About Me
A little more about my career, interests, and things I often recommend.
What I like to work on
Roles
Engineering Manager, Tech Lead, Senior Software Engineer.
Manager Readme
My manager readme aims to help people get to know me, in a "working together" sense.
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.