience building, and knowing when to ship.
- I later revived the dormant Worcester Source meetup and ran it for two years, wrangling speakers, growing a regular audience, and keeping the momentum going month after month.
- When I graduated from the University of Worcester in 2010, I was featured as a success story on the university's website.
- I've had four articles published in HackSpace magazine (issues #13, #22, #25, and #40) and one in .NET magazine. Writing clearly about technical subjects for a non-specialist audience is a skill I've since found invaluable in product work.
- I also wrote a series of articles on product practice for Foxsoft's insights blog, including introducing the product roadmap, seeing the future with your roadmap, the three amigos workshop, and why we split user stories.
- I used to own a CNC machine and made a variety of woodworking projects with it. There's something satisfying about turning a precise set of instructions into a physical object, which probably explains a lot about why I ended up in product.
Certificates
The Facilitator School certificate reflects professional development in running workshops and structured sessions.
I hold a UK Athletics run leader qualification and volunteer as a run leader with Chasewater Runners. The following three certificates come from the training required to lead and support other runners safely.
Contact
If you like what you see and want to get in touch, you can contact me by telephone on 07887 521 229 or you can email me.