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.
Experience
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 best-in-class tools and docs to 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).
- Created best-in-class products including 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.
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, even being flown out to try for Y Combinator with our in-house product.
Other Experience
- Product Engineer - NHS, 2025-2026
- Software Engineer (FE) - Pollen, Workshare, 2018 - 2021
- Engineering Intern - Akkroo, 2015
- UX Designer - Better Brief, 2012
- Project Manager - Godfreys.co, 2010-2022
Education
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
Awards
UK Technical Communication award, ISTC, 2024
Blueprint Enterprise Challenge, Durham University, 2016
Genesis Pitching Competition, 2016
Enterprise Kickstart Winner, Durham University Enterprise Society, 2015
About me
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 — and 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 (and occasionally speak at) developer, product, and tech writer meet-ups (BCS, React London, GitHub Universe, Next Conf, WTD London).
Off-screen: board games, quizzes, cryptic crosswords, and cats. I run and climb. I sing and play several instruments.