Our company

SwiftKey is an innovative start-up that creates world class language technology. Our vision is to apply this technology to a wide range of challenging real-world language problems, achieving lasting market leadership and changing people’s lives for the better.

About us
The team
The culture
Careers

About us

In four years, SwiftKey has evolved from an idea to an exciting, successful business. In 2008, SwiftKey’s co-founder and CEO Jon Reynolds was a 22-year-old graduate trainee in the British government. As smartphones began to gain popularity, he noticed that many of his colleagues were struggling to type on tiny keyboards, which he dubbed “shrinking typewriters”.

Convinced this was a problem he could help solve, he enlisted SwiftKey co-founder and CTO Dr Ben Medlock, a friend from Cambridge University with a doctorate in language-based artificial intelligence.

The pair worked on a prototype intelligent touchscreen keyboard which in turn became the alpha version of SwiftKey. From there the business grew rapidly, and in addition to creating one of Android’s most popular apps, the SwiftKey team also works with well-known manufacturers, healthcare organizations and other enterprises.

Headquartered in a three-story office in Southwark, central London, SwiftKey now also has offices in San Francisco, New York, Beijing and Seoul. The company is known as SwiftKey, due to the success of its flagship product. SwiftKey is a registered trademark of TouchType Ltd.

picture of swiftkey staff at their computers

The team

Find out who’s who behind the scenes at our growing tech startup and what they enjoy about life at SwiftKey.

find out more about our staff by clicking the photos below

Jon Reynolds

Co-Founder and CEO

What do you do?

I help set strategy and direction for company, help create the right culture and environment for the business, make sure the right things are happening across the business, manage relationships with investors and key customers.

Where have you studied?

MA, Natural Sciences (Physics), University of Cambridge; Advanced Diploma in Management Accountancy, CIMA.

Tell us a weird fact...

Despite flying around the world about 10 times since starting up the company, I have still failed to get promoted on any airline loyalty scheme (although I did get upgraded once!).

Ben Medlock

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

What do you do?

I am responsible for overseeing the product/technology side of the business, for driving innovation and establishing and promoting our company vision.

Where have you studied?

Computer science at Durham, followed by an MPhil and PhD at Cambridge in applied natural language processing.

What's your proudest achievement?

Growing SwiftKey from the seed of an idea into a global business.

Mark Paterson

Chairman

What do you do?

At SwiftKey, helping the company get where it is today. Before that, contributing to the launch of Orange.

Where have you studied?

University of Westminster, Inns of Court School of Law, Bristol University, Kings College London.

What languages do you speak?

None.

Richard Gibson

Chief Finance Officer

What do you do?

I am responsible for managing finance, strategic and commercial business matters.

Where have you studied?

BA Geography and Archeology, Southampton University; ACA – Chartered Accountant as a professional qualification.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

Working in a fast-moving environment with a team of hugely intelligent and creative people.

Rhodri Thomas

Chief Commercial Officer

What do you do?

I am responsible for all our commercial and business development activities. This primarily means I work with licensees of our software and other stakeholders in the mobile sector.

Where have you studied?

BSc Managerial and Administrative Studies, University of Aston.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

The innovation and the team. I’ve been around some high calibre companies but this place takes the biscuit!

Joe Braidwood

Chief Marketing Officer

What do you do?

I take overall responsibility for the company’s marketing, community, consumer insight and comms strategies.

Where have you studied?

MA, Law, University of Cambridge; MPA, Public Policy and American Institutions, Brown University.

What languages do you speak?

American English, Canadian English, rubbish French…

Lucy Yu

Chief Operating Officer

What do you do?

I manage a portfolio of areas including office infrastructure and operations, recruitment, and human resources. I’m also guardian of our risk register and responsible for making us a great place to work – no pressure, then!

Where have you studied?

Chemistry, Imperial College; Economics, London School of Economics (LSE).

What programming languages do you speak?

MATLAB.

Brandon Mensinga

VP Product Management

What do you do?

I am responsible for the product portfolio including requirements, roadmap and market opportunities.

