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Adam Collins

At 12 years old I wanted...

a career in something more maths related, e.g. Accountant… I think it was the experience through A level and then uni maths that taught me that maths is everywhere and you can do anything if you apply sound logic/reason/pattern matching/axioms.

Job Title: Development Lead
Company: Luminance Technologies Ltd
Industry: Legal Tech
Subject area: Technology - computing/machine learning

A-Levels: Maths, Further Maths, Physics and AS in Additional Further Maths, Chemistry, and Music
Degree: MSci Mathematics, Imperial College London

I am a Software Development Lead in a legal-tech AI company applying NLP to legal documents. I completed an MSci in Mathematics specialising in applied maths and physics, specifically Quantum/Statistical Field Theory and generally look for excuses to apply coding to problems. I am an avid audiophile and instrumentalist and spend most of my time listening/existing in music.

What is a typically work day like for you?

My role is to lead a team of developers designing the interface and usage of NLP models to enable users to easily benefit from our ML while seamlessly improving the performance of the models themselves. Typically, I spend a large amount of my day discussing everything from computing architecture, model types and components to website design but make sure to find time to develop in mostly JavaScript or SQL.

What is something you wish you'd known before you started your career?

Honestly, I didn’t know anything about web development before I started, and I would not like to change that. Learning has always been a big part of my life.

Work Environment

Hybrid working from home policy with an open plan office that is especially open to collaboration

Work style

Mixed, independently but mostly as part of a team. Hours: 9:30-6 M-F

Degree needed

Any degree is required, it doesn’t have to be STEM but if not STEM then other computing experience required.

Previous work experience

Job Title	Company	Industry/Sector
Data Science Intern	Proportunity	FinTech (Financial Technology)
Outreach Ambassador	Imperial College London	Higher Education

Who is your STEM hero?

Paul Dirac, English theoretical physicist. Quantum Mechanics is such a beautiful field and Dirac’s contribution while being the person he was is impressive. This genuinely inspires my “do what you want as long as it’s cool” mentality.

Most significant discovery/invention?

The Internet. Not only is it literally magic but it has also massively increased the speed of human progression in almost, if not all, aspects of human life.

My hobbies

Music. In every way. Sound engineering/recording/playing drums/percussion in an amazing brass band (Brass United SC on Instagram/Facebook) and trying to get as many minutes for Spotify wrapped as possible.