The short of it
I started in IT more than eighteen years ago and never stopped getting my hands dirty. Some people move up and away from the work; I moved deeper into it. Today I run Alien IT Solutions and a small family of related ventures, and I still spend my days doing the actual job, designing networks, racking hardware, wiring cloud, writing code and chasing down the faults nobody else wants.
What ties it all together is a simple idea: technology should earn its keep. It should make things genuinely easier, more reliable and more secure for the people who depend on it, not just look impressive in a quote. Everything I build is measured against that.
From the physical layer to the application layer
Most people in this industry pick a lane. They're a network person, or a cloud person, or a developer, and they hand off everything outside their slice. I never wanted to work that way, because the seams between those slices are exactly where projects go wrong, the cable nobody terminated properly, the firewall rule that didn't match the application, the backup that was never actually tested.
So I learned the whole stack, and I keep it current. On a single project I might:
- map a site and design the network and Wi-Fi for how the building is actually used;
- run and terminate the cable, mount the access points and rack the gear;
- configure switches, routers, firewalls, internet and VoIP;
- stand up servers and storage, on-premises or in a data centre;
- deploy and secure the cloud and hosting that sits behind it;
- install CCTV and physical security and integrate it with the rest;
- and write the automation, integrations or bespoke software that makes the whole thing do something useful.
Then I keep it running. Owning the full stack means there are fewer hand-offs, fewer finger-pointing matches when something breaks, and one person who can actually see the whole picture and is accountable for it.
What I believe about doing the work
I have a small set of principles I actually run my businesses on. They're plain on purpose.
I keep my word. If I commit to something, it happens, and if circumstances change, you'll hear about it from me before it becomes a problem. A reputation is built one honoured commitment at a time, and I'd rather have that than a bigger client list.
Fairness comes first. Honest pricing, honest scope, plain explanations. I won't dress up a job to inflate it, and I won't charge people for the privilege of not understanding what they bought. If a cheaper or simpler option is the right one, I'll tell you.
Evidence over hand-waving. I believe in proof. If something works, I can show you why; if something failed, I can show you what happened, when, and how it's been fixed. Logs, measurements and reproducible results beat confident opinions every time, and they're how you actually earn trust.
Persistence. The interesting problems are the stubborn ones. I don't abandon a fault because it's awkward or because the easy explanation is convenient. I chase it down to root cause, because a problem you only half-understand is a problem that comes back.
Built for the long run. I build for the customer's benefit measured in years, not for the quick sale this week. The right solution is the one that's still the right solution next year, sturdy, maintainable, and yours to keep rather than a hook to keep you dependent.
If I can't stand behind it a year from now, it isn't finished.
Working at the edge of what's possible
The other half of how I work is staying genuinely hands-on with emerging technology, not as a buzzword, but as something I actually deploy. That curiosity is what keeps the core work sharp.
I work with LoRa and IoT sensing to put eyes on things that used to need a person, water levels, environmental conditions, the state of remote equipment. I build long-range wireless and point-to-point links to carry connectivity across kilometres of open country, and I set up Starlink for the properties the big carriers have written off. I do home and property automation and self-hosting for people who want to own their own infrastructure rather than rent it. And I work with AI agents and automation to take the repetitive, error-prone work off people's plates.
These aren't separate hobbies, they feed directly back into the everyday work. The same skills that get a sensor reporting from a paddock with no signal are the skills that make a business network resilient.
Who I work with
In Sydney, I work with businesses that want one capable team across all of their IT rather than a different vendor for every problem, managed IT, networks, internet and phone, cloud, security and the software that ties it together. Beyond the city, I work with rural and remote properties, farms and event organisers who need connectivity, monitoring and emergency IT in places the mainstream providers simply don't reach.
Different settings, same approach: understand the real problem, build the honest solution, prove it works, and stand behind it.