Where have you studied?

Bachelor of Business Administration with specializations in marketing and information technology, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.

What programming languages do you speak?

The only course I ever failed in University was Intro to C++. My coding career was over in one semester.

Neil MacDonald

VP, Sales

What do you do?

I’m responsible for making sure as many people as possible can use our technology!

Where have you studied?

Information Systems, Kingston Polytechnic.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

No goal is out of reach.

Andy Wilde

VP Product Development

What do you do?

I head up the core software engineering teams which develop SwiftKey’s software technology and products.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science, Leicester.

Where have you worked before?

I’ve been around

Thomas Kousholt

Head of Professional Services

What do you do?

My team is responsible for successful integration of our technology into our customers’ platforms and devices.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science, Tietgen Skolen, Odense, Denmark.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

Working with really talented people on a unique, groundbreaking technology.

Caroline Gasperin

Language Team Lead

What do you do?

I manage our growing Language Team.

Where have you studied?

PhD, Computer Science, University of Cambridge; MSc and BSc, Computer Science, Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Brazil.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

I love the friendly atmosphere, everyone is helpful and willing to exchange ideas and explain their part of the work. I also appreciate the text prediction technology that we build – we are always coming up with new ideas of how to make it solve new problems.

Paul Butcher

Chief Software Architect

What do you do?

Ben, our CTO, is responsible for what we build. I’m responsible for ensuring that we build it right.

Where have you studied?

DPhil in Natural Sciences (Mathematics and Computing) at Durham followed by a PhD in Computer Science looking at languages for parallel and distributed programming at York.

What's your proudest achievement?

Getting SwiftKey from a promising proof of concept to a production quality, world-beating product.

Adam Clements

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I build stuff.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science at Sunderland University

What's your proudest achievement?

There’s something secret in the works that I’m planning on being proud of…

Adam Cutmore

Software Engineer for Professional Services

What do you do?

Software Engineer with the client-facing Professional Services team.

Where have you studied?

Computing at Imperial College London.

What programming languages do you speak?

Java.

Alex Gayer

Finance Director

What do you do?

I have responsibility for the company’s financial strategy, management and operations, driving shareholder value and ensuring the company is well positioned to continue its phenomenal growth.

Where have you studied?

I hold an MBA from London Business School, a BSc in Management Science from UMIST and I’m a Chartered Accountant (ACA) having qualified with PwC.

Tell us a weird fact...

Believe it or not I once had dreadlocks!

Alex Nabrozidis del Barrio

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I am a software engineer working on SwiftKey Healthcare.

Where have you studied?

I studied at the University of Malaga, Spain.

What's your proudest achievement?

A patient management and automatic citing system that is still scaling up.

Alex Nixon

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I am one of the team of core software engineers.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science, University of Cambridge; I also tacked a year of the undergrad-level Management Studies Tripos onto the end.

What languages do you speak?

I speak French poorly and German worse.

Amanda Sears

Financial Controller

What do you do?

I am responsible for the day-to-day finance operations of the business such as monthly accounts, invoicing, budgeting, expenses, etc.

Where have you studied?

Natural Sciences at Cambridge, specializing in Chemistry.

Tell us a weird fact...

I love travelling. I’ve been to 33 countries and would like to try to keep the number of countries visited above my age for as long as possible (I’m currently 26).

Anita Woodruff

Software Engineer Intern

What do you do?

I work on SwiftKey.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Bath.

What programming languages do you speak?

Java and some C, C#, Prolog and Lisp.

Arpi Vezer

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I’m a software engineer with the SDK team, developing SwiftKey’s prediction engine.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science MEng at the University of Warwick.

Tell us a weird fact...

I’m getting increasingly hooked on cycling.

Attila Szász

Language Processing Engineer

What do you do?

I am part of the team extending the number of languages SwiftKey supports.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science BSc and Communication and Media, Engineer, at Timisoara Polytechnic University, Romania; Internet Technologies, Scholarship at Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Finland.

What's your proudest achievement?

