About

I build systems that have to keep working.

I am a Systems & Network Engineer working across production infrastructure, networks, virtualization, security and cloud-connected environments.

Engineering approach

My work sits where architecture meets operations: understanding the dependency chain, implementing the change, validating the result and owning recovery when reality disagrees with the diagram.

I favour resilient private-cloud design, clean network segmentation, observable services, practical security and documentation that can survive the next maintenance window.

Background

I progressed through technical support, advanced service engineering, systems and platform engineering, and systems administration before moving into my current infrastructure-focused role.

Formal study in systems engineering is complemented by degrees in criminology and politics—useful foundations for analysing risk, incentives, human behaviour and the wider environment around technology.

Principles

  • Understand the failure domain.Availability claims mean little without knowing what can break together.
  • Secure the path, not only the endpoint.Identity, routing, segmentation and observability belong in the same design.
  • Verify after reboot.A successful upgrade is not complete until networking, storage and dependent services return cleanly.
  • Document the ugly parts.The incident and recovery usually teach more than the original implementation.