Steve Hallett
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Steve Hallett

Principal ConsultantSpecialising in Product & Delivery, Technical

With over 20 years experience as a successful consultant, Steve is highly skilled in delivering niche tech and digital experts to complex projects. Steve specialises in Product & Delivery and Technical: Development, Software, Infrastructure, Security & DevOps.

Hanover are proud to support a range of UK Government Departments in their mission to deliver digitised, optimised, public services for the benefit of UK Citizens through consulting and team building.

Our services are available through the following frameworks:

  • G-Cloud

  • DOS

  • Bloom/NEPRO 3

  • PSR

  • "I worked as a Hanover associate on a complex central government technology project. The working relationship with them was over a sustained period of time and I always found them to be supportive and knowledgeable, both on the associate and project side. They understood the complexity of the technical project I was landing into and it was a great fit for my skills, resulting in the right outcome for the client."

    Silvia

    Software Engineer

  • ​"Unlike other recruiters, Hanover treats contractors like human beings, rather than revenue-generating commodities! I would not hesitate to recommend their consultants"

    Chris

    Project Manager

  • ​"Hanover were clear, friendly and straightforward. Their intuition about roles suited to me was excellent and now I love my job!"

    Karin

    SEO Analyst

  • ​"My biggest appreciation of Hanover is that they helped me believe in my own work. It completely paid off and I got the job!"

    Henry

    Digital Designer

  • "What especially impressed me was that Hanover truly listened to what I was looking for and what my expectations for career progression were."

    Teri

    UX Designer

  • ​"Not only were Hanover great to deal with but they also followed up with me when I started in my new job to see how I was settling in." 

    Tom

    System Admin

  • Software Engineer
  • Project Manager
  • SEO Analyst
  • Digital Designer
  • UX Designer
  • System Admin
  • Technical
    Laravel Full Stack Developer

    We're looking for a Laravel Full Stack Developer for a large Central Government department. You'll be responsible for creating a web application using Laravel, Blade and Livewire and for optimising the user journey through the web application.Experience Needed:Excellent understanding and experience of full stack web development with Laravel and Livewire. Able to develop chat/conversation UI for streaming conversations Proficiency in HTML, CSS/SCSS, JavaScript and PHP Able to make use of WebSockets and Server Side Events Able to test for Accessibility and compatibility Experience with appropriate software development practices such as version control, test-driven development and automated testing platforms. Good understanding of common security issues and apply good practices and be able to carry out internal security testing Working knowledge of cloud-based solutions such as Amazon Web Services, in particular, AWS Elastic Beanstalk and have familiarity with web server configuration with Nginx on Linux/Unix Experience using the UK Government Design System, and the government standards Experience with cloud APIs and a good understanding of API building and microservices.

    Apply Now
  • Product & Delivery
    Salesforce Business Analyst

    We’re looking for an experienced self-motivated Business Analyst with experience in coordinating projects across cross functional teams including agile teams globally. You will work directly with multiple stakeholders within the business but also the CRM team to ensure delivering on track within scope. As BA you have deep functional knowledge about the business application of the system being developed. You will work with the Product Manager to ensure that functional requirements are accurately captured and conveyed to the Agile team through well written user stories.Key responsibilities:Work closely with relevant stakeholders to gather, understand and define business requirements Understand the structure, policies and operations of an organization to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals Develop user stories and to-be process flows to support the design and development of our Salesforce solution Partner with the Product Manager to translate product roadmap features into well-defined product requirements/user stories Work collaboratively with team members to design a solution that will meet business requirements and create user stories Collaborate with developers and QA to test and verify that solutions will meet business requirements Plan and drive key meetings with stakeholders and experts including requirement sessions, system demos and user acceptance testing Participate in prioritization meetings with the SCRUM master and Product Owner Manage risks and issues, escalating to senior stakeholders for resolution Coach and facilitate champion users across various teams to enhance their success Provide ongoing production support, including responding to user issues, collaborating with the technical team to analyze and resolve reported system issues, and communicating the resolution of issues to the departments Document use cases, business/system/functional requirements Competencies & Qualifications:Excellent interpersonal skills, verbal and written communication in English Excellent stakeholder management skills Strong organisational skills Team player Experience of working in an agile environment Highly adept to change and willingness to learn Strong experience with Salesforce CRM (primary Sales Cloud, Experience Cloud)

