About Me
Hi! I'm Billy, an IT infrastructure engineer by trade and a tinkerer at heart. I'm interested in building tools that make technology more accessible and delightful to use.
Bio
My current interests revolve around:
- Building with Python and modern web technologies
- Exploring practical applications of Large Language Models
- Creating developer tools and automation solutions
On this site, I share my experiences, insights, and occasional deep dives into technical topics that interest me. You'll find articles about software development, machine learning projects, and various other experiments.
Feel free to reach out if you'd like to discuss technology, collaboration opportunities, or just want to say hello!
Experience
Aug 2023 · Present
IT Infrastructure Engineer / Platform Operations Engineer
Dotdigital
Engineered and managed a hybrid infrastructure on Azure, with a strong focus on Kubernetes (AKS) and platform automation. Key contributions include developing a Python dashboard to automate support tasks, optimizing AKS cluster scaling with custom metrics analysis, and managing infrastructure-as-code using YAML, ARM, and PowerShell. Spearheaded AI integration by fine-tuning and deploying LLM, embedding, and TTS models in Azure AI Studio, and building RAG applications with function-calling capabilities to query internal systems. Responsible for monitoring (Grafana, Site24x7), security, and Linux administration.
Jul 2022 · Jul 2023
IT Infrastructure Engineer
Capita Translation & Interpreting / LanguageLine UK
Managed and optimized a multi-cloud environment (Azure/AWS), achieving a £2,000/month cost reduction through strategic audits and resource management. Led a critical 5TB data migration to Azure and a company-wide laptop fleet upgrade. Significantly improved performance for the File Engineering team by implementing a new VM solution, resulting in a 6x performance boost. Handled 3rd line support, quarterly security patching, CVE resolutions, and developed custom RMM components.
Apr 2022 · Jul 2022
Azure DevOps Engineer
Revolent
Completed an intensive, hands-on training program focused on Azure cloud infrastructure and DevOps practices. Gained practical experience in deploying VMs and web apps, configuring virtual networks (vNETs) and security groups (NSGs), and building CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps. Worked with C# (ASP.NET) and passed the AZ-900 certification with a score of 88%.
Apr 2019 · Apr 2022
Bioinformatics Technician
Yourgene Health
Provided essential 1st and 2nd line support for critical Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) data pipelines. Developed a full-stack Flask web application with a Celery/Redis backend to provide a user-friendly interface for an in-house pipeline. Automated data analysis and reporting using Python, R, and Bash, and managed the archival of terabytes of scientific data to LTO tapes. Engineered a multilingual reporting system using XML/XSLT to serve clients in over 10 languages.
Oct 2016 · Apr 2019
QC Technician
Yourgene Health
Conducted Quality Control testing on CE-IVD medical device components using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies. Developed automation scripts for laboratory platforms and performed data analysis using Python and R, laying the foundation for a transition into a technical role.
Let's Connect
If you want to stay up to date with my work be sure to follow me on twitter, or you can send me an email and I'll be sure to get back to you.