Technical Direction
Owns architecture decisions, platform strategy, engineering standards, and delivery trade-offs for complex cloud and data systems.
Principal Engineer | Hands-on Technical Leader | Head of Engineering
Engineering at the platform level.
Melbourne-based engineering leader with 20+ years building and owning cloud platforms, distributed systems, and data-intensive products across fintech, privacy tech, and enterprise SaaS. Deep hands-on expertise in .NET, TypeScript, and Azure, with a track record of scaling teams and shipping production systems in regulated, high-stakes environments. I set technical strategy and still write code alongside the team. Current focus: practical AI adoption — AI-assisted development and agentic workflows that measurably lift delivery quality and speed.
About
Principal-level engineering leadership that stays close to the code.
Hands-on Architecture
Remains active in solution design, code, troubleshooting, Azure infrastructure, DevOps, and technical problem-solving with engineering teams.
Platform Depth
Designs distributed systems, APIs, event-driven architectures, and privacy-first data platforms for regulated environments.
Engineering Leadership
Builds and mentors distributed teams while embedding engineering practices, observability, automation, and AI-assisted delivery workflows.
Experience
Recent roles
Head of Engineering | Omnisient
Principal/tech lead scope with team-leadership responsibility at a privacy-first data collaboration and analytics platform for financial services institutions — relocated to Melbourne in February 2025 to lead international expansion. Own platform architecture and the hardest technical calls, hands-on daily in .NET, Azure, TypeScript, and Node.js, designing distributed and event-driven systems and setting the technical standards the team builds against. Grew the engineering team from 1 to 9 and scaled the company from 5 to 50+ employees. Drove ISO 27001 certification and led multi-region deployments across South Africa, the US, and the UAE. Omnisient earned TechCrunch Top 200 Startup recognition, Bloomberg coverage, and World Economic Forum acceptance during my tenure. Introduced AI-assisted development and agentic workflows across the team, improving delivery throughput — more complete implementations, with stronger test coverage and documentation shipped by default.
Technical Consultant / Full Stack Developer | Nailed Digital
Founded and operated a digital consultancy delivering custom software platforms, SaaS applications, and cloud-native solutions for enterprise and retail clients. Led full-stack development across frontend, backend, and cloud infrastructure end-to-end.
Technical Director / Development Manager | HelloComputer / HelloFCB+
Led engineering delivery across concurrent enterprise client projects for Samsung, Toyota, and Lexus — managing architecture, teams, recruitment, and technical planning at digital agency scale.
Senior Analyst Developer | Codeforte
Developed and maintained high-traffic online gaming, casino, and affiliate platforms supporting seven brands across Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Optimised platform performance and initiated the first proof of concept to migrate the desktop-based platform to a web-based architecture.
Skills
Principal engineering strengths
Architecture and Platform
Cloud architecture, distributed systems, event-driven platforms, APIs, technical standards, scalability, reliability, and security.
Hands-on Engineering
.NET, C#, TypeScript, Angular, Node.js, Vue, Python, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Docker, troubleshooting, code review, DevOps, and CI/CD.
Azure and Data Systems
Azure App Service, Function Apps, Container Apps, Azure SQL, Redis, SignalR, Service Bus, Blob Storage, Static Web Apps, Power BI, big data platforms, and privacy-first systems.
Technical Leadership
Engineering strategy, mentoring, hiring, delivery leadership, ISO 27001-aligned controls, AI-assisted development, agentic AI workflows, and GitHub Copilot adoption.
Selected outcomes
Relevant achievements
PII Column Detector
Ported a Python-based PII detection engine to .NET, delivering significant performance gains and deeper platform integration. Architected for extensibility, allowing detection accuracy to refine over time as new data patterns are encountered.
Embedded Analytics Tool
Built a hardened desktop analytics application enabling clients to query and analyse data within the platform boundary, engineered with strict data egress controls to prevent sensitive financial and consumer data from leaving the secure environment.
Integrated Event Hub
Designed and built a custom event hub serving as the backbone for audit logging, client communications, and third-party integrations across the platform — providing a centralised event stream supporting compliance and external integrations.
Data Onboarding Tools
Designed and built two cross-platform data ingestion tools from scratch, processing millions of records daily across multiple file formats and database connectors — enabling financial institutions to onboard data at scale with minimal friction.
CaptureFit
Designed, built, and scaled an event registration and live leaderboard platform used by more than 16,000 athletes across 200+ fitness events, including events hosted by Virgin Active and CrossFit communities.
Fuel SA
Automated SaaS fuel price aggregation platform — end-to-end design, build, and deployment.
Education and recognition
Credentials and highlights
Computer Science
Diploma in Computer Science, Programming Languages, CTI Education Group, accredited by the University of Cambridge.
Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate
Microsoft certification in Azure cloud development, alongside Kontra Application Security Training covering Angular, C#, and API security.
Recognition
Pluralsight Vue.js Skills IQ author and engineering leader at Omnisient during TechCrunch Top 200 Startup recognition, Bloomberg coverage, and World Economic Forum acceptance.