A recent one is a set of platform independent automated test tools for performance and quality assessment of intenationalised address matching engines.

Beatriz Viñal Murciano

Software Engineer for Professional Services

What do you do?

I work with clients as part of our Professional Services team.

Where have you studied?

I studied Telecommunication Engineering at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and I did my final degree project at Queen Mary, University of London, as an Erasmus student.

Tell us a weird fact...

The only thing I can cook is Spanish potato omelette but it’s the best in London

Ben Leavett

Professional Services Technical Lead

What do you do?

I lead the technical side of the work by the Professional Services team.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science, University of Bristol

Bin Li

Data Architect

What do you do?

I work on a range of projects.

Where have you studied?

University of Surrey (MSc, PhD student, research fellow) since 2006.

What's your proudest achievement?

A research project on Fair Benchmarking for Cloud Systems.

Blazej Czapp

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on SwiftKey.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science at the University of Southampton, Maritime Navigation at Southampton Solent University

What languages do you speak?

Polish, a little German.

Catalina Hallet

Language Engineer

What do you do?

I am a language engineer working on SwiftKey.

Where have you studied?

BSc and MSc in Computing in my native Romania, PhD in Computational Linguistics, University of Wolverhampton.

What's your proudest achievement?

No, I’m proud of everything I do.

Catherine Stewart

Project Manager

What do you do?

I work with our clients as part of the Professional Services team.

Where have you studied?

English at the University of Reading.

What languages do you speak?

A bit of German.

Charlie Edmunds

Head of Consumer Insight

What do you do?

I look at all aspects of what customers are doing, from how many downloads we are getting and what proportion of trial users are upgrading right through to what they are saying about us on Twitter and in our VIP Community.

Where have you studied?

Genetics then a PhD in Molecular Biology at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Cambridge.

Tell us a weird fact...

I’m very attached to my Alot mug.

Chetan Padia

Software Engineer

What do you do?

This is difficult to define. I’ve done a lot of different stuff!

Where have you studied?

MEng in Computer Systems and Software Engineering with a year in industry, University of York.

What programming languages do you speak?

Java, Python, bash, C#, C++, Javascript, CSS, SQL – whatever is needed! Enjoying learning Clojure at the moment too!

Chris Carr

Strategy Manager

What do you do?

I am responsible for identifying how to turn revenue from our technology from millions to billions!

Where have you studied?

Law at Selwyn College, Cambridge University.

Where have you worked before?

I was a commercial chancery barrister.

Chris Charlton

Languages Engineer

What do you do?

I am a bridge between the languages and SwiftKey team eg working on the Chinese UI – Wei and Leilei do the clever stuff and I make it appear on screen. I also work on OEM integrations.

Where have you studied?

BA Computer Science, Cambridge University. PhD Cambridge University Engineering Department. I’m also a Chartered Engineer and a professional-level member of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.

What languages do you speak?

Tourist-level German, French and Spanish. For the languages team, I’ve worked on Turkish and Finnish and know a little bit about Korean and Chinese.

Craig Marsden

System Administrator

What do you do?

I’m responsible for managing our internal and external IT services as well as playing a role in forming the infrastructure of new and existing projects.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science, University of Sunderland.

Tell us a weird fact...

Craig Warren

Professional Services engineer

What do you do?

I work to integrate SwiftKey’s technology with our clients on new and exciting devices.

Where have you studied?

I went to Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh.

Where have you worked before?

Lead Software Developer for Aquila (making pension management software).

David Martinez

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I am a software engineer working on SwiftKey.

Where have you studied?

Masters in Computer Science, from the University of the Basque Country (EHU) in Spain; Masters in Software Engineering – from Ecole d’ingénieurs en informatique (EPITA) in Paris, France.

What programming languages do you speak?

Java, C++, Python and starting to fiddle with Clojure.

David Williams

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I’m responsible for our big data storage and processing.

Where have you studied?

BA Mathematics and Philosophy at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Where have you worked before?

At Cambridge studying Philosophy!

