What I do
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Hosting and data
Multi-server estates on AWS, sites behind Cloudflare, Linux administration, and databases tuned for the load they actually carry. Around that sits the work nobody notices until it's missing: backup and recovery, security hardening and cost, done so that a system keeps running for years rather than weeks.
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Joining systems together
Most businesses end up with several systems that were each the right choice at the time and were never designed to know about each other, so somebody re-keys the same data every week. I build the connections that take that job away, often against documentation that turns out to be optimistic. The part that matters is the unglamorous middle: the retries, the error handling and the check that notices when a sync quietly stopped.
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AI development
AI built inside the client's own AWS account and against their own data, so nothing goes to a third party unless they decide it should. The model is rarely the difficult part. What decides whether it works is the data layer underneath: what's actually there, what state it's in, and who is allowed to see it. That makes it a database problem at least as much as a model problem.
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Building with AI tools
I write most of my software with AI coding agents now, and that includes this site. Used carelessly, that produces code nobody understands. The way I use it, code changes go through a branch and a pull request, and the rules that matter are written down as checks that fail the build: tests, secret scanning, accessibility and house style. That's what lets me build and run more than I could by hand, without losing track of what the code does.
Background
Systems since 1988
I've worked with databases since 1988 and with Unix since 1990. My first client website went live in 1996 and I still manage it, and since 2000 I've looked after the hosting behind a training platform that has served more than 150,000 students. Dalaric Limited has been the company behind that work since 2009.
The tools are AWS and Cloudflare now rather than a modem and a Unix box, but the job is the one it always was: understand the system properly, build it so it doesn't fall over, and be there when something changes.
Work with me
Through Dalaric
I take on work through Dalaric Limited, my company. Tell me what you need and I'll say whether I'm the right person for it.
Get in touch