Clik here to view.
A Blog About Me
Welcome to my new blog! I’ve had blogs before. I had a blog about photography for a couple of months. I had an active blog about Scala for quite a while, which even achieved fleeting fame a couple of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meetup Digest: Migrate to DVCS Sydney (October 2012)
Two weeks ago, I and a couple of other developers from Tyro went to the first “Migrate to DVCS Sydney” Meetup at Atlassian’s new headquarters. Here’s my notes on the most salient points from the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When the Production Queue Stopped
Unusual pain Last week at Tyro we had a fairly serious production issue. Thankfully, the impact was nowhere near as serious as the kind of outages that most Aussie banks have delivered over the last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What is DevOps? … in bullet points, quotes and tweets
Interest in DevOps is booming. I feel like I heard it mentioned as the motivation for some decision at least once a week last year, and it climbed its way into the headlines of most of the newsletters...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Smart Software Teams Don’t Need Senior Developers, Tech Leads or Architects
A queue of software developers, not unlike the one that has inundated my inbox for the last year. We’ve almost doubled our Engineering team at Tyro Payments over the last financial year and we’ll be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
10 Reasons You Shouldn’t Have Senior Developers, Tech Leads or Architects
Two weeks ago I published a post titled ‘Why Smart Software Teams Don’t Need Senior Developers, Tech Leads or Architects‘. I received a lot of good feedback, but I also know it was a long read. So, if...
View ArticleQuick Response to “Test-induced Design Damage”
David Heinemeier Hansson wrote an interesting critique of Test Driven Design two days ago. I understand where he’s coming from with his concern that mindlessly shaping all design around tests can...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Notes from YOW! 2013: Michael T. Nygard on ‘Five Years of DevOps: Where are...
I attended Day 1 of YOW! Sydney 2013 and thought some people might get something useful out of my notes. These aren’t my complete reinterpretations of every slide, but just things I jotted down that I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Microservices at Tyro: An Evolutionary Tale (Presentation)
In February, I presented a talk at the Sydney Microservices Meetup titled “Microservices at Tyro: An Evolutionary Tale”. Microservices at Tyro I wanted to talk mostly about things we’ve been doing with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Microservices Security: All The Questions You Should Be Asking
I spoke earlier in the year at the Sydney Microservices Meetup about the long path we’ve taken at Tyro Payments over the last decade, gradually tending towards a more fine-grained SOA approach –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Design Kata: Learn software architecture while having fun
At Tyro, we don’t have anyone with the title of Architect, Designer or Tech Lead who designs software and then asks other people to build it. Instead, each team of Software Engineers does architecture...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Your Resume Sucks & How to Fix It
I’ve seen a lot of software engineers’ resumes over the past few years. And most of them suck. Even the resumes of really good people who we’ve hired have often been very average. Why is that? I’m...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Distributed Transactions: The Icebergs of Microservices
Why are distributed transactions icebergs? It’s not because they’re cool and beautiful and you have to look under the surface to comprehend them. Distributed transactions are icebergs because (1) it’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Memories from 10 years at a startup
I recently notched up ten years of working at Tyro Payments, a tiny little payments startup that I joined in late 2006 when it had about 20 people, and which is now Australia’s most successful fintech...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Amazing Benefits of Exercism
A couple of months ago, a good friend at work (@rodeoclownII) sent out an email (or blog, or Slack message, or something) about exercism.io. It’s a cool little website for practising programming in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“This work kinda sucks right now”: Staying motivated in the uninspiring...
In April 2015, I was the technical project manager of six software teams all working on one gigantic project. It was the biggest challenge the company had ever taken on. The goal: create and stand up a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Microservices at Tyro: An Evolutionary Tale (Presentation)
In February, I presented a talk at the Sydney Microservices Meetup titled “Microservices at Tyro: An Evolutionary Tale”. Microservices at Tyro I wanted to talk mostly about things we’ve been doing with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Microservices Security: All The Questions You Should Be Asking
I spoke earlier in the year at the Sydney Microservices Meetup about the long path we’ve taken at Tyro Payments over the last decade, gradually tending towards a more fine-grained SOA approach –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Design Kata: Learn software architecture while having fun
At Tyro, we don’t have anyone with the title of Architect, Designer or Tech Lead who designs software and then asks other people to build it. Instead, each team of Software Engineers does architecture...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Your Resume Sucks & How to Fix It
I’ve seen a lot of software engineers’ resumes over the past few years. And most of them suck. Even the resumes of really good people who we’ve hired have often been very average. Why is that? I’m...
View Article
