Technical Lead · Brisbane, Australia

Alex Chan

I build software the way philosophers build arguments: rigorously, with the end user in mind.

About

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.

Today I work as a Technical Lead, architecting distributed systems, mentoring engineers, 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.

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.

14+

Years building for the web

2021

UQ Research Impact Award

Brisbane

Open to remote

BA · MJourn · DipWebDev

Yes, really

Experience

A decade and a half of building things that matter.

Technical Lead

Current
NHVR·Brisbane, QLD
Mar 2023Present

Architected a multi-stakeholder workflow system handling real-time WebSocket notifications, email automation, comments threads, and file uploads. Mentored and led a team of engineers from design through to delivery.

ReactNode.jsLoopbackxstateTypeScriptAzure DevOps

Technical Lead

SiteMinder·Sydney, NSW
Oct 2022Feb 2023

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.

TerraformKubernetesBuildkiteVueNode.jsTypeScriptAWSMySQL

Technical Lead

Research Impact Award 2021
University of Queensland·Brisbane, QLD
Dec 2020Oct 2022

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.

ReactTypeScriptNode.jsAWSCloudFormationSQSJestServerlessMySQL

Senior Full Stack Engineer

Shine Lawyers·Brisbane, QLD
Oct 2017Jul 2020

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.

ReactReduxGatsbyGraphQLContentfulDockerKubernetesNginxBigQueryElasticsearchCypressJest

Skills

Hover any badge for context on how I've used it.

Frontend

ReactTypeScriptNext.jsVueGatsbyReduxxstateGraphQLCSS / Tailwind

Backend

Node.jsPHPC#REST APIsWebSocketsServerless

Infrastructure & DevOps

AWSAzureDockerKubernetesTerraformBuildkiteNginxCloudflare

Data & Storage

MySQL / SQLNoSQLRedisBigQueryElasticsearch

Testing

JestCypressMochaCucumberBrowserStack

Process & Standards

Agile / SCRUMOWASPWCAGJIRAFigma

Get in touch

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

Location

Brisbane, Australia