Career Profile

I have spent my career working with and building software based solutions. There have been many different challenges faced as I have explored a number of industries including - Biotech, Financial Services, Membership Management, eCommerce, Event Registration, Real Estate and Wagering. All have the following aspects in common:

  • Security
  • Performance
  • Governance
  • Scalability

Most importantly a focus on customer delivery whether that be internal or external.

Experiences

Senior Cloud Architect

Feb 2019 - Current
National Australia Bank, Melbourne - Australia

Helped lead Australia’s most technologically progressive Bank to not only shift to the cloud but to embrace the cloud. Inclusive of the 3 major cloud vendors including AWS, Azure and GCP the technology stack is broad varied. Designed systems to provide automated and repeatable software at use within the bank. ( Watch the video: <a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll50dAiKPoI” target=”_blank>Here</a> )

  • AWS Community of practice organiser
  • Facilitated NAB’s internal “Learn 2 Code” program
  • Mentor developers and architects
  • Build Proof of Concept architectures

Digital Platform Architect

July 2017 - Feb 2019
MLC Life Insurance, Melbourne - Australia

Worked in a highly skilled agile team to support and bring to life new and modern products, technology and innovation to Life Insurance in Australia. Building with AWS and Azure Cloud providers.

  • Implemented MLC Life Insurance’s first product to be placed in market with Salesforce CRM
  • Led discovery to AWS within the enterprise
  • Hackathon winner 2017 and 2018 - Best use of Technology
  • Mentored the development team
  • Led the integration between Digital channels and Policy Adminstration Systems

Technical Team Lead / Principal Engineer

April 2016 - July 2017
BetEasy ( CrownBet ), Melbourne - Australia

Leading a progressive team of developers servicing tens of thousands of wagering clients on Australia’s number one racing and sports betting platform, constantly revising architecture, technologies, infrastructure with a heavy focus on front end performance.

  • 100% AWS Infrastructure
  • Solution design and implementation
  • Worked with head of architecture to design “Target State Architecture”
  • Designed, implemented and ported existing legacy BackBone and PHP to ReactJS and C# microservices
  • Mentored the development team
  • Senior API designer
  • CI/CD Pipeline designer and implementer
  • DevOps and Automation
  • Ansible

Senior Application Developer

April 2014 - April 2016
Console Group ( On The House ), Melbourne - Australia

Working in a highly skilled agile team to support and bring to life new modern Products, Technology and Innovation to Life Insurance in Australia. Building with AWS and Azure Cloud providers.

  • Brought on to port Legacy Real Estate CMS to modern architecture ( reactJS )
  • Built Property Management Portal in C# and ReactJS
  • High level system design and architecture
  • Melbourne Techlead
  • CI/CD Implementaion
  • Introduced the AWS ecosystem working with Lambda, RDS, S3, Elastic Beanstalk, Docker and ELK
  • DevOps and Automation

Chief Technical Officer

Sep 2011 - May 2014
SportsTG ( IMG Sports Technology Group ), Melbourne - Australia

Managed all aspects of Technology and Communications Managed a team of Developers, Designers and Software Testers ( QA ) Specialised in high performance high traffic web based Event and Membership Management software for some of Australia’s top organisations including AFL, NBL, NRL, Little Athletics, Cycling Australia and the RSL. eCommerce and payment integration - processing credit card transactions on average every 10 seconds 24 hours a day.

  • Promoted from Technology Lead to CTO

Senior Analyst Programmer / Technical Lead

May 2009 - Sep 2011
CogState, New Haven CT - USA

Responsible for system architecture and design. Extended CogState’s USA capability in satellite office. Code in:

  • Microsoft C#
  • Adobe ColdFusion
  • Apache Flex
  • Microsoft SQL server
  • HMTL / CSS

Analyst Programmer

Sep 2007 - May 2009
CogState, Melbourne - Australia

Responsible for delivery of CogState core software offering. Code in:

  • Adobe ColdFusion
  • Apache Flex
  • Microsoft SQL server
  • HMTL / CSS

Software Test Analyst

May 2006 - Sep 2007
CogState, Melbourne - Australia

Responsible for all Software testing and validation lifecycle. Hired and upskilled USA office Testing Staff.

  • Configuration of software
  • Automation Testing
  • Manual Testing
  • Load Testing

Network Administrator / Intranet Administrator

Jan 2005 - May 2006
St Monica's College, Melbourne - Australia

System administrator for a progressive Secondary College, one of the first schools in Victoria to roll out a fully wireless campus

  • Migrated systems to virtual environments
  • Managed a wired and wireless network of ~1700 machines
  • Implemented the wireless network infrastructure to a previously non-wireless campus
  • Managed multiple Windows and Linux servers
  • Maintained and managed intranet ( classic asp ).
  • Designed and produced several accounting/finance based tools in C#

Technical Support

Jan 2004 - Jan 2005
ANZ, Melbourne - Australia

System adminsitrator for a progressive Secondary College, one of the first Schhols in Victoria to role out a fully wireless campus

  • Configureation and setup of Multimedia equipment
  • Video conferencing over Dual ISDN link
  • Technical Support for executive level
  • Ensuring correct operation of multimedia devices including data projectors, telephone lines, network connections, video conferencing, audio conferencing, sound and visual setup)

Community

Co-owner and host of DevCOP Melbourne, Melbourne Developer Meetup ( bi-weekly ) Assistant in AWS Programming and Tools meetup Co-Host Melbourne DeepRacer Nights meetup

Tech Mentoring - Are you in Melbourne and need mentoring/coaching. I provide technology based mentorship and advice. Let's catchup for a coffee
Product / Technology Consulting - I am also available for product/technology consultation, this can be in person, via phone or Zoom meeting request.
Melbourne AWS Programming and Tools meetup - Co-organiser - We organise hands on workshops of AWS services in our meetups. We concentrate on serverless development. Main areas of interest are Mobile development/engagement as well as IoT (Internet of Things) platforms and analytics.
DevCOP Meetup - { Dev : CoP } is the Developer Community of Practice in Melbourne. We meet regularly to discuss important issues around software development, in all contexts! We are a group of people who are enthusiastic about software development and technology. We often meet for breakfast, where we have lean-coffee talks and casual discussions.

Publications

DeepRacer and AI at National Australia Bank
Paul Kukiel & Chris Rhodes
Standardization of pitch range settings in voice acoustic analysis
Adam Vogel, Paul Maruff
My Blog
Paul Kukiel
Devops?
Paul Kukiel