About

Hi, I’m Raf!

I’m responsible for the thoughts and views here. I use these pages as an outlet for minimally censored spewage about software, architecture, lean product development, learning loops, home-schooling, Science and the Ukulele. I am a dadgineer, proven technical leader, Agilista, architect and full-stack polyglot engineer.

Check out my resume if you want to collaborate, chat with or hire me.

I’m a Londoner, now living as a Kiwi in rural New Zealand. I work as the Head of Technology at a remote-first Scale-Up which is redefining how we educate tomorrow’s engineers.

I’ve enjoyed 20 years of working on fun and performant projects at scale. Fun fact, I was developer ~#4 at Booking.com* when it was a wee little pepper-shaker. Someone at a conference told me that I was their earliest commit (although this would have been in CVS). I built my first website in 1994 and believe in a free and open web.

I also report on engineering practices for InfoQ.com, a leading engineering news source. Checkout some of my news here.

Due to my love for building the right solution for the right business problem, I have naturally gravitated towards being a comb-shaped engineer.

Contact me

Hit me up if you’re interested in freelance engineering or organisational consultancy. Quote: Gollum’s Ring in your mail.

RAF_AT_DREAMTHOUGHT_DOT_COM

Comb-shaped 🖌

  • Coding since the age of 9 in the early 80’s with BBC Basic, Zortech C, 6502 and ARM 2 Assembler
  • Fullstack polyglot engineer with a core including JVM langauges, python and modern node/Javascript
  • Built high data/low latency solutions at scale for BBC i-Player, Morgan Stanley, NTT, Spark’s Spotify Integration, Stuff and other known brands.
  • Architecturally aligned with Data Stream Architectures/EAI/DDD/(A)TDD/Microservices/Fullstack
  • Provided direct Lean technical and architectural coaching for multiple teams
  • Successfully mentored/championed/partnered with my teams to achieve full cross-functionality, user engagement and continuous delivery
  • Champion of user/dev empathy, a common business language, fast-feedback, automation and continuous improvement
  • Experienced Agilista with a preference for Kanban and Lean / ICAgile Certified Coach ICP-ACC
  • Professor by Contract for OpenClassrooms with course design and creation of Java undergrad and grad courses
  • Believer in shift-left security who has been a Security Champion hat and championed the introduction of Security Championship in teams
  • InfoQ.com News Editor, Home Schooling Dad, DevOpsDaysNZ organising team, Head of Technology, speaker at meetups and conferences See my InfoQ Profile

Talks

Open Courses Delivered

Open Source Projects

Currently active projects. Checkout my github repos and org repos for more historic and less maintained stuff.