Experiencewhere I’ve worked so far
Work History
Garden Route, South Africa (remote)
Software Engineer (Front-end)
Joining Equal Experts’ South African remote-first consultancy network from the Garden Route.
Mossel Bay, South Africa
Technical Business Analyst / Solutions Developer (contract)
I joined CSA Architects, a founder-led architecture practice, initially as an operations assistant. The role quickly evolved into a hybrid business analyst and product owner position: I identified recurring manual admin bottlenecks across the practice and directed the design and build of a desktop automation suite to eliminate them.
The application itself was built in Python with a Tkinter interface, developed using AI-assisted tooling (Claude and Codex) — despite having no prior Python background, I wrote the specifications, reviewed the generated code, and tested iteratively against real project data. It integrates with Toggl for time tracking, Xero for invoicing and statements via a custom-built template, Mitti for site inspections, the Microsoft Graph API to draft client emails directly into the practice owner’s Outlook mailbox, and the OpenAI API for generating meeting minutes from transcripts and drafting weekly client updates. It also auto-fills repetitive legislative and municipal PDF forms from centrally captured project metadata.
Accomplishments
I took the practice’s admin workflow from six disconnected manual processes to one integrated desktop tool within a single quarter.
I also kept a human in the loop on client-facing communication: AI-drafted emails land as a Microsoft Graph API draft in the practice owner’s Outlook mailbox rather than sending automatically.
Career break
South Africa, Chile, Argentina
International Travel & Family Priorities
Objective: Executed a planned career pivot and sabbatical, taking time to focus on family while completing long-delayed travel plans.
Travel: Achieved a lifelong goal of navigating diverse environments in Chile, Argentina and Patagonia, which broadened my cultural fluency and adaptability.
Preparation: Completed a relocation to South Africa after more than 14 years in New Zealand, settling into the Garden Route ahead of returning to remote-first software delivery work.
Wellington, New Zealand
Senior Front-end Developer (contract)
I worked in the team replacing BNZ’s bespoke deposit and home-lending pricing application.
The React UI followed BNZ’s mini-app (micro-front-end) pattern, composed into the host shell with its navigation entry gated behind a LaunchDarkly flag for controlled rollout. It consumed a BNZ Spring Boot microservice via a Kong API gateway, and that service, in turn, integrated with an external system. Other technologies included TanStack Query (React Query) and a bespoke component library.
Accomplishments
I implemented the role-based access control layer, mapping Active Directory group membership to screen-level authorisation for each user role.
I also drove the micro-front-end’s integration into BNZ’s mini-app platform — leading the registration of its Kong API gateway configuration, and working with the shell team to follow their integration guidelines and documentation practices.
Wellington, New Zealand
Senior Front-end Developer (contract)
I was embedded in a delivery team on TEC’s Data Systems Refresh (DSR) programme working on data collections (Commitments & Actuals) from Tertiary Education Organisations (TEOs), which in turn supports the allocation of funding to the education sector.
Technologies included Angular, Angular Material and a C# backend with an SQL database. GitHub Actions was the CI/CD pipeline, with Playwright as the E2E framework. The stack was deployed on Azure infrastructure.
Accomplishments
I built a template-driven configuration layer for the data collection forms, so adding a new flow was a configuration change rather than new code.
I also assisted QA in setting up Playwright as the E2E test framework, including the use of Playwright Axe for accessibility coverage.
Sydney, Australia (remote)
Senior Front-end Developer
I worked as part of a distributed team across multiple time zones within the Customer Tribe at Pet Circle. The main focus was the conversion of occasional shoppers into returning customers via an Auto Delivery service.
The e-commerce platform used a variety of technologies, including Preact. CI/CD consisted of a combination of Jenkins and GitHub Actions. The stack ran on Google Cloud Platform.
SEO and conversion metrics were very important. Google Optimize and Tag Manager were used to great effect to perform A/B experiments and ultimately picking the best outcomes for the business.
Accomplishments
One of my own objectives was mentoring team members on good SDLC practices and continuous improvement — breaking stories down into small, releasable chunks, writing testable code and focusing on a WIP limit.
Wellington, New Zealand
Senior Front-end Developer (contract/permanent)
I worked as a Senior Front-end Developer in an agile team at BNZ Digital, where I started on contract and then switched to permanent employment.
The technology stack included, amongst others, React, Cypress, OpenShift and AWS. The CI/CD tool was Jenkins.
My team was involved in the development and maintenance of a bespoke React/Redux/RxJS form rendering library used across multiple projects at BNZ. This library, along with a supporting API, enabled Marketing and Sales, and even other delivery teams, to quickly and easily create, publish and maintain customer and staff facing forms across both public and authenticated channels.
Accomplishments
My team delivered a front-end React application hosted as an Amazon S3 static site. This single page application formed part of a larger project required to meet the obligations of new lending and borrowing legislation (CCCFA). We were able to deliver in advance of the delivery date, which in turn helped BNZ be compliant well before the government deadline.
