Leading international tech-based copywriting and translation start-up Textual has introduced its new Chief Technical Officer, John J Camilleri, who was appointed in October.

The company explains Mr Camilleri has a long-established career in technology and a PhD in computer science, and as such it is very excited to have him join the team.

The new Technical Officer considers himself both a scientist who is interested in learning the details of how things work, as well as an engineer who takes pride in designing and building things properly, which is a “perfect fit for Textual.”

Mr Camilleri started coding as a teenager, and has “basically never stopped,” being introduced to language technology during his undergraduate degree, before eventually doing a Ph.D. in the area and becoming a core developer of the Grammatical Framework.

Professionally, he has been working with full-stack web development for over 15 years in private academic and open source projects, most recently serving as the CTO for Digital Grammars.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr Camilleri said: “I’ve worked with the Grammatical Framework and multilingual natural language generation for many years but mostly in an academic context, so it’s very exciting for me to see this technology used at a truly industrial scale, with all the new challenges that brings with it.”

At Textual, Mr Camilleri is expected to continue working with grammars and other language technologies and improving the workflows around them, both internally and for translators and clients.

His main focus will be on ensuring the scalability of the platform and architecture and helping to expand to new domains outside of retail.

The company jokes: “Last but not least, John is a self-confessed coffee geek on a crusade against bad workplace coffee, and our new go-to person for all bean and brewing recommendations!”

It concluded: “We are so excited to have John onboard, and look forward to all the amazing things he will bring to Textual. Welcome to the team!”