My career has never been linear — but there's always been a thread.
I started work at the tail end of the first digital revolution. Taking paper job sheets and turning them into full ERP systems in automotive supply chain. Building lab test software in Lotus Approach so nobody had to get up at 3am to run titrimetric analysis on the factory floor. Writing a full CRM in Access for the spares and components department because the data deserved a proper system. These were always my favourite parts of every job. It just never occurred to me that being a developer was a thing I could be — until it was the only option left.
In 2013 I fell out of a loft. The resulting infection took two years to run its course, collapsed the bone, and ended in an amputation. Recovery meant a part-time BI role at a local council — low-level work, the right pace. But reducing the medication that kept the pain manageable brought anxiety that made leaving the house impossible. I stopped working. For a while I thought that was it.
Then the pandemic happened. No commute required. Nowhere to be. I started teaching myself to code — and found my true calling. Not a pivot, not a reinvention. A recognition. I'd been doing this, in pieces, across twenty years of other jobs. It just took a global lockdown to make it the whole thing.
I'm based in Lincolnshire and work remotely. I'm a left-side Syme amputee with chronic pain conditions — remote is the environment where I do my best work. For the right role I can make occasional visits, but day-to-day I work from home, and in practice that's made me a better engineer: self-sufficient, strong written communicator, and I ship without anyone looking over my shoulder.
I'm excited to be here again. The same energy I felt watching job sheets become ERP systems — I feel it now watching prompts become pipelines. AppFactory is just the latest version of what I've always done: writing systems so I don't have to.
The Pippa project exists because I've been through the PIP system myself. I know how hard it is. That's not background context — it's the brief.