Dongjin Bae

Professional Services engineer in Korea

What do you do?

I offer technical support for customers in Korea for the Professional Services team.

Where have you studied?

Chemical engineering in Keimyung University in Korea.

Where have you worked before?

Access, a Japanese company.

Dongyi Chun

Professional Services engineer, Korea

What do you do?

I’m working with the Professional Services team in Korea supporting some of our major clients.

Where have you studied?

I studied Computer Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Hongik University in Seoul, Korea.

Where have you worked before?

I made a webbased mobile platform solution for Samsung which connected between mobile to SAP, ERP services.

Doug Holmes

Business Development Manager for Healthcare

What do you do?

I am in charge of the business development of SwiftKey Healthcare in the US market.

Where have you studied?

Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Penn State University.

Doug Orr

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on the core prediction engine that underlies SwiftKey’s great predictions.

Where have you studied?

MEng, Engineering, University of Cambridge.

Tell us a weird fact...

At home, I’m trying to build my own (kit) car – not making huge progress so far, but it is a fun challenge!

Dvora Schur

Project Manager

What do you do?

I am a project manager for the Professional Services team.

Where have you studied?

Computer Programming Diploma, Israel Defence Forces Programming School (Mamram).

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

Yet to be discovered as I’ve just joined… The people, I hope…

Evan Tapper

Community Manager

What do you do?

I look after our VIP forum, addressing feedback, answering queries and making sure the teams of developers understand what matters most to our invaluable community.

Where have you studied?

I started university but ultimately decided it wasn’t for me.

Tell us a weird fact...

I wouldn’t trade my current life for the world. I love what I do. It is truly both an honor and a privilege to represent our user-base to the very best of my ability.

Francisco Sanchez Garcia

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on the client side of SwiftKey.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science in the University of Málaga.

What programming languages do you speak?

I speak Java, C, C++ and a bit of some weird languages such Prolog, Haskell or even assembly!

Gareth Jones

Head of Intellectual Property

What do you do?

As Head of IP, I look after our patents and other intellectual property.

Where have you studied?

MEng in Software Engineering at the University of Southampton.

What languages do you speak?

I’ve tried to learn bits of French and Italian but unfortunately not very good at either! I’m a bit rusty but do know some British Sign Language.

George Hategan

Tech lead, SwiftKey servers team.

What do you do?

I am the tech lead for the SwiftKey servers team.

Where have you studied?

BS and MS in Computer Science, University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

What's your proudest achievement?

The personalization server.

Helen Corbett

PA and office assistant

What do you do?

My job involves diary planning, travel arrangements and helping Min the Office Manager with the general running of the office, as well as lots of other random things…

Where have you studied?

I studied BSc Development Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

What programming languages do you speak?

None

Hwasung Lee

Software Engineer for complex languages

What do you do?

I am a software engineer in the Complex Languages team. I look into various techniques we can use to improve upon languages that are linguistically rich.

Where have you studied?

DPhil in Mathematics, Oxford University; MASt in Mathematics, Cambridge University; BSc in Mathematics and Physics, Seoul National University.

What languages do you speak?

Korean

Hyosoo Kim

Korea Country Manager

What do you do?

I am the commercial manager for SwiftKey’s office in Korea.

Where have you studied?

BS and MS in Computer Engineering, Seoul National University in Korea.

What languages do you speak?

Korean.

Jalpa Zaladi

Language Processing Engineer

What do you do?

I’ve just joined the languages team to build language models and utilities for some new languages.

Where have you studied?

I did my first BA and MA degree in India where I grew up, both in Information Technology and Computer Application. Then an MPhil in Advanced Computer Science from Cambridge University.

What languages do you speak?

I am fluent in Gujarati and Hindi. I can also speak a little Marathi and Punjabi.

James Aley

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on SwiftKey and the SwiftKey SDK.

Where have you studied?

BSc Computer Science, King’s College London.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

Hack days!

James Clarke

SwiftKey Dev Team Lead

What do you do?

I am a software engineer and am responsible for leading development projects in the SwiftKey Team.

