Hey, I’m Paul
I’m a software development leader and platform engineer based in Brisbane, Australia. I lead the platform engineering team at VALD, where I’m responsible for the architecture and delivery of the systems that underpin VALD’s products.
I’ve been building software professionally for over 25 years, across healthcare, finance, government, mining, and construction in both the UK and Australia. For most of that time I worked as a consultant, which gave me exposure to a wide variety of architectures, team structures, and engineering cultures. That breadth of experience shapes how I approach problems today.
What I Write About
This blog is where I share practical, hands-on guides on the things I work with:
- .NET & C# - the ecosystem I’ve spent most of my career in
- SQL Server - from snapshots and backups to Docker Compose setups
- Azure - networking, containers, infrastructure, and architecture
- Docker & DevOps - making local development and CI/CD less painful
- Software engineering - architecture decisions, ADRs, team dynamics, and engineering leadership
I write the posts I wish I’d found when I was searching for answers myself. If they save someone else a few hours of trial and error, even better.
Credentials
I’m a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert with additional certifications in Azure networking and administration. I also hold Professional Scrum Master II certification.
I maintain the open-source Azure Event Grid Simulator, a local development tool for Azure Event Grid that’s used by developers who need to test event-driven architectures without deploying to the cloud.