Hello!

If this was my resume, or LinkedIn, or something else where it’d be semi-appropriate to talk about myself in the 3rd person, it would go something like this:-

With almost a quarter-century of experience in the site reliability and network security fields across the telecommunications and e-commerce industries, Andy Smith has seen it all – maybe not all all, but a lot to make him question reality on a regular basis. He currently works for a company that wakes people up in the middle of the night that you may have heard of. Originally from the north of England, he lives in Calgary, Alberta with his wife and two cats.

I’d describe myself as a jack of all trades, and definitely a master of none. I have enough knowledge in a wide range of things to be dangerous, though fortunately – for the most part, and sometimes through experience – enough to know what I don’t know.

I grew up in Doncaster in the north of England, and moved to Canada in 2012. I spent 7 years on the west coast in Victoria, BC before moving to Calgary in 2019. I have ADHD, which I wasn’t diagnosed with until my late 30s but explained a lot of things that I wish I’d figured out sooner.

I write a lot of Python. I write a lot less actually-useful Python. Coming from a systems administration background rather than a software development one means that other than a working knowledge of Perl, I didn’t have a lot of experience in writing code and I taught myself what (little) I know about software development later in my career – mostly thanks to Python. I’ve also spent a large part of my career around networking and network security, including stints as an actual network engineer for organisations that frankly should have known better.

I like to tinker with things. I had a habit as a child of taking things apart to see how they worked, but – much to the annoyance of my parents – not as much of a habit of putting them back together. Despite being a lifelong nerd, I’ve only recently started learning more about electronics. I have an amateur radio license both here in Canada (with the callsigns VE6LY, VE6CXZ and VE6HUE) and in the UK (M0VKG). If you’ve ever thought about introducing some excitement into your life, playing with something that can generate over a kilowatt of RF energy is a way to remind yourself how easy it is to blow yourself up¹.

I’m always happy to chat about things that I have experience in, both work-related and otherwise. I’m horrendous at replying to emails but I will try my best to do so.

Cheers,

Andy.
December 2025

1. no, seriously.