    Apply Now
  • Technical
    Senior Digital Java Developer

    We're looking for a Senior Java Developer for a large Central Government Department. Skills and Experience:Experience with Java 11 (or later). Excellent understanding of TDD and BDD. Experience with large microservice architectures. Experience of working in an Agile environment. Be willing to work in a pair programming environment. Have experience in implementing APIs for internal and external use. Have the skills to build up a useful, robust automated test suite to support a continuous deployment environment. Be involved in the wider web development community, identifying good practices we can adopt and sharing our experiences. Be knowledgeable of tools and techniques used within the wider team. Take part in 2nd-line support of applications and platforms, including occasional support outside of office hours. Have an ability to communicate technical concepts to a non-technical audience. Have working knowledge of Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and/or Mac OS X. Have the ability to quickly research and learn new programming tools and techniques. Understand of the use of Responsive Web Design. It would also be desirable to have:Knowledge of Jackson, JAX-RS, mocking frameworks such as Mockito, and messaging platforms such as ActiveMQ or Kafka. Experience of MongoDB or other document databases. Experience of building and scaling high-traffic websites. Experience of handling large data sets and scaling their handling and storage.

    Apply Now
  • Incident Response Engineer

    Our E-Commerce client is seeking a Cyber Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) Engineer. You will have the opportunity to build innovative solutions to identify and mitigate information-security threats and work collaboratively to creatively solve complex security problems in a heterogeneous environment.   Your skills, vision, tenacity, and passion will help defend and respond daily to keep ecritical information assets away from threats and hackers. This specific position requires the ability to work Swing and/or Graveyard shifts with rotations into Day shift. Core Job Functions include: Investigating computer and information security incidents to determine extent of compromise to information and automated information systems Responding to escalated events from security tooling to develop/execute security controls, Defense/countermeasures to prevent internal or external attacks or attempts to infiltrate company email, data, e-commerce and web-based systems. Researching attempted or successful efforts to compromise systems security and designs countermeasures. Education - maintaining proficiency in tools, techniques, countermeasures, and trends in computer network vulnerabilities, data hiding and network security and encryption. Communications – Provides information and updates to shift leads & leadership, creates pass-downs for next shift, work closely with supporting teams, provide feedback for new security policy and standards, engage with other teams and adjacencies through email and conference calls. Digital Forensics – As it relates to information systems, performs HR investigations and legal holds in a forensically sound manner. Consults with HR and legal subject matter experts to adhere to local country law Coverage – Must be willing to perform shift work, weekends, and holidays as well as participate in a rotating shift consisting of four (4) 10 hour shifts with four days on, three (3) days off and possible rotations across Day, Swing, and Graveyard shifts as needed. You'll need: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, or a related field. Experience in incident detection and response, malware analysis, or digital forensics. At least one (1) of the following certifications: SANS GIAC: GCED, GCIA, GPEN, GWAPT, GSNA, GPPA, GAWN, GWEB, GNFA, GREM, GXPN, GMON, GCIH ISC2: CCFP, CCSP, CISSP Cisco: CCNA, CCNP CERT: CSIH EC Council: CEH, ENSA, CNDA, ECSS, ECSP, ECES, CHFI, LPT, ECSA, or ECIH Offensive Security: OSCP, OSCE, OSWP and OSEE Digital Forensics: EnCE, CB, MiCFE, ACE, GCFA, GCFE As well as experience with: Incident Response – Getting people to do the right thing in the middle of an investigation. Offensive Techniques – Penetration testing, IOCs, and exploits at all layers of the stack. Logs - you should be comfortable with a SEIM to be able to gather and analyze logs to recreate incidents and hunt for threats. System Forensics – Basic understanding of image acquisition techniques, memory forensics, and the like. Networking Fundamentals - TCP/IP Protocols (HTTP, DNS, FTP, DHCP, ARP, etc.), and Wireshark/TCPDump. Scripting – Should be familiar with scripting in at least one of the following: python, perl or a similar language. Risk Analysis – Taking a vulnerability in a particular environment and understanding the practical associated risk.