Wellington, New Zealand
Full-stack Developer (contract)
I worked at the Department of Internal Affairs, on behalf of Accenture, where the tech stack included Angular (7), Java Spring Boot, Node.js and MongoDB running in Azure.
As part of a digital delivery team, I was involved in several core services provided to the NZ public. These included online marriage licence applications, certificate ordering, including birth, marriage, death, and a citizenship pilot. Project work involved integrations with Payment Express (PxPay), RealMe and other custom backend systems.
Wellington, New Zealand
Full-stack Engineer
I joined Stuff (Fairfax Media) as a Full-stack Engineer in September 2017, and worked in a team focused on building a new curation tool to satisfy several specific editorial tasks.
The application was written in TypeScript using Angular and the Angular Material Framework (including Jasmine Unit tests and Protractor E2E tests), served via a Node.js back-end, which interfaced with various Stuff APIs, while deployed in a Docker container on AWS infrastructure. CI/CD and deployment happened as part of a Concourse pipeline.
I also worked on an integration with IBM Watson NLU to enable content categorisation via keywords/entities, which was then ingested into an Elasticsearch database and used in a “Related Content” service.
Wellington, New Zealand
JavaScript Developer (contract)
I completed a contract assignment with Fairfax Media as a JavaScript Developer in one of the Wellington-based development teams.
I was closely involved in the implementation of a new React-based front-end for the Stuff.co.nz news site article pages. The application, including the back-end interfaces like GraphQL, was served via Express in a Node.js runtime.
Other projects included the implementation of an implicit flow client-side OpenID Connect login, as well as integrating the Nativform (FFX Native platform) advertising SDK.
Wellington, New Zealand
Front-end Developer
I worked as a UI Developer at Westpac NZ, where I was involved in various projects, including Direct from Account™, Westpac Exchange™ and Westpac One®.
The server-side development environment was Java, while the client-side was built using a variety of JavaScript technologies and frameworks, most notably Backbone, Marionette, Underscore, RequireJS, AngularJS, SCSS, and, during development, Node.js.
Build and Testing tools included Grunt, Maven, Jenkins, JUnit, Cucumber, Jasmine and Karma.
Auckland, New Zealand
Senior Java Developer
I was employed as a Java Developer at EROAD, New Zealand’s leading transport technology and services company. I worked in an Agile environment developing and unit testing enhancements, which involved user interfaces, web services and back-end integrations for EROAD’s cloud-based SaaS application.
The development environment was Java, and frameworks and technologies included Spring MVC, JSP, jQuery, RESTful web services over HTTP, JAX-WS/JAXB web services over SOAP, Hibernate and PostgreSQL.
I mainly functioned within the Tax and Localisation team, which included the GIS and mapping layer.
Accomplishments
I worked alongside members of the hardware team on the implementation of a RESTful JSON communication protocol over HTTP for the 2nd Generation Onboard Units.
Hamilton, New Zealand
Software Developer
I worked as a Software Developer at the New Zealand campus of Rockwell Automation. I functioned within an agile team developing user interface elements as well as web services and back-end integrations for a performance management platform (PPM) used in a variety of industries worldwide. The deployment of this multi-tier application consisted of Tomcat & JBoss on the Java EE technology stack.
The development environment was Java, utilising third-party technologies such as GWT, to deliver a rich user experience.
Accomplishments
I was involved in a major overhaul of the UI for the PPM System, which, amongst other tasks, included the implementation of a WYSIWYG editor inside GWT. I worked with my team in New Zealand alongside teams in the US and China to rebuild the data collection component.
Quirk
Cape Town, South Africa
Software Engineer
I worked as a Software Engineer at the Cape Town office of Quirk developing Java (Java EE) web-based applications to client specifications within specified deadlines. Projects included SEO optimised websites and mobile websites, custom-built CMS solutions, Facebook Applications, integrations with Twitter and other 3rd party APIs, RSS Feeds (both generating and parsing).
The development environment was Java, utilising the MVC WebWork framework and Freemarker Template engine, backed by Spring, MySQL and Hibernate.
Other duties included the maintenance and support of existing applications, interfacing with clients regularly for presentations and training, the compilation of client-facing documentation, where required and performing on-call server monitoring.
Accomplishments
I integrated an open-source mobile framework (WURFL) into the Quirk software stack, which enabled the development of mobile client solutions. I converted Google’s server-side JSP tracking code to fit into the Quirk stack and WebWork framework.
I developed a live tracking solution of a colleague’s mountain bike race via GPS, Vodacom API and Google Maps API.
Cellsmart
Cape Town, South Africa
Java Developer
I worked as part of a team that developed Java ME applications for embedded systems. I was also involved with the server-side software and mobile sites supporting the download and installation thereof. Other duties included the maintenance of existing software.
South African Airways
Cape Town & Johannesburg, South Africa
Flight Attendant
Education
Cape Town, South Africa
Certificate in Information Systems
Java SE/EE;
Linux Red Hat;
Processing and Logic concepts;
Program Design;
Software Engineering;
Relational Database & Modelling Design;
SQL Server 2000;
Linux Administration;