Where have you studied?

BA (Hons) Geography (focusing on social and economic geography), UCL, University of London; MSc Computing Science from Birkbeck College, University of London.

What languages do you speak?

A very small amount of Spanish. I have also studied and subsequently forgotten French and German.

James Hay

Head of Enterprise Partnerships

What do you do?

I am responsible for building our business outside the consumer market.

Where have you studied?

MEng, Manufacturing Engineering, Cambridge University.

What programming languages do you speak?

C++ and a little bit of messing around with html and css.

James Withers

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I’m part of the Professional Services team and work with our clients.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science BSc Hons, University of Warwick; Neuroinformatics MSc, University of Edinburgh; Neuroinformatics PhD, University of Edinburgh.

Where have you worked before?

Software Developer at IBM.

Joe Freeman

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I’m a member of the SwiftKey server team – currently working on the personalization servers.

Where have you studied?

MEng computing, Imperial College.

What languages do you speak?

Mediocre French and German.

Joe Osborne

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on the core prediction technology that sits behind our SwiftKey products.

Where have you studied?

MA Computer Science, Cambridge University.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

Being surrounded by incredibly capable people who simply want to innovate.

Juha Iso-Sipilä

Complex Languages engineer

What do you do?

I lead the Complex Languages team, ensuring SwiftKey has equally high performance throughout the range of supported languages.

Where have you studied?

I studied at Tampere University of Technology in Finland. My major was Digital Signal Processing and minor Biomedical Engineering.

What's your proudest achievement?

Voice dialing for Nokia mobile devices that supports more than 50 languages. It has been deployed in more than 1 billion devices since 2005.

Julien Baley

Natural Language Processing Engineer

What do you do?

I work as part of the Languages team.

Where have you studied?

MSc Speech and Language Processing, University of Edinburgh; MSc Computer Engineering, University of Technologie of Compiègne, France.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

The creation / invention opportunities!

Kenneth Lam

Software Engineer for Professional Services

What do you do?

I am an engineer with the Professional Services team.

Where have you studied?

BSc Computer Engineering, University of Manchester; MSc Advanced Computer Science, University of Manchester.

Where have you worked before?

Badoo, a dating-focused social discovery service.

Lauren Heney

HR Assistant

What do you do?

HR Assistant – involved in day to day general Human Resources remit.

Where have you studied?

I have a few different HR qualifications, including a Masters in HR from Dublin Business School, accredited by John Moore’s University.

Where have you worked before?

A pharmaceutical research company called Nucleus Global.

Leilei Shi

Language Engineer

What do you do?

I am responsible for language models and utilities for Asian languages, such as Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai.

Where have you studied?

PhD in Computer Science, University of Kent; MSc in Software Engineering, University of York; BSc in Computer Science, Heilongjiang University, China.

Where have you worked before?

I worked as a research associate in the University of Kent during my PhD. Before that, I worked as a senior engineer in Microsoft China.

Marek Rei

Language Research Engineer

What do you do?

I am research engineer with the SwiftKey languages team.

Where have you studied?

Informatics BSc in Tallinn University of Technology; MPhil in Computer Speech, Text and Internet Technology, in University of Cambridge; Just finished a PhD in Cambridge.

What's your proudest achievement?

My PhD thesis and work on distributional semantic models.

Marianne Sisto

Professional Services Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work with our clients to help them integrate and customize the SwiftKey products.

Where have you studied?

MSc Robotics and Embedded Systems, University of Essex and BSc Computing Science, University of East Anglia / Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

Where have you worked before?

Software Engineer for an aerospace and defence company, working on a training simulator to teach the military to fly Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

Martin Bella

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on various parts which make SwiftKey tick, amongst other projects.

Where have you studied?

BSc in Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh.

Where have you worked before?

This is my first job after studying.

Matthew Willson

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I’m part of the development team.

Where have you studied?

Masters, Mathematics, University of Oxford. After a stint in the software industry I went back to school to get an MSc in Computational Statistics and Machine Learning.

