Who am I?

About Me

I always find the notion of discussing oneself on the internet remarkably peculiar. I guess part of me feels it’s a betrayal of the age-old adage of “Don’t talk to strangers”, which, I suppose some visitors to this site may well be. On the one hand, I don’t like the fog of anonymity that clouds the internet, I feel it gives way to toxicity as a result of the lack of accountability, but, then again, out here there be dragons, so the masks people don are sometimes a worthwhile safety precaution. In any case, understanding someone’s background is often paramount in understanding their views, and given some of those might be portrayed in posts to come, here goes.

On the day of writing this, I’m 23 years old. Coincidentally, on my birthday this year, my mother pointedly remarked that my grandfather got married at my age. I work as a Software Developer, based in Cape Town, South Africa. I grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe - during a time that might soon be only a memory - the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe.

Education

I attended preparatory school in Harare, and moved to South Africa for high school, where I attended a boarding school in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal.

My home, for the years 2007-2011

An aerial shot of the high school I attended.

I found high school remarkably difficult. Not for any reason other than not really fitting in. In a school of only boys, all of whom are pretty much about to go through puberty, or have just finished going through it and are about to leave the school, physical dominance is paramount. It’s curious how primal and instinctually we made decisions - the social interactions weren’t unlike those you see of animals in Kruger National Park. I started school as one of the smallest and cockiest boys in my year. Things were always going to be tricky, and the outlooks of 12 year old me didn’t make things any easier. It goes without saying then, I learnt a lot about myself and my character, I know what got me in trouble, and what got me out of trouble. I learnt about what pushed my buttons, and what pushed others. I learnt what my limits were, I learnt when I should step back, and when I should step up, and how to tell a true friend from a friend. I learnt about loyalty, and respect, and, more importantly, how each of these are earned and maintained. I’ve always asseverated, I could have got a better academic foundation elsewhere, but I think I got the best education the world has to offer, in the walls and on the fields of Michaelhouse.

I attended the University of Cape Town, after high school. I studied Electrical and Computer Engineering, and still have problems with up and down resistors. Honestly, I found most of the electrical engineering courses extraordinarily difficult - my brain didn’t really process a lot of the content too happily, whereas many of my compatriots would simply ‘click’ in lectures. It’s no wonder I favoured the computing components of the course, with courses that dealt with programming piquing my interests most. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on building a control system for a networked multistatic radar in python.

University of Cape Town

One of the most beautiful campuses in the world, it was a privilege to attend this university.

Professional Career

During my time as a student, I worked for a brief period of about four months at a company called Aerosud, helping with prototype testing on their Reconnaissance Light Aircraft, AHRLAC. Here I was privileged to have some of the best mentorship I’ve ever had. Despite not speaking a word of Afrikaans in an office of almost only Afrikaans engineers, the people I worked with were cheerful and understanding, and always happy to help. My boss, Heinri Brink, gave me invaluable guidance on being a successful engineer through my time at Aerosud, perhaps with one of the first things he ever said to me being one of the most significant snippets of advice. He handed me a bunch of equipment to work with - none of which I had ever seen or used before. I said to him, “Heinri, I have no idea how any of this stuff works, I don’t know what I’m doing…”. He responded assuringly, “Look around the room. None of us know off hand how to do what we’re doing. It’s our job to figure it out.”

AHRLAC

The Advanced High Speed Reconnaissance Light Aircraft.

That’s stuck with me ever since, and I think about it every time I get a problem I can’t solve off hand at ZappiStore. Which brings us to current day!

I currently work as a software engineer at ZappiStore. The company is positioned in the automation of Market Research. I’ve worked in many teams during my time at Zappi, and have thus become a jack-of-all-repositories and master-of-none. This suits my style of thinking, as I can develop solutions best when I understanding things from the ground up. With a good breadth of knowledge of all the moving parts, and a good perspective of all the different systems we have in place, it makes architecting solid systems that will solve business problems much less of a hassle.

My roles and responsibilities have ranged during my tenure thus far at Zappi, but I have the luxury of working with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, in one of the coolest environments, with some really solid people to look up to and ask advice from. There’s no shortage of interesting problems to solve, and there’s something new to learn every day, and hopefully, I can convey some of these learnings from my day-day work, as well as my personal endeavours, to the broader public through this blog.

ZappiStore circa 2017

The company week away in the Bulgarian highlands in the Pirin region.

Other interests

There’s a good chance I’ll add some content with flavours inspired by other interests of mine. I’m an outdoorsy person, so hiking, trying to surf, and almost any sport are things you could catch me doing on the weekends.