From MVPs to APIs and complex systems, our London-based development team can help you with your technology needs.

About Us | Our Team | Silicon Rhino

We are a London-based development team who specialise in developing minimum viable products and complex systems. We utilise our knowledge of the startup ecosystem to aid customers with the challenges that come with such an endeavour, and spend the time ensuring a high level of quality on every project. All of our work is performed by us, and our team are all based in the UK.

It all started with our love of code. After meeting at a previous job, Roger and Phil started Silicon Rhino in 2015, with Mark joining shortly after. We’ve been entrepreneurs, CTO’s and product leaders. We have launched Blogging platforms, worked with some of the biggest news websites in the UK, and developed many successful business strategies.

We are passionate about startups and code and want to give back to the community. We have mentored hundreds of teams in different accelerators across the UK and Europe, from Google Launchpad to FFWD.

We tried to join a Typescript meetup in London only to realise there was none. The only possible way forward was to start it ourselves and we ran it for 2 years before the pandemic.

Save the Rhino International works to conserve all five rhino species, by supporting rhinoceros conservation programmes across Africa and Asia.

WWF'smission is to stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.

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Originally from Barcelona, Roger moved to London in 2010 equipped with a degree in Computer Science from the UAB. He quickly found his passion in entrepreneurism. With a vision to re-invent the blogging experience Roger lived between San Francisco and London building and designing his venture, Glipho.

His experience as a founder sparked his passion for helping others balancing business and product development.

Roger has been a Nintendo fan since he discovered Mario at 5 years old. Forget about beer, it's all about Red Wine (Rioja) and cooking food.

Phil grew up with technology and had an interest from an early age. This led him to a degree in Computing, which he graduated from with first class honours. 

While the others were launching ventures, Phil focused on architecting and developing a highly available automated video production system. Not for the faint of heart. He then worked on his project management qualities by leading the development of a content marketing focused CMS. 

Phil is all about Beers (IPA all the way), gaming, and he is the official silicon rhino BBQ host (and we love him for that).

From the Great Southern Land, Mark has been involved with the London start-up scene since 2012 helping entrepreneurs as a consultant through KPMG's start-up team. Finally succumbing to getting his hands dirty, Mark brings his expertise in all things start-up at Silicon Rhino.

Mark loves helping teams trying to find the reason why they exist and will happily chat about different ways to solve the problems they face. He is a mentor on a number of start-up programmes.

Mark has a variety of interests. But has some preferences... Rugby or cricket > football; Fiction > non-fiction; Beer > cocktails (can't be bothered waiting for them to be made); Batman > other superheroes; Rock > pop; Cheese > cake. Just don't spoil the F1 result (qualifying or the race) before he's been able to catch the highlights.

South African born and raised, Jamie moved to London to pursue a degree in Computer Science.   

Her passion for technology started in high school when she took it is as one of her selected subjects. She decided in that moment that this would be the right path for her. The most appealing part of this profession are the challenges that it presents and therefore the opportunity to keep improving her skillset.   

Since then her love for technology has only grown and she enjoys being a part of a team that is so passionate about what they do.   

Although she enjoys going out with the team and having a half pint, her drink of choice is actually a good cup of coffee.

A seasoned web developer, Andrew has joined the team with a focus on the Front End to help build the web apps of tomorrow. A keen DIYer is always happiest when building or making something, whether it be window blinds to furniture, redecorating to fixing old cars.

Always passionate to discover and explore new ideas to leverage his experience and knowledge in the internet and web apps. Never afraid of a learning curve or picking up something new, and is excited about the new challenges in the world of Start Ups!

Simon comes from the golden age of computing, when servers were the size of a large shed, the modem (ha what’s that!) made a funny buzzing noise when you wanted to connect to the internet and the install wizard hadn’t been invented yet!  

He has always been a technology innovator, pushing forward in the companies he’s worked for with new techniques and practices. He strives to be at the cutting edge of technology, thriving on the fast pace of the IT industry.  

In his spare time Simon enjoys a wide variety of books from Fantasy, Science Fiction and Jane Austen. he loves it when they crossover, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for example. He is an avid fan of all manner of computer games, and board games and is partial to a good red wine; and fine whisky, most definitely not a beer fan or of Solo! But that's another story!

Ray came to London in 2008 to study Electrical and Electronics engineering at City university. He's been working as a Front-end developer in several companies for over 7 years and loving every aspect of this city. He has a keen eye for UX and coding best practices.

He loves gaming (strategy games are his favourites), is into electronics, builds his own guitar effect pedals, and loves mountain biking and board games.

Jeff moved from Prague (Czech Republic) to the UK in 2018 - He has been a technology lover since a very young age. Already at the age of 9 he started to do some small technical inventions and fixing electronic devices. Later on he jumped into the IT industry, from building and configuring computers and networks to software development, because he said to himself : "I want to create/build software!".

Since then, Jeff has been working as a fullstack Software Engineer in several companies, including startups, within the last 10 years.

Jeff loves to learn new technologies and share knowledge with others, and he even taught his 13 years old son who is now an applications developer (from age of 12). He likes travelling and driving powerful cars, and his favourite sports program is WWE (wrestling).

Born and raised in London-ish, Alan's interest in technology started with Lego Mindstorms and then with writing computer game 'mods' for Bethesda's Oblivion (before Skyrim was cool). A physics degree further cemented his interest in using code to model and solve interesting problems.

Like all software engineers he has a number of concurrent side projects... some of them even get finished, like his smart lights system (don't ask because he will tell you about it).

Those who know him best often see him with a cocktail shaker making whisky sours or espresso martinis.

James is a React developer with a front-end focus and a background in language technology. He was a student in London; after spells of work in Hong Kong and Paris, he is happy to be back. 

Languages take many forms. James isn't proficient in all his languages (for instance, he is a pianist but an indifferent sight-reader), but he loves playing with them, deciphering how they work and exploring their expressive capacity. After variously studying law, linguistics, and language processing, he has worked on Google's linguistic team, on a project adapting a virtual assistant into French, and for a company producing health and education support apps. 

He also previously worked as a corporate copywriter and editor and enjoys throwing words at a page. They rhyme, some of the time.

It all started with
a love of code

Our story

Meet the team

Roger Planes

Co-founder & CEO

Phil Hardy

Co-founder & CTO

Mark Hartley

COO

Jamie Olivier

Full Stack Software Engineer

Andrew Joubert

Full Stack Software Engineer

Simon Filtness

Full Stack Software Engineer

Ramon Polidura

Full Stack Software Engineer

Jeff Brou

Full Stack Software Engineer

Alan Bacon

Full Stack Software Engineer

James Bartholomew

Full Stack Software Engineer

Join us
we're hiring!

In the community

Supporting charities

It all started witha love of code

Our story

Meet the team

Roger Planes

Co-founder & CEO

Phil Hardy

Co-founder & CTO

Mark Hartley

COO

Jamie Olivier

Full Stack Software Engineer

Andrew Joubert

Full Stack Software Engineer

Simon Filtness

Full Stack Software Engineer

Ramon Polidura

Full Stack Software Engineer

Jeff Brou

Full Stack Software Engineer

Alan Bacon

Full Stack Software Engineer

James Bartholomew

Full Stack Software Engineer

Join uswe're hiring!

In the community

Supporting charities

It all started with
a love of code

Join us
we're hiring!