Wanted: Intriguing Work Prospects

G’Day Everyone,

Despite the rather sudden nature of my availability – which was evidently due to my salary and a decline in engagement opportunities (doubtlessly caused by the current economic trends), I’m now starting to put  together a workable curriculum vitae and preparing for the inevitable trek towards gainful employment.

You might wonder why I’m blogging about this – after all it’s a rather personal statement to make..  Yes, it’s the “pimp myself blog post” 🙂

Well, for starters, I’d really like to consider the prospects available, but at the same time I’d really like to sell myself as a candidate for a good position (not just any position).

My interests are diverse and I’ve been known to travel and live/work overseas.  My wife and I are currently Brisbane (Australia) based (at minimum until March 2009) but that is a flexible option from my perspective.  For example, I’ve always dreamt of living and working in Europe or New York.

In any case.. Perhaps it is time to write a little more about me (for those who don’t know me well).

About Me

I’ve got a sales background (6 years in casual/part-time experience) coupled with over twelve years (going on lucky thirteen) commercial IT industry experience (3 years in IT support/Systems Administration and 9 years in software development) this means I like to talk, especially about technology (amongst many things).

Technical Background

When I started working with commercial software, it was in the Windows DNA architecture days.  Basically, my initial experience comes from the early IIS/MTS days with COM+/DCOM and VB/C++.  Over the past nine years I’ve gone from unmanaged C++ and scripting languages to the .Net Framework, Team Foundation Server and SQL Server (since SQL Server 7.0).

At this moment in time I’ve mostly caught up with the latest in cutting edge Microsoft technologies.  I’m across all of this year’s big product releases including SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 (inc Hyper-V) and the latest and greatest from Visual Studio 2008 SP 1 and the .Net Framework 3.5 (SP 1).

My experience has stretched to include “whatever has been necessary” to get the job done.  This has often lead me into (at times) very diverse directions including Microsoft BizTalk 2006, IIS, PHP, mySQL, Services for Unix, Windows Mobile and some linux flavours (Gentoo, Mandrake and Red Hat)- to name but a few.

I’ve had a mixed background split between product development (as an Engineer, Project Manager and Team Lead), consulting (as a Senior Consultant and Principle Consultant) and IT Professional (Administrator and System Builder).  In that time frame I’ve had a number of mentors and friends of notable influence whom I’m indebted to – you know who you are 🙂

Most recent work highlights include working on four major projects (2005 – 2007) within Microsoft Consulting Services (at Microsoft HQ (Australia) in North Ryde).  I’ve worked for startup companies, I’ve worked in the anti-virus industry and for a number of government departments, consulting companies and product development companies.

Community Presence and Notable Public Presentations in 2008

This year I’ve delivered four public presentations (and a few non-public presentations) in the Australian region.  The majority were well received and for the first time I delivered a presentation at Microsoft’s premiere technical conference, Tech.Ed (Australia) in the MSDN Chalk Talk lounge.