Welcome to the (not so) Frequently Asked Questions.
What’s the deal with this website?#
I have a broad range of skills and experience, and I wanted a single place to showcase all of it. This site acts as a living CV, portfolio and general information hub – a companion to my LinkedIn profile and paper CV.
It started as an experiment with about.me, but I wanted something I had full control over. The site is now built with Hugo and hosted on GitHub Pages.
Why does your CV look the way it does?#
My original CV was fairly standard, and it served me well – it got me interviews and it got me jobs. But I wanted to present the information in a more distinctive way. I’ve designed it to stand out by being different yet functional, and it doubles as a showcase of skills I picked up from teaching myself Adobe InDesign.
So what exactly do you do?#
My day job is in DevOps, Platform Engineering and Team Leadership. But I also have a background in photography and filmmaking, and I’ve done IT contracting for small businesses over the years. These may seem like wildly different fields, but they come together in a synergy of creativity and technology – the ability to take a project from technical design through to digital asset creation and delivery.
What about everything else?#
Some of what I do (such as photography) started as a hobby that I turned into a small side business. Others, like my homelab, are a testing ground for the tools and technologies I use professionally. I find that the best way to truly learn something is to build it yourself.
Why include interests on a professional site?#
There is more to me than a job, just as there is more to you than yours. The things I do outside of work shape who I am as a colleague and a leader. Many of my interests have helped me develop skills that feed directly back into my professional life – whether that’s the discipline from martial arts, the problem-solving from running a homelab, or the creativity from photography.
Why is some of this site written in a lighter tone?#
I can’t be serious all the time. I want parts of this site to feel a bit more personable than my CV or cover letter. That said, I’ve tried to keep the professional content professional and the lighter content… lighter.
Was that you on BBC’s Fake Britain?#
Yes it was. I’ve since published my full account of the incident.
More questions?#
I’m always happy to chat. Get in touch via any of the links on the site, or book a meeting.
Quotes to live by#
If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.
