About

I’m Kevin.

This really is about me and my life, at least it will be at the start until I get into how I got to where I am, here, writing content on a website using my FOTM language (Go) (it’s now Rust…).

Home

I live a beautiful life, and I’m very privileged. I have have a wonderful partner who keeps me grounded and consistently guides me towards becoming a better person. I also have two cats, so just so you know… I love cats.

Thinking

When I was younger, I used to write poetry as my creative outlet, it was particularly ‘angsty’ and so I probably wont post it here. If I did, it would be with a huge heading to make sure it was known that I wrote it when I was 15.

As I grow older and learn more it’s becoming increasingly more important to do a lot of thinking about myself, others and the world. I think that sitting down and trying to write about it can really help in the reflective process. So whilst any writing I do about my thoughts here is mainly for me, there is also a freeing element to being vulnerable with your thoughts and feelings in a place where literally anyone could read them (if they knew where to look). So in saying that - If I say something that offends you, or you know to be wrong, then please don’t hesitate to contact me and I will address it! On that note, if I actually do some writing there is bound to be things that I change my mind on over time or that I was ignorant of at the time of writing - So I apologise in advance for those things!

I’m looking forward to the day when I feel comfortable putting something out in to the world, and don’t worry it (probably) wont be poetry.

Programming

On a very different note, my other passion is programming. Whilst I’m relatively new in my programming career I’ve gone through a few iterations to get here, although I think that this is probably where I always wanted to end up and why I was drawn back to it.

i == 0

I wont go back so far as to talk about what I was doing in school, but I will go back to the start of my journey as an adult. I did all of the expected things and ended up at uni studying software engineering, that didn’t last long and I dropped out. I eventually ended up becoming a qualified Diesel Mechanic (wow not programming at all). During my time as a mechanic I felt drawn to know more and more about how things worked, I know this sounds pretty generic - but that’s the only way I can describe it. I was really interested in lots of the control systems that I was seeing; electric, pneumatic, hydraulic and how they all worked. This led me to take up a single unit at uni which takes me into my next iteration.

i++;

i == 1

My single unit turned in to returning to uni full time to study… (yep you guessed it) - Mechatronic Engineering. Wait… that’s still not computer science. I decided that Engineering was what I wanted to do. Whilst this was closer to what I wanted, the further I got in to my degree I kept getting this feeling that there was still something not quite right. I focused heavily on my programming, and programming adjacent units while developing my own personal skills, initially in Python. My very first program was a timetable scraper (that I should really go back and hide), that at the time I was extremely proud of - I even had a single user! (my partner who was also at uni at the time). With my clearly evident enthusiasm for all things computing I managed to land myself an internship where I got to do heaps of programming! leading me into my next iteration.

i++;

i == 2

At this point I was pretty certain that I should have just studied a degree in computer science - but I was resolved to make take my Engineering degree (that I was nearly finished), my enthusiasm, and my newly gotten coding chops and turn that into a programming job. This job was definitely the point that helped get me where I needed to be to pivot away from engineering. I was provided with the time and space to learn, and I was surrounded by super nice, super intelligent people that were nothing but encouraging. This internship eventually turned into a more permanent role, which then turned into a recommendation for a job as a Data Engineer.

i++

i == 3

I really had begun my career in earnest starting with that Data Engineering role. I was fortunate enough to be the third member of a tight knit team where I was valued and appreciated. If you are reading this, then you know who you are! I was allowed to basically run free exploring technologies, building systems from scratch (they weren’t particularly good) and re-writing large swaths of internal code. At the end of this journey I think my imposter syndrome was at it’s peak, and I was feeling like I needed a change. So I moved into a more traditional role at a larger company where I moved away from Data and towards DevOps.

That job again allowed me to grow immensely. I received the support and mentorship (again, if you are reading this, you know who you are) the more traditional role provided me with, and I was able to learn a lot about all aspects of modern computing. This is not a resume, so I’ll just leave it at that. Suffice to say that I was able to grow a lot in that role, and I am very grateful for the experience. It also gave me the confidence and skills to shake off my imposter syndrome and start to feel like I was actually a programmer.

break;

Now

I have updated this page a few times now, and I’m about to make yet another attempt at creating some interesting articles about programming, and my thoughts on the world. I’m excited to see where this goes, and I hope that you are too. If you have any feedback, or just want to chat, then please don’t hesitate to reach out to me!