    Apply Now
  • Product & Delivery
    Senior Business Analyst

    We're looking for a Senior Business Analyst with business and technical change experience to join a Public Sector organisation.  Skills and experience:  Experience of managing and mentoring a team of Business Analysts with mix of experience levels Design experience in large complex projects/programmes Strong Communication Skills  Standard MS Office Desirable:  Project Management qualifications Experience of digital transformation within a public sector environment Experience of implementing a records management system MS Project online

    Apply Now
  • SC Cleared DevOps Engineer

    A forward-thinking UK Government organization is looking to expand our team with an SC Cleared DevOps Engineer. This is an exciting opportunity for a skilled professional to contribute to cutting-edge projects and work in a collaborative and innovative environment. Key Responsibilities: Proficiently utilizing a wide range of technologies, including but not limited to Active Directory, Amazon Event Bridge, Amazon MQ, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, DynamoDB, EC2 Instances, Elastic Container Service, Elastic Load Balancers, GitLab (Basic Code Repositories), IAM, Linux Operating System, RDS, Simple Notification Service, Simple Queue Service, VS Code, Windows Operating System. Demonstrating advanced use and management of tools such as Amazon Inspector, Ansible, CodeBuild, CodeCommit, CodePipeline, Config, FSx (FileShare for Windows), GitLab (Build Pipelines), GuardDuty, Key Management Services, Lambda, Packer, Route 53, Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager, Terraform, VPC, WorkSpaces. Applying advanced scripting skills in Shell and PowerShell. Implementing basic CI/CD Pipelines and Infrastructure as Code. Managing multi-account AWS platforms. Providing intermediate-level technical support. Key Skills: Active Directory, Amazon Event Bridge, Amazon MQ, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, DynamoDB, EC2 Instances, Elastic Container Service, Elastic Load Balancers, GitLab (Basic Code Repositories), IAM, Linux Operating System, RDS, Simple Notification Service, Simple Queue Service, VS Code, Windows Operating System. Amazon Inspector, Ansible, CodeBuild, CodeCommit, CodePipeline, Config, FSx (FileShare for Windows), GitLab (Build Pipelines), GuardDuty, Key Management Services, Lambda, Packer, Route 53, Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager, Terraform, VPC, WorkSpaces. Advanced scripting in Shell and PowerShell. Implementation of basic CI/CD Pipelines and Infrastructure as Code. Managing multi-account AWS platforms. Providing intermediate-level technical support. Qualifications and Experience: SC Clearance is mandatory. Proven experience as a DevOps Engineer with a strong background in the specified technologies. Excellent problem-solving and troubleshooting skills. Strong communication and collaboration skills.

    Apply Now
  • Data
    ETL Data Engineers

    We are looking for ETL Data Engineers with commercial experience with a Data Engineering skill set. Must have either Pentaho or Talend– Data Integration Tool hands on experience. Mandatory to have STRONG SQL knowledge (on any database like Oracle, SQL Server, Vertica, Azure SQL Datawarehouse , Hive or others.  Exposure to data warehouse is an added advantage.  Good problem-solving, analytical skills on Data engineering space is mandatory  

    Apply Now
Cybersecurity
cybersecurity

​We’re living in an increasingly connected world, with a growing number of devices and digital services collecting, storing and processing more data than ever before.Emerging technologies continue to add value to our lives in work, social and consumer settings, but how does this impact cybersecurity risk?​Our Digital FootprintOur personal data is collected in countless ways. Manufacturers collect technical data when we have issues with an app or our computer, we fill out online forms to access public WiFi when we travel, retailers collect our behavioural and demographic data to inform advertising efforts – the list goes on.According to anti-virus provider Kaspersky, more than 940,000 of its users were attacked by malware designed to harvest a variety of data on their computers in the first half of 2019. In a world where most transactions are now done online, we often assume organisations will have appropriate security measures in place, but even the most sophisticated cybersecurity technology isn’t foolproof. A study from Juniper Research predicts annual online payment fraud losses from ecommerce, airline tickets, money transfer and banking services will reach $48 billion by 2023.​Emerging Technology and Increased ConnectivityAs businesses continue to disrupt traditional industries with emerging technologies, there is immense opportunity to create value but equally a greater need for security. Although IoT offers endless possibilities – from smart homes to entire smart cities, data sharing and connectivity between devices leave businesses significantly more vulnerable to a breach.The sheer amount of data being collected, not to mention how and where it is collected, processed and stored, makes it extremely difficult to safeguard. When a breach occurs in one data point, the entire ecosystem is at risk of being compromised. In the absence of official IoT guidance, technology partners are left to develop their own cyber risk policies as data governance is not evolving at the same pace.​Data Protection LegislationJust over half of all countries globally have some form of privacy and data legislation in place, and nearly one in three companies fall under the EU GDPR jurisdiction. GDPR applies to any organisation processing data of EU citizens, requiring the secure storing and processing of all sensitive data using appropriate operational and technical measures. It holds businesses accountable for managing security risk, reporting incidents and minimizing the impact when they do occur.Data protection should be the concern of more than just the IT department, and organisations should demonstrate shared accountability across key business functions. In its latest annual Cyber Security Breaches Survey the Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) reported that cyber security is a high priority for 78% of businesses, up from 74% last year.Among the organisations that identified breaches or attacks (32%), the most common were due to phishing emails, impersonation and viruses or other malware. 30% of businesses made changes to cyber security in regard to policy, training, system configurations and contingency plans because of GDPR, but there’s still a long way to go.​If you're looking for a new job in data, analysis, marketing, tech or digital, head over to our jobs page for our featured jobs or to submit your CV!

