During my engagement with Activus Ltd from 2016 to 2019, I was brought in as a contract developer to support a substantial transformation of their core insurance platform. The business was operating on an ageing VB6 Windows Forms application that had grown increasingly difficult to maintain and extend. My role quickly evolved from full-stack developer to de facto technical lead, helping shape both the migration strategy and the delivery approach that would underpin the company’s move to modern web technologies.

Rather than opt for a full rewrite, which would have posed too much risk and disruption, the team architected a transitional approach using ASP.NET MVC and Razor, enabling us to gradually replace functionality screen by screen. This provided the company with an immediate path forward, allowing for phased delivery while reducing the overall risk to business continuity. To support this, I introduced a consistent UI framework using Bootstrap and developed a lightweight control layer in jQuery, replicating many of the rich interactions expected from the desktop experience, such as drag-and-drop capabilities.

A major part of my impact stemmed from upskilling the existing development team. Many of the developers had deep experience in Windows Forms but limited exposure to web development. I took the initiative to provide mentoring and ad hoc training on web architecture principles, the MVC design pattern, RESTful API design, and the importance of avoiding shared state in stateless applications. This knowledge transfer not only helped the team deliver faster but also ensured they could support and extend the platform after my departure.

Throughout the project, I worked across the full stack—from backend data models and SQL queries to API design and responsive front-end implementation. I also collaborated closely with a UX consultant to align the modernised UI with user expectations, ensuring that usability wasn’t lost in the transition from desktop to web. Though I was engaged as a contractor without a formal leadership designation, I naturally assumed a guiding role within the team. My architectural recommendations and technical direction were consistently adopted, and I became the go-to resource for architectural clarity, implementation strategy, and issue resolution.

This project laid much of the groundwork for the architectural and leadership style I’ve continued to develop in later roles. It taught me the importance of balancing delivery with education, and how to lead through trust and influence rather than authority. By the end of the engagement, Activus had a scalable, maintainable platform in place, a development team capable of supporting it, and a clear roadmap for moving the remaining legacy components into modern equivalents.