Inside IMS: James Sinton

From getting complex technology through some of the toughest security reviews to helping deploy 5,500 edge gateways in under three months, James Sinton has spent more than twenty years at IMS making sure big ideas work in the real world.

Technology Platform Manager is one of those job titles that can cover quite a lot. In James Sinton’s case, quite a lot might be an understatement.

Over the course of a week, James could find himself untangling a complex cyber security requirement or troubleshooting a connectivity problem. At the weekend, swap security reviews and network architecture for Scouts and two daughters playing rugby in opposite directions, and strangely, some of the same skills still apply.

Planning. Risk assessment. Problem-solving. Getting people where they need to be. James has apparently found his niche.

At IMS, that means looking after the technology platform our solution runs on, end to end. His role takes him from solution and hosting architecture to cyber security, cloud infrastructure and the technology partners behind our platform. He also works directly with customer IT, security and architecture teams to make sure IMS technology can operate successfully within some of the world’s largest and most complex estates.

And when a technical problem arrives without an obvious answer? There’s a reasonable chance it will end up on James’ desk.

“If something has an obvious fix, it usually doesn’t reach me. What lands on my desk tends to be genuinely unfamiliar – and I still enjoy that after twenty years.”

James joined IMS in 2005, and over the years his role has grown around both his experience and the changing needs of the business.

“The progression has been less about job titles and more about scope. I started much closer to the equipment, then moved into architecture and eventually the platform as a whole. However, understanding it all is what makes the middle bit possible.”

Along the way, James has been behind some important moments in IMS’s technology journey. He helped take IMS to a cloud-first strategy as early as 2008, helped lead the move of IMS services onto Kubernetes clusters and architected the deployment and orchestration of 5,500 edge gateways in under three months. He has also worked on the architecture behind IMS’s Demand Side Response infrastructure and the security standards and services that protect customer environments.

It’s an unusual breadth of experience, and one of the things we value most about James is that his understanding has never been limited to one part of the technology.

“I’ve stayed close to both the equipment in the store and the platform it reports into. Understanding both is what makes the middle bit possible.”

Making complex technology work in the real world.

For James, being a Technology Platform Manager isn’t purely a technical job. A surprising amount of it comes down to people and translation.

Large organisations have understandably rigorous requirements around anything connecting to their infrastructure. Architecture reviews, cyber security assessments and third-party risk processes all need to be navigated before technology can be deployed.

“A lot of it is translation. I might be explaining our architecture to a security team who have never come across industrial refrigeration, then explaining their network constraints back to our own teams. Neither side is wrong; they just aren’t speaking the same language yet.”

It’s here that James’s twenty years of experience really count. Having worked alongside customer teams for so long, he can often anticipate the questions and requirements that are coming and make sure they’re considered in the architecture from the beginning. For customers, that means a faster route to deployment, fewer surprises and technology designed to fit their standards and infrastructure from the outset. It also means building for scale from day one.

“Rolling out 5,500 edge gateways in under three months only works if the architecture underneath it was designed for that from the start. Getting that right is what turns our technology into a return on the customer’s investment quickly, rather than eventually.”

Twenty years of change, and plenty more to come.

James has had a front-row seat to more than two decades of technology change at IMS.

In that time, the technology behind IMS has evolved enormously, enabling us to operate at greater speed and scale across increasingly complex global estates. And, for James, the latest significant shift is AI.

“By far the biggest change we’re seeing now is the adoption of AI. The technology is transforming capabilities across the business and increasing both the speed of delivery and the quality of solutions.”

But for all the technology James has seen come and go, one of the lessons he places most value on has very little to do with technology itself.

“Understanding why a store is run the way it is has been worth far more to me than any single piece of technical knowledge.”

That understanding of the world around the technology is a big part of what James brings to IMS today. Twenty years of experience means knowing the architecture, of course, but it also means understanding why decisions are made, what matters to the people using the technology and how all those pieces need to work together.

The bit James hopes never changes

With more than twenty years at IMS, James has seen plenty change, but one characteristic of the business stands out as something worth holding onto: a willingness to bring the right people together and simply get things done.

“When something genuinely needs doing, people just get on and do it. Nobody at IMS says ‘that’s not my department’. I can pick up the phone to almost anyone in the business and get help, and they can do the same with me.”

James has also seen that same attitude in the way IMS treats its people.

“Life throws challenges and opportunities at people, and IMS has always supported them. Not because it had to, but because it wanted to. I hope that never changes.”

Outside IMS, James has spent years volunteering with 1st Hackleton Scouts in Northamptonshire, most recently as Group Scout Leader. But it’s his family he’s proudest of, and these days much of his time outside work revolves around his two daughters and their rugby.

With them occasionally playing in opposite directions on the same day, James has also acquired the unofficial (yet pivotal) role of “dads taxi” – a logistical operation involving multiple fixtures, competing destinations and, apparently, no viable route to automation.

And then there’s Santa. James has spent several years donning the red suit for the Scouts… although he provided considerably less detail on the skills and experience required for that particular role.

Whether it’s technology platforms, Scouts or rugby logistics, making complicated things work seems to be something of a recurring theme for James.