Solutions engineer · technical sales
I’m a solutions engineer, though most of the teams I work with end up treating me as their trusted technical advisor on accessibility, which beats being “the person selling to us”. The interesting part is the bridge: making the web genuinely work for everyone, without pretending the business case doesn’t matter. And I don’t just demo, I build, so when a deal gets technical and someone asks how it actually holds up, I can show them rather than talk at them.
Most of this was built for clients, or lives behind a login, so I’ve kept the details vague on purpose. The work is real. The names just aren’t mine to give out. The ones marked Playable are mine, though, built for fun, and you can try them right here.
Interactive models that put hard numbers on a fuzzy question: what’s the business case for accessibility, and how mature is an organisation really? I run these live in technical evaluations to turn sceptical buyers into internal champions.
A gamified, multi-role ramp app: learning paths, spaced-repetition drills, role-specific quizzes, manager dashboards, streaks. Built to turn a messy onboarding process into something a whole team actually finishes.
Record a user journey once, then automatically catch accessibility regressions on every change, for web and mobile. Shareable reports, CI-friendly, so fixes stay fixed instead of quietly breaking again.
A library of reusable AI “skills” that automate real work: research, reporting, brand-consistent content, competitive analysis. Designed to be shared across a team, not locked in one person’s head.
Guitar Hero, but for fingerspelling. Your webcam becomes the controller: real-time hand tracking reads the sign you’re making. Two BSL games you can actually play here, a rhythm trainer and an endless runner, built mostly for the joy of it. (You’ll need a webcam.)
Sudoku you can play with numbers, letters or symbols, fully keyboard-driven and screen-reader friendly, with quick reads that announce what’s already in a row, column or square. Accessibility built in from the first line, not bolted on after.
Turning messy audit and usage data into clear, branded, interactive reports: the kind a non-specialist can open, understand, and act on without a translator in the room.
I don’t just build software, I build communities. I led an OpenIDEO chapter, 300+ designers using human-centred design to tackle social-impact problems, and served as President of Abilityforce, championing disability inclusion across a global workforce.
The stuff I’m actually allowed to show: talks, workshops, shoots, and the odd good cause.
A mix of what fills my week now and what I’ve spent years getting good at.
Mechanical engineer, turned consultant, turned solutions engineer. The through-line: design thinking, and making complex things click for people.
Principal Solutions Engineer, EMEA
Technical lead on some of the biggest, most complex accessibility deals in the region, running discovery, demos, POCs and evaluations for banks, retailers and travel brands. I help enterprises shift accessibility left across web and mobile and automate their testing at scale. And off the side of my desk, I build the things that make the team quicker, ROI models, live demo environments, regression harnesses, a library of AI assistants, and help the rest of the EMEA SEs level up.
Principal Solution Engineer · President, Abilityforce UK
Led technical sales for UK aerospace & defence and championed design thinking. Ran the Agentic Innovation Lab and a run of innovation workshops for 60+ customers, all pointed at good causes: sustainable innovation, ethical AI, and technology for disability equality. Helped launch the UK’s first Salesforce managed service, Net Zero as a Service, owning the solutioning and market positioning. Keynote speaker at Salesforce World Tour and the Farnborough Airshow, and President of Abilityforce UK, its disability-equality community.
Managing Consultant · Senior Consultant · European Large-Deals Team
Championed design thinking (and qualified as a certified coach) with IBM’s biggest clients, led service-design engagements across energy, transport and public sector, and helped win over $500m of new business. On the side, I ran a 300-strong community of design professionals.
MEng, Mechanical Engineering · University of Sheffield
Plus the formative stuff: a nuclear-waste engineering challenge, research into tennis-court physics, and the customer-facing years every good SE quietly runs on.
Certified: IAAP CPACC (accessibility) · IBM Design Thinking Practitioner · CIMA management accounting · and a bit of French & Swedish
About
I’m a principal solutions engineer, covering EMEA. Day to day I’m the technical half of enterprise deals: demos, proofs of concept, and being the person who has to make the complicated bits make sense. I got here in a fairly roundabout way.
I studied mechanical engineering, mostly because I like taking problems apart to see how they work, then fell into consulting for a decade, IBM and then Salesforce, doing design thinking and pre-sales for some very large clients. Accessibility wasn’t the plan. I first got into it, honestly, to impress a girl: I put on a day about technology and disability equality for more than 140 people, and quietly hoped she’d be watching. She was. We’re married now. It also turned into the best decision I’ve made. The people I met, the things I learned, the solutions I watched people build, I haven’t been able to leave it alone since.
So now it’s accessibility: making the web work for everyone, whether they’re on a keyboard, a screen reader or their voice. And I build, a lot. Which still surprises me, because I was dead against AI before this job (“why would I ask AI when I can do it myself?”). I was wrong. Most of what I demo now, I’ve made myself, usually the night before.
Away from work you’ll usually find me falling out of a plane, under the sea, or off the side of a mountain: skydiving, SCUBA, speedriding, mountain biking and climbing. My mother despairs.
Occasional thoughts on accessibility, solutions engineering, and building with AI.
Contact
If you’ve got an accessibility problem, a deal that needs a technical hand, or you just fancy talking shop, my inbox is open. I do actually reply.
hi@chriskeene.meLands straight in my inbox.
Happy now?
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