Cloud
evolution of cloud computing

At a time when Digital Transformation is on everyone’s lips and the sheer volume of tech coverage around some of the usual suspects such as AI, VR and Big Data is huge – Cloud Transformation is still current and one of the most prioritised initiatives for both big and not so big businesses across EMEA going into H2.It is no longer a question of whether or not companies will undergo a cloud transformation – but what services should be shifted into the Cloud exactly, how quickly can this happen, how much will it cost or indeed save the business and what are the priorities; from either a bottom up or a top down strategic approach. Cloud computing has an ability to kick-start other activities, for both external customers and internally as an organisation.​Short History of Cloud ComputingCloud Computing has been around for years and started back in the 60’s when an intergalactic computer network was first conceptualised by JCR Licklider. Since then, Cloud Computing has evolved somewhat. By the late 90’s, Web 2.0 came around, thanks largely to the availability of much improved bandwidths for the masses.SFDC arrived in 1999, leading the charge of delivering enterprise applications through a relatively basic website, laying the foundations for other software houses to begin delivering applications over the internet too. Google and others began offering browser-based enterprise applications including Google Apps (G Suite) as Web 2.0 really took off and another SaaS milestone passed. Microsoft contended with Office 365. Oracle, SAP and Microsoft encouraged their customers to upgrade to new cloud-based products over the next few years with great success. Monthly subscription services also appealed to IT buyers to avoid the CapEx peeks associated with hardware and software upgrades.Amazon Web Services (AWS) emerged in 2002, before launching Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) in 2006. Today, they dominate the global IaaS market and according to Gartner in 2017, many enterprises now spend more than $5m of their IT budgets on Amazon’s cloud services a year.The next decade of Cloud Computing will be just as eventful. Security in the Cloud is perhaps now seen as a strength rather than a perceived weakness early on. Over the course of the past decade, cloud computing has evolved from being something service providers told companies they should be adopting to becoming the technological lifeblood that runs through most modern enterprises.​Legacy providers vs. cloud native suppliersLegacy software providers, such as Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, have all made a concerted effort over the past decade to encourage users of their on-premise software offerings to upgrade to their cloud equivalents that they usually subscribe to on a pay-as-you-go basis. This, in turn, has seen IT departments gradually shift away from treating their software and hardware purchases as “big bang” capital expenditures that happen once every so often (or as the upgrade cycle dictates).As enterprises have become increasingly accustomed to the pay-as-you-go cloud billing model, treating IT purchases as more of a day-to-day expense has become the norm, and – where SaaS is concerned – there is still a lot of room for market growth. Particularly, there are still plenty of enterprises yet to join the cloud software bandwagon, points out John Dinsdale, chief analyst at IT market watcher Synergy Research Group.“Traditional enterprise software vendors like Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and IBM still have a huge base of on-premise software customers and they are all now pushing to aggressively convert those customers to a SaaS-based consumption model,” he says.“At the same time, born-in-the-cloud software vendors like Workday, Zendesk and ServiceNow continue to light a fire under the market and help to propel enterprise spending on SaaS.”​IaaS and the public cloudAnother important milestone in the development of the cloud market as we know it today was the emergence of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002. The company provided a suite of cloud-based infrastructure services including storage, computation and even human intelligence through the Amazon Mechanical Turk.Then, in 2006, Amazon launched its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) as a commercial web service that allows small companies and individuals to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications. Today, the firm is the undisputed leader of the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market, the company continues to add thousands of new services and features to its cloud services portfolio each year, and is a bone fide multibillion dollar enterprise.According to figures published by IT analyst house Gartner in 2017, many enterprises now spend more than $5m of their IT budgets on Amazon’s cloud services a year. “With an accelerating pace of innovation on top of an already rich portfolio of services, and an expanding impact across a range of IT markets, [AWS] is the provider most commonly chosen for strategic adoption,” stated Gartner in its 2017 IaaS Magic Quadrant report, which ranks the runners and riders of the cloud infrastructure sector. While not the ideal for every need, it has become the ‘safe choice’ in this market, appealing to customers that desire the broadest range of capabilities and long-term market leadership.”