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Platform engineering

I build platforms that stay calm under pressure.

I design and operate Azure and self-hosted infrastructure that product teams build on without filing tickets. Reliability, security, and clarity are the baseline, not the stretch goal.

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Available for client work

I help organisations run AI on their own infrastructure: local LLMs, governed inference, and costs you can actually see.

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Architectural cross-section of a hillside command bunker with power plant, operations gallery, and signal room with antenna masts

What sets this platform engineer apart

From operations management to infrastructure authoring

Most platform engineers start in the platform and learn operations on the side. I started in operations, ran a £1M transformation programme, then deliberately built the infrastructure from scratch to master the craft: bare-metal Kubernetes, self-hosted CI/CD, full observability stack, and now Azure golden paths at work. That path is the differentiator: I have been the person paged at 3am, the person accountable for the budget, and the person who wrote the Terraform. When I design a platform, I am drawing on all three.

The pattern I proved in production infrastructure, Terraform declares intent, Ansible consumes a derived inventory, layers compose through explicit contracts, is the same pattern I deploy at work with Azure Verified Modules. Only the providers change. That is not a coincidence. Platform engineering is about the contracts between layers, not the substrate.

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Platform engineering

Cycle Kirklees platform

Built and run the public site, signup gateway, and domain email for Cycle Kirklees, a volunteer-run cycling campaign group, on a self-hosted, £0-cost infrastructure budget.

Platform engineering

Production infrastructure R&D environment

Designed and operate production infrastructure to validate architectural patterns before deploying them at scale. Proves platform engineering principles: Terraform + Ansible contracts, declarative deployment, observability-first design, and architectural patterns that transfer between substrates.

Platform engineering

Azure governance and access control

Introduced policy-driven Azure governance for a national charity: RBAC, Azure Policy, Active Directory hardening, and procurement controls that gave 130+ staff a compliant, least-privilege foundation without slowing them down.

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I publish a few times a month on platform engineering, Azure infrastructure, and building platforms that don't rely on heroics. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

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About

I came into platform engineering from IT operations and programme delivery, so I spent years running the systems other people built before I designed my own. That shaped how I build: systems that work for the people who use them, governance that scales as teams grow, and cost decisions made at architecture time, not invoice time.

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Get in touch

I am happy to talk platform engineering, self-hosted infrastructure, and FinOps. If you are working on something interesting in that space, want to compare notes, or have a conversation about the work shared here, the door is open.

Questioning what your AI spend is buying, or holding data that can't leave the building? I take on selected client work. See how I could help and what the sensible next step is.

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