- 0minutes downtime
Led engineering teams through an infrastructure migration across multiple SaaS products, keeping every SLA.
- 3×traffic growth
Moved a delivery platform to an event-driven architecture that absorbed three times the load.
- 40%fewer deploy errors
Rebuilt GitOps tooling and automated deployments, cutting deployment friction and error rates.
Principal engineer
I build systems that scale, and teams that don't need me to.
I'm Chris, a principal engineer with eleven years of building SaaS products and the platforms under them. I set the technical direction for platforms that several teams build together, and I stay hands-on while I do it.
Selected results
What I'm good at
Direction you can follow
I set architecture, standards and repo structure, then write them down: C4 diagrams, specs before code, and a record of every key decision. Teams move faster when the reasoning is on the page.
Product and platform, end to end
From customer-facing features in Go, Node and TypeScript down to Kubernetes, service mesh and Terraform. I've shipped both sides, so I design them to fit together.
Migrations without drama
I've moved live products between platforms and architectures with zero downtime and SLAs intact, by planning with the teams who'll feel it and rolling out in steps you can undo.
Strong, independent teams
I hire well, mentor closely and use design reviews and deep dives to spread knowledge, so engineers own their features from idea to production.
Writing
The first article is on its way.
Words to work by
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
If— Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
Read the whole poem
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
Take a break
Eight classic logic puzzles you can play: balance scales, burning ropes, a river crossing and more.
Go to the games room →