​Cloud service providers: The runners and ridersAmazon, in particular, initially started out pitching its wares to startups, hailing the public cloud as way to get their businesses up and running without having to shell out tens of thousands of pounds to acquire on-premise servers, storage and networking equipment.Unburdened by the capacity, cost and maintenance constraints that come from having to rely on traditional, legacy, on-premise hardware, this eased the path from startup to scale up for many of these early cloud-adopting companies. So much so, “cloud-native” organisations (as they came to be known) started to emerge that were able to out-innovate their longer-established (and oftentimes better-funded) peers because the business agility cloud afforded them.The Google Cloud Platform, which is the coverall term used for its IaaS offerings, has also followed a similar path, by starting out focusing on winning over startups, before ramping up the enterprise-readiness of its services to boost their appeal to a wider range of users. Keen to prevent their hold on whatever market they’re operating in from weakening, enterprises soon followed the lead of their nimbler, cloud-native contemporaries and began looking for ways to reduce their reliance on on-premise technologies too. And it is here that Microsoft, with its Azure public cloud proposition and its sizeable enterprise install base, has found itself with something of an advantage over its startup-focused competitors.While Amazon and Google have both sought to increase the enterprise-readiness of their offerings, as they have set their sights on conquering the world of corporate IT, Microsoft has years of experience in knowing what CIOs look for in a prospective IT provider. Originally pitched as Microsoft’s take on platform as a service (PaaS) at launch in 2012, the remit of Azure was extended to include IaaS in spring 2013 with the general release of Azure Virtual Machines around that time.On the back of long-term users of the Redmond giant’s on-premise technologies upgrading and migrating workloads to Azure, Microsoft is now regularly cited by the analyst community as being the second biggest IaaS provider (after AWS) in the world.“Microsoft is frequently chosen as a strategic cloud provider by customers that are committed to Microsoft technologies or that like Microsoft’s overall cloud strategy, which spans IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and on-premises solutions,” said Gartner, in its 2017 IaaS Magic Quadrant report. Microsoft is leveraging its tremendous sales reach and ability to bundle Azure with other Microsoft products and services to drive adoption. It is steadily growing the size of Azure customers; many are beginning to spend more than $500,000 a year, and a few exceed $5m in annual spending.​The evolution of cloudCloud has also prompted a number of other service providers to tweak their product offerings and wider business strategies to account for the change in enterprise IT buying behaviour this industry mega-trend has brought about. HPE, Dell and VMware, for example, initially set out to go head-to-head with Amazon, Google and Microsoft before calling time on their public cloud initiatives at various points over the past five or so years, citing competitive pressures.While some have opted out of the game altogether, VMware and Rackspace have taken a slightly different route, with both positioning themselves as organisations that can help enterprises manage the applications and workloads running in their competitors’ public clouds.In the case of Rackspace, it ended up ceding its initial early lead in the IaaS market to AWS, and since 2015 (or thereabouts) has moved to help enterprises manage their Amazon, Microsoft and Google cloud deployments. This pivot has paid off for the firm, with its AWS managed service offering regularly flagged by the firm as being one of the fastest-growing parts of its overall business.VMware, meanwhile, sold off its public cloud business to French IaaS challenger, OVH, in April 2017, having spent a couple of years before that repositioning itself as a hybrid cloud provider that can help enterprises manage and applications in the AWS and Microsoft clouds.​Where next for Cloud Computing?In light of all this, it is fair to say the next 10 years of cloud are likely to be just as eventful, as enterprise appetites for the technology (and their expectations about how it will benefit their organisations) continues to grow, adds Synergy Research’s Dinsdale.“Major barriers to cloud adoption are now almost a thing of the past, with previously perceived weaknesses such as security now often seen as strengths,” he says. “Cloud technologies are now generating massive revenues for cloud service providers and technology vendors and we forecast that current market growth rates will decline only slowly over the next five years.”​If you're looking for a new job, check out our featured jobs and send us your CV here!Hiring for your team? 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