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.
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Alfred
The Workflows and Snippets features are automation superpowers.
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Spectacles
Great for focus and speed by keeping all the apps you're working with right in view.
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Flux
Great when working at night with teammates across timezones.
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KeepassXC
Secure and simple password manager with OSS apps for Linux/macOS/iOS/Android.
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Todoist
I've tried dozens of to-do apps and this is the one I think best maps to the Getting Things Done method.
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Firefox Developer Edition
I love how this special version puts developer tools and features front and center.
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Sublime Editor
No longer my first-choice coding editor but I'm always jumping to Sublime for scratch files and wrangly text, json etc.
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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.
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VS Code
Fast, feature-rich and free.
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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.
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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.
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LG monitors
Just reliable panels with good-looking bezels. I'm currently on a 27" UHD 4K model that's all I could need.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.