Software Technical Architecture
Systems that hold up.
Crystalmark is the independent consultancy of Tim Squires, a software technical architect with nearly three decades of designing, building and untangling systems — most recently as lead architect to large UK government delivery teams. Architecture decided in the open, documented like code, and built to outlast the project that paid for it.
What Crystalmark does
Lead & technical architecture
Leading architecture across large, multi-team programmes — or hands-on with a single delivery team: options papers, decision records, roadmaps, and governance that unblocks rather than gates.
Cloud & serverless
AWS-first design and build — Lambda, API Gateway, CloudFront, DynamoDB — defined as infrastructure-as-code and priced like someone is paying the bill. Because someone is.
APIs & integration
OpenAPI-first design, versioning strategy, and integration architecture across team and organisational boundaries — the seams where systems usually fail.
Documentation as code
Architecture and service documentation that lives in the repository, is reviewed like software, and is still true six months later.
AI-augmented architecture
AI is part of the daily toolchain here — writing and reviewing code and documentation, and parsing large government policies, departmental guardrails and guidelines to verify the architecture actually complies with them. The kind of assurance that used to take weeks of reading now happens continuously — applied with judgement, with every output checked, and with accountability staying firmly human.
The hangar
SmartArse
A serverless AI comeback generator — Lambda, CloudFront and Claude, with native mobile apps on the way.
BoatCam.io
Live cameras and conditions for sailors. Currently hauled out for a refit — returning to the water in due course.
High-altitude & aerial photography
Balloons to the edge of space, UAVs, microlights, and a live weather station feeding it all.
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Code & experiments at github.com/crystalmark