:wave: Aloha, I'm Kit

Image of me throwing a shaka at the top of Mauna Kea

Iā€™m married with a baby girl, and two cats, one or both might appear on this site at some point! We live in North-East England.

I grew up in the countryside, which inspired my masters degree in Geoscience. My Digital journey started with networking learnt working in Oil & Gas before moving into Financial Services where I supported Cyber Security engagements.

I moved into a product role in the public sector at the end of 2019 starting in Networking, before moving into Microsoft 365 and now within Platform Engineering and Developer Tooling. Our product/s are internal - our users are primarily engineers.

:package: Internal Product Management

Being an internal product manager is tough, unlike customers who don't know what is possible, our users have an idea about what is possible. Our products are technical, and often 3rd party tools, so having deep knowledge of the product is challenging without engineering experience. Subsequently I spend more time growing my technical skills but this is an investment that will benefit me long term allowing better collaboration and conversations with users and stakeholders.

:loudspeaker: Public Sector

The public sector doesn't make profit or bring in revenue, but presents challenges around what's viable, often with an emphasis on fraud, error and debt.

Value in the public sector isn't if someone would buy or choose to use your product, it's the only product or service that meets a need, there's no competition. Value is provided by improving the lives of citizens - access to essential benefits, making it easy to file a tax return, getting a drivers license or passport.

:writing_hand: Blog

Read my blog for thoughts on:

  • Building a personal website
  • My projects
  • Product management
    • Internal
    • Public sector
  • Technology

:thinking: The purpose of my blog is to write my thoughts. Pretty simple, but both are critical skills. If it can help me engage interests, be more creative and learn new skills then I'll be happy. In the future who knows I might start a focussed blog or newsletter.

:mirror_ball: Fun

:soccer: Newcastle United! :raising_hand_man: was a hero of mine growing up.

:golf: I don't play or practice enough but there's something about the challenge of improving that I love.

:ski: Started skiing at 6 years old in Canada, also skied in Switzerland, Norway, France and Italy.

:video_game: I mainly play sport games, not played much since becoming a Dad and spending spare time on tech projects.

:call_me_hand: Hang Loose and Take Care

:eyeglasses: Thoughts and views expressed are my own