Updated on January 15th, 2025 from Birmingham, UK

Now

Here’s what I’m doing right now, both professionally and personally.

Working

Working at GitLab as a Staff Backend Engineer, a job I genuinely love. I’m working in the Monitor stage right now.I get to solve interesting problems, at large-scale using some cutting edge technology. What else could an engineer want?

I’m trying to do more of a few things:

  • Learning golang. I’m always a bit worried that my career is too reliant on one framework (Ruby on Rails) and Golang appears to be in demand in my workplace and elsewhere so it would be a sensible thing to learn and become proficient in.
  • Get better at Swift and SwiftUI. I love building for iOS, so I’m naturally motivated to do this.
  • More public speaking. I’d like to focus more on technical talks this year, perhaps giving intro-level talks about database query optimisation.

Personally

My new year’s resolution was to do everything more slowly, however I’ve set myself some big targets.

  • I had my first piano lesson in 11 years to try to take my Grade 7 piano exam later this year (…or next).
  • I’m running the Great Birmingham Run (half marathon) in May.

Reading

I’m not actually reading anything good right now. I’m open to suggestions!

Volunteering

  • I’m the vice-chair of Friends of Cotteridge Park. These days that mostly means IT admin stuff, learning to make nice coffee, being a stable face in the community and running payroll. I volunteer a few hours a month in our community building, “The Shed”.
  • I’m a governor at my old primary school. My role as the IT Governor is to provide oversight for things such as IT and cybersecurity.
  • I’ve taken a break from volunteering at School of Code due to having taken too many things on recently. I hope to return in a future cohort. It’s a fantastic programme and I’ve mentored some folks that have gone on to excellent careers.

Listening

  • In the Jazz world, I’ve been enjoying Guy Salamon. In particular fungal jungle express.
  • I’m absolutely here for the celtic/dance crossover of Valtos.
  • I’m trying to attend the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as much as possible this year. (Two concerts already!)

Travelling

2024 was a big year for travelling and 2025 should be good (although less hectic by the looks of things)

Trips for 2025 planned so far are:

  • Northumberland, England in February to relax, and hike.
  • Rocky Mountains in Canada (Calgary, Banff, Vancouver and others) in August.