What programming languages do you speak?

As a representative sample: Ruby, Javascript, Python, C, Scala, R, Haskell.

Michael Bell

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on SwiftKey.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science at the University of Oxford.

What's your proudest achievement?

Teaching robots to play football.

Michele Sama

Test Architect

What do you do?

I am a software engineer and the company’s test architect.

Where have you studied?

PhD in software validation and verification from University College London. MA and BA in computer engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

We use the most cutting-edge technologies and we apply them in tools for everyday life that make you say: “Wow how do they do that!?”

Min Park

Office and Ops Manager

What do you do?

I make sure everything runs smoothly in the office.

Where have you studied?

I studied Politics at Smith, MA, USA and I read philosophy at Lucy Cavendish college, University of Cambridge.

What programming languages do you speak?

None.

Nick Sutherland

Product Manager

What do you do?

I work with Brandon Mensinga on product management.

Where have you studied?

Engineering at Cambridge University many years ago followed more recently by an Open University MBA

What's your proudest achievement?

I was product manager for a British TV Set Top Box design sold into Shanghai Telecom in competition with local Chinese vendors.

Nikiforos Karamanis

User Experience Lead

What do you do?

I work together with our developers to design, prototype and evaluate new features. I also run user studies and analyse user feedback to improve our users’ experience.

Where have you studied?

MA in Linguistics, University of Athens. MSc in Speech and Language Processing, University of Edinburgh, PhD in Natural Language Processing, University of Edinburgh.

What programming languages do you speak?

Command line Linux and Perl for scripting.

Patrick Monteith

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I’m a software engineer working on SwiftKey.

Where have you studied?

MEng Information Systems Engineering, Imperial College London.

What programming languages do you speak?

Java, C++, numerous others to a lesser extent.

Precious Hamilton-Brown

Marketing Coordinator

What do you do?

As Marketing Coordinator, my role involves planning for awards, conferences and company events.

Where have you studied?

BSc Sociology at the London School of Economics (LSE).

What languages do you speak?

None.

Páidí Creed

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on the SwiftKey SDK.

Where have you studied?

BSc in Computer Science at University College, Cork; PhD in Computer Science, University of Edinburgh.

What programming languages do you speak?

Primarily Python, Java and C++, bits of Matlab, Maple, R and Clojure.

Richard Tunnicliffe

SwiftKey Technical Lead

What do you do?

I direct the technical design and implementation of the SwiftKey Android app.

Where have you studied?

MA/MSci Natural Sciences, Girton College, Cambridge; MSc Computation, Wadham College, Oxford.

What languages do you speak?

None, unless a smattering of school French counts.

Ruth Barnett

Head of Communications

What do you do?

I am responsible for how we communicate to the outside world – our media coverage, events, web presence, social media and comms strategy.

Where have you studied?

Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge; Post-graduate diploma in Newspaper Journalism, City University, London.

What's your proudest achievement?

At SwiftKey, working to put the people behind the technology at the heart of the story we tell. As a journalist, reporting live from Downing Street.

Sarah Reynolds

Customer Support

What do you do?

I deal with customer queries and also help with marketing and general office admin/errands.

Where have you studied?

BA, Study of Religions at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies).

What languages do you speak?

None really! Random (tiny) bits of French, German, Portuguese.

Sarah Rowley

B2B Marketing Executive

What do you do?

I work on B2B and enterprise marketing, for example for SwiftKey Healthcare.

Where have you studied?

French and Classics at Oxford University.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

Innovation Days – plus I traveled to Spain and the US within weeks of joining.

Sebastian Spiegler

Data team lead

What do you do?

I am leading a small team of data and software engineers. We are looking into large scale data processing and analysis using novel techniques like cloud computing and Hadoop.

Where have you studied?

PhD in machine learning and natural language processing, University of Bristol. Degree in business informatics and information management, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany, then information systems and computer science, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil.

Where have you worked before?

I did a PhD in machine learning and natural language processing. After that, I had a brief stopover at a leading travel aggregation service doing R&D for an intelligent caching system.

