David Linton
Product professional with extensive experience building platforms and communities for digital media. Based in Kendal, UK.
david@drawk.cab
BBC
Senior Business Analyst and acting Senior Product Manager, Web Framework and Design System
Manchester (remote / hybrid), 2020–2024
Building a community of over 20 product teams around a shared platform and design system for the BBC's public service web sites.
- Worked with teams to understand their goals and needs, give guidance, and inform development of the design system
- Built consensus with product and engineering teams on a Product Charter for the design system, setting out the principles they commit to
- Developed a component health model to empower client teams to own components of the design system whilst maintaining accessibility and design standards
- Set metrics and OKRs for the Design System and Web Framework teams and devised ways to assess community activity and cohesion
- Took on formal Product Management responsibility during periods of absence and extended leave
Financial Times
Senior Business Analyst, Universal Publishing Platform
London, 2018–2020
Responsible for bringing product thinking and a focus on user value to a group of 4 engineering-led teams.
- Built relationships with editorial, B2B and front-end users to find iterative solutions to their problems
- Expressed common concepts and upheld principles to keep the product coherent and intuitive
Product Owner for Metadata Tooling, responsible for building a viable and easy-to-use tool for journalists to ensure their work is read by the audiences that will get most out of it.
- Successfully launched the product to the newsroom, achieving a significant improvement in metadata quality and driving increased B2B business
- Implemented and monitored metrics including search relevance, precision/recall scores and user satisfaction
During this period we recruited, on-boarded and mentored a new department in Bulgaria to take on responsibility for the FT publishing platform.
- Devised and ran workshops and training activities both on-site and remotely, and line managed new team members
- Guided the teams to evolve their own agile ways of working, whilst aligning to the FT’s long term product strategy
Business Analyst, Universal Publishing Platform and FT.com
London, 2015–2018
Building a new API platform underpinned by a knowledge graph to drive a refreshed FT digital experience.
- Identified and prioritised work needed to migrate B2B, Web and mobile app clients from the existing technology stack
- Worked with a third-party supplier to build and integrate ML-based features such as recommendations and topic suggestions
Product managed the live FT.com site, owning the backlog for the Romania-based development team, prioritising fixes and feature requests while UK teams developed the new platform.
NAGRA / Quative Limited (Kudelski Group)
Business Analyst, Service Development Platform
Surrey (hybrid), 2011–2014
Evaluating business needs and finding user value for teams in the UK, India and Switzerland working on on-demand and broadcast TV solutions.
Technical Author, Quative Service Platform
London (hybrid), 2007–2011
Creating documentation and training for developers and engineers working on IPTV middleware systems.
Güralp Systems Limited
Scientific Author
Surrey (hybrid), 2004–2007
Creating documentation for engineers working with the company's scientific instruments. Also produced promotional material, corporate website and intranet content, and implemented a ticketing system for user support.
Education and certifications
- Professional Scrum Product Owner, Scrum.org, Apr 2022
- Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis, BCS, Oct 2016
- Ph.D. Chemistry, University of Cambridge 1999–2003
- M.A. & M.Sci. Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge 1995–1999 (2:1)