James Aley

James Aley is an accomplished engineering leader with a diverse range of technical skills and experience across multiple industries in startup and big tech scale endeavors. With a passion for evidenced-based leadership through continuous experimentation and learning, James has demonstrated great successes in his roles, from mobile app development to cloud services engineering, machine learning, and analytics. Always empathetic, James has developed an impressive resume of leading engineering teams and technical projects throughout his career.

His formal education includes a Master's Degree in Applied Statistics (Distinction) and a Graduate Certificate in Statistics (Distinction), both from Birkbeck, University of London. He also holds a BSc in Computer Science (First Class) from King's College London, U. of London, and completed secondary education at Brentwood County High School.

Prior to his current role as Principal Group Engineering Manager at Microsoft, James held several key positions, including Principal Software Engineering Manager, Technical Lead at SwiftKey, and Technology Specialist at Symbian Foundation. James also has extensive experience as a Software Engineer, having worked in this role both at Nokia and Symbian. He began his career at Symbian as an Industrial Placement student.