I'm Martin - a Software Developer and AWS Consultant in Manchester.
Over two decades building for the web and beyond - from native apps and open source developer tools to cloud-native platforms on AWS. I work across the full stack, choosing the right tool for the job.
Background
In 2018, I co-founded Si Novi, where we offer focused development and consultancy services. We work with UI/UX designers to provide development support, and collaborate with internal development teams to provide expert consultancy and experience to new or growing teams. Si Novi is a member of the AWS Partner Network.
Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to work with some fantastic people and innovative technologies. One of the highlights was reaching #2 in the App Store (second only to Facebook Messenger) with the Telegraph Clearing app, which I produced from 2011 to 2017.
Working with AWS
I have worked extensively with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and hold both the AWS Certified Developer - Associate and AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certifications. My AWS experience spans from early EC2 and Elastic Beanstalk deployments through to modern infrastructure with ECS, CDK, Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, CloudFront, and WAF.
DynamoDB tools and open source
More recently, I've been building developer tools for the DynamoDB ecosystem. I created Dynoxide, an open source, embeddable DynamoDB engine written in Rust - and at Si Novi we're building Nubo, a native DynamoDB client for macOS, iPadOS, Windows and Linux. This work has taken me deep into Rust, which I now use for systems-level and native application development. I wrote about the motivation and technical details in the Dynoxide introduction.
The stack I reach for
Most of my production work runs on AWS - ECS Fargate or Lambda, depending on the job, usually with a web framework on top (React, or Laravel and Inertia). DynamoDB remains my default data store. It's all CDK-driven - I'd rather write infra as TypeScript than click around a console.
Writing and projects
I write occasionally about the things I'm building and the problems I'm solving - you can find those over in the journal, or browse the full project timeline.
Outside of work
I'm a husband and father of two. I coach two football teams, I'm a keen runner, and I enjoy listening to music.