Hey!
I'm Sam 👋
Software Engineer, Manager, Scuba Diver
This page is about me, what i'm proud of, and what i'm working on.
A Bit About Me
I like to solve problems, help people, and explore, pretty much everything I do falls back to one of those.
Where it all began
I started building websites at around 15, about 16 years ago! I’d stay up all night coding, mostly building guides about the first iPhone when it launched. I just loved making things, solving problems, and dreaming I’d make a tonne of money from the ads I ran.
Studies
I took a bit of a break from building software and focused on physics for a while, another passion of mine. I studied it for four years at university and eventually found my way back to coding by learning C to solve some moon landing equations. 🌖
Professional life
I’ve been working in software engineering for about eight years now. Most recently, I’ve been leading two engineering teams, a total of 11 engineers with different levels of experience.
Personal life
My favourite things to do are travel to places ive not been before and scuba dive. Most recently I've been living in Mexico learning to cave dive.
Tech I use most
Things I did
A selection of things i'm proud of or found interesting enough to write about
How I Led Localisation at VEED
Leading a cross-functional localization project across 8+ codebases and 10+ teams. We built custom tooling, automated translation workflows, and delivered an 8-18% revenue uplift in international markets.
Volunteering and Teaching at CodeYourFuture
Running a volunteer-led coding bootcamp for refugees and people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Led 40-50 students and 10-20 volunteers through an 8-month program teaching JavaScript, React, and Node.
Get In Touch
I'm always interested in hearing about new projects and opportunities. Whether you have a question or just want to say hi, feel free to reach out!
My Latest CV
Sam Pennington
Senior Growth Engineer · Engineering Manager
London
+447703705820
samueljpennington64@gmail.com
About Me
I'm an engineering leader who genuinely loves what I do. For the past three years I've worked in and led teams where I get to combine programming, analytics, and plenty of collaboration. I had several promotions while working in my last role, but I've realised I'm happiest when I'm hands-on, building, solving problems, and experimenting alongside the team.
Experience
Senior Software Engineer
VEED.IO
Jul 2024 - Dec 2024
- Led the work to optimise first time user flows from landing pages, which increased new user subscriptions rates by 15%
- Led the rebuild of VEED's onboarding flow, massively reduced its complexity and completion rate increased by 10%
- Shipped multiple experiments most weeks, iterating on VEED's dashboard and first time user experience flows
- Mentored junior - mid engineers, particularly on testing and experimentation
Engineering Manager
VEED.IO
Jan 2023 - Jul 2024
- Promoted to EM of the Activation team, after became EM of Acquisition as well, managing up to 11 engineers
- Led the project to internationalise VEED. Spanning 10+ engineering teams, 8 codebases with limited resources and a tight deadline. Delivered within the quarter (on time) and resulted in an increase in MRR of 8-15% in VEED's core international markets
- Led two high-performing growth teams focused on continuous discovery, user interviews, experimentation, iterative shipping to drive growth
- Hired 8 amazing engineers - pushed for and designed a fairer, less bias interviewing system which was adopted across engineering
- Led the team to build VeedGPT, an AI video creation tool. Accounting for up to 20% of new users at VEED at its peak
- Migrated VEED's analytics/experimentation platform to Amplitude. Implemented the integration, wrote documentation, and became the go-to resource for everything experimentation at Veed
Engineering Lead
VEED.IO
Jul 2022 - Jan 2023
- Promoted to Engineering Lead after probation period
- Led the implementation of a new Resize for socials feature - a tool for users to repurpose their content for different social platforms
- Led many in product onboarding flow experiments - a lot of trial and error, speaking to users, and experiments here
Senior Engineer
VEED.IO
Apr 2022 - Jul 2022
- Experimenting with core product tours, helping teach new users how to use a video editor
- Rebuilt the VEED dashboard with the team, optimizing for new video creation and tool adoption
Senior Software Engineer
OVO Energy
Oct 2019 - Apr 2022
- Built features for OVO's Plan Zero decarbonisation project
- Mentored junior engineers, teaching them technologies like React, TypeScript and general web development using HTML/CSS
- Conducting pair programming interviews, system design interviews for candidates across the company
Software Engineer
What Car
Sep 2018 - Oct 2019
- Built a platform for car buyers and sellers with search, real time messaging, alerts
- Mentored junior engineers on testing with react testing library, and cypress
Junior Software Developer
Heed
Oct 2018 - Sep 2018
- Building features for Heed, an automated messaging system
- Learning how to use React and write good tests
- Learning AWS, specifically lambda functions, S3, server-less framework
Education
Physics BSc
University of Bristol
Oct 2012 - Oct 2016
Voluntary
Teaching Assistant → Cohort Leader
Code Your Future
Oct 2022 - Oct 2024
- Lead an 8 month coding bootcamp for 40 refugees in London
- Managed 20 other volunteers to deliver the course
- Ran lessons in Javascript, SQL and Node to a group of up to 40 students