Max Clayton Clowes

contact@mcclowes.com · mcclowes.com · LinkedIn

Maker of products, teams, and ideas. I bring over a decade of experience shaping software and fintech products, from founding startups to directing product at scale. I build with equal care for strategy, usability, and nurturing talent and creativity.

References available upon request. You can see what people say about me here.

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Experience

Product Lead - Weavr

August 2025 - Ongoing

Weavr provides embedded finance infrastructure, letting any business plug regulated accounts, cards, and payments into their own products. Leading developer experience, I:

• Own the developer-experience roadmap across mobile and web SDKs, building the tools and docs that accelerate embedded finance integrations.
• Rebuilt Weavr's developer documentation from the ground up, restructuring the API reference and driving adoption through internal enablement and external promotion.
• Steered architecture and API design decisions including an OAuth 2.1 authentication overhaul, gateway refactor, and API reference restructure.
• Owned Apple Pay certification, establishing a repeatable wallet-provisioning process for embedder partners.
• Introduced Shape Up (fixed cycles + betting table), Architecture Decision Records, and a prioritisation framework, improving delivery predictability and reducing reactive firefighting.

Product Director - Codat

November 2021 - August 2025

Codat helps banks and fintechs build insights and automations with accounting, banking, and commerce data. Leading the service and platform teams, I:

• Defined and delivered product vision + strategy supporting clients for spend analysis and underwriting use-cases (inc. J.P. Morgan and other major banks).
• Delivered Codat's Link (↑2x conversion, driving data sharing for 100,000 SMBs), developer portal (↑40% MAUs), and award-winning docs (↑30% faster go-lives).
• Replatformed Codat, improving efficiency, supporting enterprise-grade client needs, and improving delivery pace (e.g. deploying new webhooks ↑5x faster).
• Built cross-functional teams and nurtured high-performing PMs, engineers, designers, and technical writers. Celebrated as a top PM and manager, promoted swiftly.
• Pioneered product excellence at Codat, including data-driven methods (supported by Amplitude).
• Led innovative projects inc. Codat's nascent AI & LLM work, new commercial models, and more.

Product Manager - Swoop

March 2021 - November 2021

Swoop is the virtual CFO helping businesses secure funding and increase efficiency. Built products that solve longstanding SMB challenges:

• Rolled out SMB self-served access to underwriting of up to £1m, improving cost to serve and reducing time-to-funds to within 24 hours (↓3 days avg. vs. ~14 days avg. previously) via loan aggregation service.
• Built credit scoring and reporting product backed by CRIF, increasing user retention (↑10%), data-sharing (↑15%), and reducing low-quality loan applications.
• Wearing a delivery and manager hat, took a team which had never released in a year to shipping several major projects in quick succession.

Software Engineer (Front End) - Pollen

December 2019 - March 2021

Pollen ran a members' marketplace for group travel and live events. As a front-end engineer (React, TypeScript, Next.js, GraphQL, Apollo), I:

• Built the product bookings and payment platform, plus an internal event and inventory management app.
• Set the team's technical and delivery practices, and helped hire the engineers who joined it.

Software Engineer (Front End) - Workshare

August 2018 - November 2019

Workshare (later acquired by Litera) built document collaboration and comparison software for legal and professional-services firms. As a front-end engineer (React, Redux), I:

• Built Transact, a legal project-management and document-signing web app, working closely with product to shape the roadmap under tight resource constraints.
• Designed clean, parsable interfaces for dense legal workflows, and trained junior engineers on the team.

Co-founder & Product Manager - Codogo

April 2016 - August 2018

Co-founded Codogo, delivering client products through our agency business, whilst developing in-house collaborative document tool Codogo Write. I personally:

• Owned project lifecycles from ideation to delivery of complex web and native apps for 30+ clients ranging from the NHS to Arsenal FC.
• Pitched, winning awards, clients, and investors, and was flown out to interview for Y Combinator on the strength of Codogo Write's alpha.

Other Experience

• Product Engineer - NHS, 2025-2026
• Engineering Intern - Akkroo, 2015
• UX Designer - Better Brief, 2012
• Project Manager - Godfreys.co, 2010-2022

Education

BSc (Hons) Computer Science, 2:1 - Durham University

2012 - 2016
British Computing Society accredited. Awarded Rising Star of Research.
Dissertation: The use of evolutionary AI in the balancing of competitive multiplayer games

BA Product + Interaction Design - Ravensbourne College of Design, Year 1

2011 - 2012

Foundation Diploma in Art + Design - London College of Communication

2010 - 2011

High School - City of London School

2003 - 2010
A levels: Physics, Economics, Music

Awards

• UK Technical Communication award, ISTC, 2024

• Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Award, 2017

• Rising Stars of Research Symposium Member, Durham University, 2016

• Blueprint Enterprise Challenge, Durham University, 2016

• Genesis Pitching Competition, 2016

• Enterprise Kickstart Winner, Durham University Enterprise Society, 2015

• Best Website Award, Meat Management Magazine, 2012

About me

I'm a relentless maker. There's always a side project on the go, and I write most of them up on my blog. Lately that's meant a trio of programming languages: OMG, a Markdown-native DSL that compiles to OpenAPI; Vague, a declarative language for generating realistic data; and Lea, a pipe-oriented functional language with a TypeScript interpreter. Plus Broadsheet, a read-it-later app rebuilding the shuttered Pocket; Clipped, a native macOS clipboard manager; and a suite of open-source Docusaurus plugins (glossary, banner, marginalia, cookie-consent, and more).

I build by feel: start with instinct, test, rework, ship. I care as much about how a tool feels to use as what it does. I write about product and AI, and I turn up to developer, product, and tech writer meet-ups (BCS, React London, GitHub Universe, Next Conf, WTD London). I've spoken twice at Write the Docs London and given a lightning talk at React London.

Off-screen: board games, quizzes, cryptic crosswords, and cats. I run and climb. I sing and play several instruments.