Shaobo Hou

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I am a software engineer in the SwiftKey SDK team.

Where have you studied?

PhD, Computer Science at the University of Manchester.

Tell us a weird fact...

I was reading comics before they were cool.

Simon Ransome

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I look after UI issues, keyboard layouts, internationalization and general SwiftKey stuff.

Where have you studied?

BA Business Studies, University of Plymouth; currently studying BSc Physics at the Open University.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

The flexibility – three days in the fields of Suffolk and two days in London, part of which is working on the train so the hours are very civilized. SwiftKey is the first company I’ve worked for that /truly/ gets what flexibility means.

Simon Wood

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I am SwiftKey Multi-Platform Team Leader.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science at North Staffs Poly.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

It’s too early to say right now.

Stephen Spencer

Software Developer

What do you do?

I’m a software developer in the SwiftKey SDK team.

Where have you studied?

Undergraduate in Maths at Warwick University and a Masters in Computing at Imperial College, London.

Where have you worked before?

I worked at the European Bioinformatics Institute as a software developer for a few years,
and before that as a researcher at a defence company called QinetiQ.

Tehmur Khan

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I am a SwiftKey client-side developer.

Where have you studied?

Computing – BEng at Imperial College London.

What languages do you speak?

Urdu.

Thomas Hancock

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I work on the SwiftKey SDK team.

Where have you studied?

Mathematics at the University of Birmingham.

Where have you worked before?

L-3 Communications ASA, working on defence projects in Sensor Fusion and Tracking.

Thomas Nicholson

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I’m a software engineer working on the SwiftKey SDK.

Where have you studied?

BSc Computer Science, University of St Andrews.

What's your proudest achievement?

A team university project: a Java-based online poker engine, including neural network-based bot player.

Thomas Pike

Language Team intern

What do you do?

I am currently an intern with the SwiftKey languages team.

Where have you studied?

I’ve recently applied for Uni and hope to get into one of the following – Bath (business administration), Oxford (economics and management) or Warwick (management).

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

So many reasons! Experiencing what it feels like to be in a rapidly growing and innovative start-up business like SwiftKey!

Tom Dixon

Software Developer

What do you do?

I’m a software developer for SwiftKey the app.

Where have you studied?

Computer Science at the University of Sheffield.

What's the best thing about working at SwiftKey?

Working in a place where everyone’s ideas matter, you are constantly learning new things, and there’s a table tennis table downstairs.

Wei Liu

Language Engineer

What do you do?

I work with the Languages team.

Where have you studied?

MSc Software Systems in Sheffield University, BEng in Computing from China.

Where have you worked before?

Worked as Research Engineer at Yahoo! Answers and NLP (Natural Language Processing) developer in Fizzback (later acquired by nice.com).

Yoh Okuno

Software Engineer

What do you do?

I am a software engineer, mainly responsible for Japanese language processing.

Where have you studied?

Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning at Keio University, Tokyo.

Tell us a weird fact...

I have loved keyboard since I was three, I mean the musical instrument rather than input device

The culture

Innovative, friendly and creative, SwiftKey is a fast-moving technology company that invests in its staff and its workplaces. Flexible hours, monthly Innovation Days and team socials (from boat trips to theater visits) are among the features that set us apart.

"I like helping people. That sounds cheesy but most people that work in a sales role are encouraged by money. I am fuelled by clients telling me they are happy with the service or product that I gave them. My satisfaction is directly tied to their happiness."

Doug

"The people here are amazing and the management team go above and beyond what is required to take care of staff."

Craig

"The best thing about SwiftKey? Building things that blow people's minds."

Ben

"I'm surrounded by incredibly capable people who simply want to innovate."

Joe

"No two days are ever the same. That, and there's table tennis..."

Lucy

"You're the luckiest people in the world, you've got the best jobs."

Stephen Fry

"The best part is working with awesome people on hard problems to make people's everyday lives better."

Chet

"Exciting stuff happens all the time and I'm always learning something new."

Martin