Professional Experience

If I had to describe myself in a nutshell appropriate for this forum, I would say that I am most in my element when collaborating in small- to medium-sized multi-disciplinary groups and creating through the mediums of technology and/or organisational structures. And that my strengths include such things as:

• analytic thinking and creative problem solving;
• my love of learning, both theoretical and through praxis;
• my ability and desire to see patterns and interactions;
• my desire to think in terms of 'possible futures'; and
• my lack of tolerance towards thoughtlessness and violence, certainly between individuals, but much more so, at the systemic and design levels.

I have had extensive experience designing, developing, analysing and integrating software systems and computing infrastructure — both research and production — within the defence and mining sectors, and as a consultant, and I have worked on numerous projects as a system architect, integrator and analyst, and as a programmer. I have also conducted requirements analyses, technology reviews and research projects, mapped work-flows and processes, and co-facilitated workshops and planning sessions.

And I like to think that I have strong communication skills and problem solving abilities, a good work ethic, a desire to understand technological and organisational systems alike, and that I work well as part of an interdisciplinary team, as evidenced, at least in part, by the range of collaborations and research I've been involved with over the years.

My formal studies have been in Information Technology, Applied Mathematics and Electronic Engineering (having completed Bachelor degrees with Honours in both Science and Engineering at the University of Western Australia), however, I also spent a year doing post-graduate research in Adaptive Systems and Cognitive Science while working for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

Since moving to Germany, I have broadened my fields of interest to include soil microbiology and Mycology and mushroom cultivation, and to a lesser extent, Permaculture, off-grid systems and practices in the context of energy, water and food independence, (re)forestation techniques, impulsive and resonant electrical systems, and Körpertherapie / Entpanzerung (nach Wilhelm Reich) — albeit in a self-taught capacity.

For a more detailed description of my employment history please see my LinkedIn profile or my Curricula Vitae (below) however, a very brief summary of my career to date could be:

• Support Engineer (Cloud), IONOS SE (04.2022 –)
  • Providing support to Cloud Computing customers during and after incidents, and through technical and service queries;
  • Being a point of contact, within Support and when interfacing with other team, with a focus on APIs and Configuration Management (CM) tools, documentation and our VMware-based product;
  • Maintaining an overview of our stack, with a view to better understanding and explaining its architectural interdependencies, identifying ‘common-mode failures’, filing bug reports and suggesting product and support-system improvements;
  • Proposing and developing our initial tutorial series which introduce our Ansible and Terraform tools and selected products through the creation of examples more representative of ‘real-world’ use-cases;
• Independent (01.2017 – 04.2022)
  Developing and integrating custom hardware solutions and laboratory equipment; and consulting on, and implementing websites and less-insecure computing environments, together with their supporting infrastructure;
• Senior Systems Engineer, Datamerge (12.2013 – 11.2014)
  Conducted pre-sales engineering; developed and managed project plans for the implementation and migration of client infrastructure; and provided Level 3 support for colleagues and external IT staff alike;
• Technology Advocacy work, Independent project (12.2012 – 11.2013)
  Initiated a pilot-program with the goal of establishing an Australia-wide database of incidents involving violations of due process and the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers, and attempted to engage academic, activist, political and legal groups;
• Systems Scientist, BHP Billiton Iron Ore (04.2011 – 11.2012)
  Established and managed a stand-alone research and development environment; co-developed and provided technical support for our in-house mine-planning software suites; and co-facilitated multiple technical and visioning workshops; and
• Senior Systems Engineer / Analyst, Defence Science and Technology Organisation (01.2000 – 04.2011)
  Designed, implemented and managed multiple combat system and maritime simulation environments (both software and physical); co-architected our internally-developed open combat system and simulation research environments and their supporting software development kits; and advocated for, and conducted the virtualisation of the actively-deployed submarine combat system to increase its reliability ('availability') and to mitigate the risks of hardware obsolescence.

For those so inclined, you can also check out the public versions of my english and german Curricula Vitae via the links below.