Hi, I'm Matt, a Sydney-born product-focused Full-Stack software engineer based in Seattle, Washington, USA. I build open-source tools, develop production applications, and share insights about software engineering. Explore my projects, articles, and the things I've been working on.
Deep dives into software engineering, open-source tools, and lessons learned from building real products. Don't forget to check out my projectstoo.
Kubernetes;Self Hosting;Devops
Background Back in 2023, I wrote about my cloud-agnostic MongoDB backup solution using Kubernetes CronJobs. It's been running reliably ever since, backing up my home lab MongoDB instances to MinIO. Recently, I enabled TLS on my MongoDB clusters to…
Engineering
Why I Built ts-runtime-validation After years of wrestling with TypeScript's disappearing type safety at runtime, I built ts-runtime-validation to solve a problem that kept frustrating me: why should I rewrite all my TypeScript interfaces just to…
Startups
Context behind the project and my past experience At the beginning of 2025, I launched my B2C visa tool, DS160.io, using seven different strategies. Here’s how each of them performed. For context I am an startup-focused software engineer by trade…
Startups
New Project Hi everyone, I'm sharing a project I've been working on called DS-160 Form Pilot. It was originally something I built for myself and some of my other expat friends since I’ve had to fill out around 6 of these over the last 8 years (I…
Software Engineering
About the project In my day job, one of the most interesting projects I’ve worked on is the document parsing and extraction engine, informally known as the “document center.” This engine processes various types of scanned or photographed documents…
Startups
The customer request Recently in my day job, we received a request from one of our enterprise customers to integrate Single Sign-On (SSO) into our product. The customer was already utilizing Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Entra ID) as their…
Startups
Background Last week, my employer made its debut as an exhibitor at the AICPA conference in Las Vegas. Up until now, we have been diligently working behind the scenes, iterating on our core products in collaboration with our accounting firm partners…
Self Hosting;
Imagine you're an executive at a fast-growing startup, scrambling to prepare for an imminent board meeting. As usual, you forgot to prepare, and the calendar alert just reminded you 30 minutes before the meeting starts. In a panic, you quickly…
Self Hosting;
What are LLM Context Limits and How to Overcome Them? LLMs like GPT have changed how we think about AI, providing insights and generating text based on the context provided by extensive training data. However, these models have a limitation known as…
AI,LLM,Startups
Introduction: The Task As a founding engineer at Truewind (YC 23) - AI powered accounting software, I was tasked with developing a proof of concept (POC) for a public company. The project involved creating a chat assistant that leverages a collection…
Self Hosting,Devops
Background In a home server setup with multiple nodes, streamlined management is essential. Enterprise-grade solutions like iDRAC offer advanced remote management features, but these simply don't exist in consumer-grade servers. This absence made…
Self Hosting;
Some of you know I run a YouTube channel covering on premises hosting and homelab. Over time, my raw video footage has really grown in size, now exceeding a whopping 4 Terabytes. To manage this deluge of data, I recently embarked on a mission to…
Kubernetes;Self Hosting; Software Engineering
The Problem: The High Cost of Cloud Computing and non-existent inventory As the administrator of Headbot, a generative AI project that creates personalised AI avatars, I found myself grappling with the exorbitant costs and limitations of cloud-based…
Software Engineering
The Problem Software, akin to a car, depends on components (dependencies) that require consistent upkeep. Unlike a car, though, software must often be updated without interruption, a process comparable to performing maintenance on a car engine while…
Kubernetes;Self Hosting
Background Last weekend, my home Kubernetes cluster blew up. I was running a 6-node cluster for some extensive workloads for coderone (ai game tournament) and headbot (generative ai avatars), and suddenly, things went south. Here's my journey from…
Kubernetes;Self Hosting; Devops
The Problem I've been managing production services in my home lab, including running manual backups. This weekend, I decided to automate backups for my MongoDB in Kubernetes. This would not only save me time and protect my data but also offer me an…
Computer Science
Introduction This article is about end-to-end encryption and more specifically “secure key exchange”. You use it all the time, including to read this article. It’s used in the secure launch of a nuclear strike, in the banking system or even when you…
Kubernetes;Self Hosting; Software Engineering
Introduction I've created this tutorial especially for those who might not consider themselves to be too technical—marketers, salespeople, recruiters—really, anyone who's ever dreamed of having their own website. You won't need to navigate technical…
Engineering
Problem As some of you may know I’ve been running my in-home on premises server for the last 6 years. Originally that was accomplished through a single-node micro k8s kubernetes cluster. However due to increased workloads I had to expand to a multi…
