Meet the Team: James McCormick

There's a version of a software engineer who lives entirely in the abstract — systems, syntax, logic. James is not that person. He asks "why does this matter?" before he writes a line of code, has strong opinions about vegetables, and his personal philosophy applies equally to codebases and campsites. We sat down with our Senior Software Engineer to find out what brought him to climate tech, what he's been building, and what he'd be doing if screens weren't involved.

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Tell us a bit about your background.

I grew up in the southwest of England in the beautiful county of Somerset.

From fairly early on I was drawn to Maths, Computer Science, and Business Studies, which I studied at A level and then went on to to do my undergraduate degree at Warwick University in a joint honours between Computing and Business Studies. After graduating, I moved to London, where I’ve been living and working for the past 11 years or so, with a few career breaks along the way to go on some adventures.

What was your previous work experience?

Prior to joining Zevero, I spent 5 years working for a B-Corp certified plant-based food startup who were delivering veggie-based goodness across the UK. That experience has been really invaluable here. A number of our customers are in the FMCG space, and having worked there myself, I have a good understanding of the challenges they face. From managing large, complex product catalogues and e-commerce data fragmentation to stock management and demand forecasting, I can build features with those real-world challenges in mind, not just from a purely technical angle

What inspired you to join Zevero?

I love our planet and the natural world! And I wanted to continue working somewhere that is doing something to help look after it. When I spoke to the team, I discovered a group of people who share that ambition, and combine that with a passion and deep knowledge for the technology that we can use to help drive the change that we need. That combination is exactly what I was looking for.

What is your role at Zevero?

I’m a senior software engineer, primarily in the backend. My job is to build and improve the platform that helps our customers measure their carbon emissions, report on them in line with global ESG standards, and ultimately reduce them. In practice that means writing and reviewing code to help design systems that are robust and scalable.

I work with the product and sustainability teams to translate customer needs into technical solutions: debugging, iterating, and constantly looking for ways to make the platform faster and more reliable for the people using it.

What’s one project or moment at Zevero that you’re particularly proud of?

I've been at Zevero just over a year now, and a big focus of that time has been improving our platform's ability to onboard customer data at scale. Getting emissions data from a company's operations and supply chain into the platform quickly and accurately is foundational to everything else, from the analysis to reporting and reduction planning.

We've built out the bulk upload functionality and improved how our platform integrates with clients' own data systems, and I'm really proud of that work. There's plenty more on the roadmap, but seeing those improvements translate into a smoother, faster experience for our customers is really satisfying.

What’s a skill, mindset, or habit that helps you succeed in your role?

Bringing product-level thinking into engineering. As a developer it's easy to get focused purely on the technical implementation, but I always try to ask: why does this feature matter? What problem is the customer actually trying to solve? At Zevero that's especially important — we're building tools that help organisations make better climate decisions, so keeping that "so what?" front of mind makes for better software.

What sustainability trend, technology, or policy shift are you keeping an eye on right now?

I recently listened along to the webinar regarding the UK SRS, run by our colleagues George & Anna. As I am not an expert in sustainability, it was very interesting to understand more about it and I’d highly recommend checking it out (it’s available on-demand here)! My key takeaway was that it’s great to see climate impact disclosure being brought up to the same rigour as financial reporting historically has been.

What’s a small but powerful sustainability practice you think every organisation should adopt?

Promote eating more vegetables and less meat. "We don't need a handful of people doing veganism perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.”

Beyond the carbon emissions reduction, shifting toward more plant-rich food has a cascade of other benefits:

• Soil health - regenerative, plant-based agriculture supports healthier, more biodiverse soils, which are themselves a critical carbon sink
• Water use - producing plant-based protein requires a fraction of the water that livestock farming does
• Land use - animal agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of deforestation; less demand for meat means less pressure on forests and natural habitats
• Biodiversity - intensive livestock farming is a major contributor to habitat destruction and species loss

What’s something about you that people might not expect?

I can speak French at a half-decent level, and I’m working towards being able to speak more fluently one day!

What’s your go-to coffee/matcha order?

Oat flat white.

If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you be doing instead?

I love being outdoors - mountaineering and rock climbing. I’ve always thought being an instructor or an expedition leader would be awesome.

One song that always boosts your mood?

Nick Mulvey - Mountain to Move. It was my alarm ringtone for a few years and it’s a song that always gets me moving!

What’s one goal you’d like to achieve in the next 5 years?

Run a marathon. I’ve been on the mend following a knee operation last year and having that goal in mind gets me through the hours of leg strengthening exercises!

If you could swap roles with anyone at Zevero for a day, who would it be and why?

Sustainability team. I'd love to interact more with our customers.

Favourite quote or a philosophy you try to live by?

"Leave the campsite cleaner than when you found it."

It applies to anything in life, from a small scale to a large scale; that could be leaving a codebase a bit cleaner than how you found it, leaving a project in a better state for the next person, or taking away some plastic bottles you found washed up on a beach.