About
Hi, I’m Robert. I spend most of my time building infrastructure, breaking infrastructure, and then figuring out how to build it better.
What I do
Professionally, I work in cloud architecture, cybersecurity, and platform engineering. That usually means designing large-scale cloud environments, automating infrastructure with Infrastructure as Code, building secure landing zones, and helping organisations create platforms that engineers actually enjoy using. I’m a big believer that good infrastructure should quietly do its job while staying out of everyone’s way.
I’ve been around Linux for more than twenty years, and it’s still the operating system I feel most at home with. I’ve watched the industry evolve from physical servers to virtualisation, containers, Kubernetes, and cloud-native platforms, but I still enjoy understanding how the layers underneath actually work.
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time building secure research computing environments, working through security and compliance requirements, and automating infrastructure at scale. It’s the kind of work where networking, security, identity, automation, and software engineering all come together — and that’s exactly why I enjoy it.
Off the clock
Outside of work, I tend to disappear down rabbit holes. One week I’ll be experimenting with Nostr relays, the next I’ll be designing browser-based terminal applications inspired by classic IRC clients. Sometimes I’m tinkering with ESP32 boards, sometimes I’m building static websites, and other times I’m reading about networking protocols, radio communications, or the history behind the technologies we use every day.
I’m especially interested in technologies that give users more ownership and control:
- decentralised systems
- open-source software
- privacy-preserving networks
- simple tools that solve real problems without unnecessary complexity
About this site
This site is where I write about whatever I’m learning. Expect posts about Linux, networking, cybersecurity, infrastructure automation, self-hosting, Nostr, embedded hardware, open-source projects, and the occasional deep dive into topics that have absolutely nothing to do with my day job but somehow become fascinating anyway.
If you’ve made it this far, we probably have a few interests in common. Thanks for stopping by.