Hi, I’m Nicholas Faiz.

I occasionally blog at Quizzical.

I’ve been programming commercially since 2000.

I enjoy building things with code and other people. I have stayed hands on while I’ve taken on architectural and leadership responsibilities.

I’ve worked in fintech (LeavePlus, EightCap, ANZ), government (Department of Agriculture), media (Newscorp), gambling (Betfair, Tabcorp), the Australian research sector (Australia Data Archives, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Data Archive) and other sectors. Earlier roles saw me at Johnson & Johnson Medical, Corporate Express (renamed Staples, later acquired by Winq) and Atlassian. I have worked in startups in Australia and the USA.

Here’s my github. I’m a polyglot. There’s a particular appeal in learning different ways to express and solve problems. Commercially I am pragmatic, building something that adheres to principles of simplicity has its own appeal. You’ll find recent code in Python, Node, Go and Rust as well as other languages from earlier moments (Ruby, Clojure, Elixir, Java). You’ll also find open source projects I have created and contributed to here.

I have presented at meetups for Node, Ruby, Go, Erlang and general engineering groups.

I maintain Faizn Software Pty Ltd for consulting and contracting with clients.

I’ve been building a series of skills around agentic coding to create a full product of my own, in the roleplaying (as in D&D) space. This has mostly been to produce something I would enjoy using - disengaging from rushing something - but has also been to understand the evolving role of the programmer coordinating agents to build an entire product singlehandedly. I imagine I’ll be blogging about this at some stage in the near future when an MVP arrives.

I’m settled in Melbourne CBD, though I occasionally work in Sydney. I have had some brief working stints in the USA.