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About Me

A little more about my career, interests, and things I often recommend.

What I like to work on

Roles

Senior Engineer, Tech Lead, Engineering Manager

Industries

Developer Recruitment, EdTech, Finance, Transport

What I like to work with

Languages

CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Python, SQL, TypeScript

Frameworks

Astro, Django, Express, FastAPI, MUI, Next.js, React, Strapi, Tailwind

Self-hosted Services

Airflow, ListMonk, Postgres, RabbitMQ, Redis, Strapi

Cloud APIs & Services

DataDog, Heap, Mailchimp, Rollbar, Segment, SendGrid, Sentry, Stripe, Twilio

Containerization & Micro-services

Docker, Helm, Kubernetes, Nginx, Traefik

Infra / Networking / PAAS

Amazon Web Services, Clouldflare, Digital Ocean, Heroku, Vercel

What I like to use

Desktop Software

There's really only a few apps that I use daily. For these, I always try to purchase a premium plan or support the OSS maintainers. I'd encourage all software engineers to likewise so we can all continue to benefit from these awesome apps.

  • Alfred

    The Workflows and Snippets features are automation superpowers.

  • Spectacles

    Great for focus and speed by keeping all the apps you're working with right in view.

  • Flux

    Great when working at night with teammates across timezones.

  • KeepassXC

    Secure and simple password manager with OSS apps for Linux/macOS/iOS/Android.

  • Todoist

    I've tried dozens of to-do apps and this is the one I think best maps to the Getting Things Done method.

  • Firefox Developer Edition

    I love how this special version puts developer tools and features front and center.

  • Sublime Editor

    No longer my first-choice coding editor but I'm always jumping to Sublime for scratch files and wrangly text, json etc.

  • Sublime Merge

    Great for visual diffs and brings some super handy branch/commit wrangling shortcuts. I've also found popular IDE plugins for git to be a little distracting and that they seem to slow things down; keeping git off to the side avoids that.

  • VS Code

    Fast, feature-rich and free.

  • Wezterm

    Lightening fast.

Hardware

I travel and work from quite a few locations, often for months at a time. My choices optimise for convience while travelling, or being able to put together a similar setup when I get where I need to be.

  • Macbook Pro laptops

    I've been using MBPs since ~2010. Each time it's an upgrade is due I've thought long and hard about switching to a different manufacturer and running Linux. So far I've always stuck with Apple for the build quality and switching cost.

  • LG monitors

    Just reliable panels with good-looking bezels. I'm currently on a 27" UHD 4K model that's all I could need.

  • Logitech MX Anywhere 3 mice

    Just love these little things. Comfortable, a solid build, and compact for travelling. Bluetooth enabled so there's dongle to lose.

  • Apple wireless keyboards

    The only decision-making factor here is that the dimensions are identical to the laptop. This means a seamless switch between the external keyboard (at home or office) and the laptop (on planes and in cafes).

  • Fully standing desks

    I brought the frame only and added a Ikea tabletop to get the smallest footprint possible. Adding a set of rolling castor wheels makes it easy to shift around too. Highly recommended.

  • Herman Miller Aeron chairs

    It's hard to fault the comfort and adjustability. They're made to last, are available everywhere. That's means I probably never have to think about chairs again.