Technical Lead & Systems Architect · Brisbane, Australia
I build software the way philosophers build arguments: rigorously, with the end user in mind.
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01 · Background
My path to software wasn't straight. I studied Philosophy and Logic at UQ, then spent three years covering stories as a journalist before discovering that the most compelling narratives were being written in code. That detour wasn't wasted — it gave me something most engineers don't have: the ability to think in systems and communicate clearly to anyone in the room.
For over five years I've led engineering teams as a Technical Lead and systems architect, mentoring engineers, designing solution architecture, and translating messy business problems into clean technical solutions. I've built everything from e-commerce platforms serving millions of visitors to research data systems that won a University of Queensland Research Impact Award. Lately I've been going deep on cloud and AI workflows — including generative AI safety and governance — and am Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals certified.
Outside of work, I volunteer at the Red Cross Night Café outreach program and regularly attend the BrisJS meetup to stay sharp and connected to the local engineering community.
11+
Years in software engineering
5+
Years leading engineering teams
2021
UQ Research Impact Award
Azure AI
Microsoft certified
02 · Career
A decade and a half of building things that matter.
Building full-stack projects while going deep on cloud and AI workflows — including generative AI safety and governance. Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals certified.
Led an 8-person team, including QA, to deliver the accreditation system: a multi-stakeholder workflow platform built around email and WebSocket notifications, commenting, and file uploads. Mentored engineers through design and delivery, and automated the team's CI/CD pipeline and pull-request review process using webhooks and AI.
Led the insights team in delivering product goals within a Kubernetes microservices environment. Designed system architecture integrated across multiple services, running CI/CD through Buildkite and infrastructure as code with Terraform.
Built UQ's thesis submission system, replacing a sprawling set of manual processes with a secure, automated pipeline. Led the team, set sprints, managed stakeholder expectations, and designed the full architecture end to end.
Rebuilt the Shine Lawyers website from WordPress to a static React/Gatsby platform, cutting load times by more than 3x. Designed a conversion-tracking pipeline linking analytics to database records, and built API integrations covering geolocation, chat (WebSockets), email, and spam filtering.
03 · Toolbox
Hover any badge for context on how I've used it.
04 · After hours
A couple of things I design, build, and run end to end outside of work.
A free tipping competition platform for friends, family, and workplaces. A shared isomorphic scoring engine is consumed by both the Next.js client and the GraphQL API (Apollo, Pothos, Drizzle on AWS Lambda), so the leaderboard can never drift from the source of truth.
A real-time strategy game remaking a StarCraft II custom map for the browser. A deterministic simulation package runs identically in Node and the browser, with a PixiJS renderer, WebSocket multiplayer server, AI opponents, and a Vitest-driven balance test bench.
A quarterly crypto portfolio competition for friends. Everyone starts the quarter with the same budget and picks their portfolio, then a serverless AWS backend snapshots prices and standings while the React frontend renders live leaderboards and d3 performance charts.
05 · Contact
Whether you're looking for a Technical Lead who can architect a system and ship it, or you just want to talk shop over coffee, my inbox is open.
Available for senior and lead engineering roles, technical consulting, and interesting conversations.
Send me an email