Hi there, I’m Will (He/Him)
I’m a Lead Software Engineer for the Mantel Group, based in Melbourne, Australia! My main focus is on Azure Development (So Functions, Container Apps, App Service) and Cloud Native technologies (such as Kubernetes, Dapr, KEDA etc.). My main programming language is C#, but I’m also learning how to use Golang and Python (reluctantly).
It’s fair to say that my background is a little mixed 😂 I started out life wanting to be a rugby player. So much so I moved all the way to Christchurch, New Zealand straight out of high school. After spending couple of years running into people bigger than me and surviving a couple of earthquakes, I went to university.
I moved up to Auckland, where I began studying Commerce at the University of Auckland. I intended to major in Economics and Finance, but after a particularly boring lecture I decided to change track. I opted for Information System and liked it so much I ended up continuing into postgraduate study, earning First-class honours 👨🎓
During my time at university, I decided to teach myself how to code 👨💻 I initially started with php 😱 but eventually moved onto JavaScript and C#. I also interned at Microsoft (As a Digital Marketing Intern helping our awesome Technical Evangelists) and a health company called Orion Health (Software Engineer). After graduating from postgraduate study, I worked for ASB Bank as a Graduate Engineer, moving up into a Software Engineer building banking applications on Azure, using Azure Functions, Event Hubs, Azure Cosmos DB and more (which was pretty tough considering New Zealand didn’t have a datacenter for Azure and the bank weren’t too keen on the idea of their data being stored offshore).
After 3 years of that, I decided to move to Datacom, where the environment was a little more liberating 😂 There, I worked with a couple of clients building some pretty cool Azure integration projects for them. I got to go a little deeper into the Functions world, as well as work with API Management, Azure SQL, App Configuration and Azure Cosmos DB. After 9 months (The majority of which we spent in lockdown 😑) I was lucky enough to be hired by Microsoft!
About a year into working at ASB, I was awarded a Microsoft MVP award in the Data Platform category (funny side note, I got my award on April 1st, so that was fun). I love learning and sharing my knowledge about Azure, specifically Azure Functions, Container Apps, Cosmos DB etc etc. and I’ve been very fortunate to be allowed to speak at a variety of conferences about these technologies.
⚡ Languages and Technologies
- (Programming languages): C#, JavaScript, Python, SQL, Terraform, Powershell, Bicep, Go.
- (Databases and Data Stores): Azure Cosmos DB (Table and SQL API), SQL Server, MongoDB, Azure Storage, Databricks.
- (Technologies): Azure, Git, GitHub, Visual Studio, Azure DevOps.
- (Other): API Design, Non-relational Database Design, Unit Testing (xUnit), Integration Testing (SpecFlow) & E2E Testing.