{"about":"Structured data for Jolyon Brown's personal site. Generated by Hugo from the same files as the website.","administeria":[{"note":"Multiple tutorials during early adoption","topic":"Docker","year":2014},{"note":"Four articles on cloud infrastructure","topic":"OpenStack","year":2014},{"note":"Two-part series, one year after the Kubernetes release","topic":"Kubernetes","year":2015},{"note":"Three-part cloud automation series","topic":"AWS / Ansible","year":2015},{"note":"In-depth observability platform guide (2015-2016)","topic":"ELK Stack","year":2015},{"note":"Early coverage of what's now the standard monitoring solution","topic":"Prometheus","year":2016}],"education":[{"dates":"1991 - 1994","institution":"University of Liverpool","qualification":"BSc Computer Science"}],"experience":[{"dates":"2026 - Present","highlights":["Built the platform's MCP integration layers, connecting Fusion to codebases, project management tools (Jira, Linear, GitHub Issues) and other MCP-compatible services","Implemented agent workflows on AWS Bedrock AgentCore with human-in-the-loop approval gates - the controlled, auditable execution that production and regulated environments need","Built out the platform's authentication (Google and Microsoft OAuth sign-in), strengthening access control for enterprise deployment"],"org":"Enablis","role":"Consulting Engineer, Fusion","summary":"Augmented a small team building Fusion, Enablis's agentic AI orchestration platform, implementing the AgentCore-based system using Claude Code and Codex.","tech":["AWS Bedrock AgentCore","MCP","OAuth","Claude Code","Codex"],"via":"Limilo Ltd"},{"dates":"2014 - Present","highlights":["Tech Lead of a team building the next generation of healthcare worker APIs","Production operations and incident response for an identity and access management system that serves the entire NHS and cannot go down","24/7 on-call, working across both infrastructure and application layers at national scale"],"org":"NHS England (formerly NHS Digital)","role":"Platform Engineer \u0026 Tech Lead","summary":"Senior platform engineer on national healthcare identity and access management infrastructure. Ten years on the same critical system through three different consultancies. Started with on-premise Linux, Ansible and Microsoft SCVMM, migrated to AWS in 2021, and now work on both the AWS production system and its Azure-based replacement.","tech":["AWS (EC2","ECS","RDS","API Gateway","Elasticache)","Azure","Linux","Python","Ansible","Kubernetes","HAProxy","LDAP"],"via":"Infinity Works (2014-2020), Mastek (2020-2022), BJSS/CGI (2022-present)"},{"dates":"Sept 2011 - Present","highlights":["Filter Integrity Limited (2020-present): infrastructure and web hosting support","Evince Technology (2019-2023): production support for critical Linux systems","Cendyn/RoundTableHQ (2014-2020): data centre migrations, AWS infrastructure, Chef automation, MySQL admin, PCI compliance, Ruby on Rails platform support","Future Publishing (2014-2017): technical author of Linux Format magazine's monthly Administeria column"],"org":"Limilo Ltd","role":"Founder \u0026 Director","summary":"My consultancy, providing platform engineering and agentic AI development to clients across healthcare and finance."},{"dates":"Sept 2008 - May 2014","highlights":["Infrastructure Solutions Designer (2012-2014): technical solutions and infrastructure design for client projects. Led design of the FICO anti-fraud platform, deployed in Brazil. Internal presentations on DevOps and OpenStack","Unix Team Leader (2010-2012): led the Unix team supporting global payment processing (Linux, AIX, Oracle) - production support, code releases, PCI audit compliance, capacity planning, 24x7x365 on-call with customers across multiple continents","Senior Server Technician (2008-2010): prepaid card payment processing platform (Linux/JBoss/DB2). Involved in the O2 payment card launch","Certifications: ITIL Service Management, Project Management, Systems Design"],"location":"Knaresborough","org":"TSYS","role":"Senior Server Technician → Unix Team Leader → Infrastructure Solutions Designer","summary":"Payment processing infrastructure in a heavily regulated financial services environment. Progressed from Senior Server Technician to Team Lead to Infrastructure Designer over nearly six years."},{"dates":"Sept 1999 - Sept 2008","highlights":["Led migration of the Intelligent Finance platform from Sun E10K to HP Superdomes with HA clustering and full site resilience (2008)","Implemented the esure insurance platform with automatic failover using dark fibre between data centres","Consolidated Oracle Financials onto POWER 5/AIX infrastructure","Built secure e-commerce infrastructure for multiple hosted brands","Apache/SSL, WebLogic and high-availability architecture"],"location":"Leeds","org":"HBOS","role":"Senior Technical Infrastructure Developer","summary":"Nine years on the Unix technical support team providing 24x7 third-level support for banking infrastructure. Joined as a junior administrator, left as a senior technical expert - the person they called when things got complicated."},{"dates":"Aug 1995 - Aug 1999","org":"Century Inns PLC","role":"IT Manager","summary":"Joined as part of a graduate work programme to help implement new accounting systems. Became IT Manager with three direct reports. Implemented electronic invoicing (EDI) and led a £1M+ EPOS rollout to the company's pubs and hotels."}],"fit_examples":[{"assessment":"I've built MCP integration layers and AgentCore workflows with human-in-the-loop approval gates on Fusion, and I've spent thirty years being dropped into unfamiliar, regulated environments - banking, payments, the NHS - and making things work.","heading":"Strong match - this is the job I'm doing now","role":"Forward Deployed Engineer at an AI platform company, embedded with enterprise customers in regulated industries, building agent and MCP integrations.","verdict":"strong"},{"assessment":"Ten years on NHS critical infrastructure, deep AWS and Kubernetes experience, comfortable with on-call, and I use Python daily.","heading":"Strong match - let's talk","role":"Senior Platform Engineer at a healthtech company. AWS, Kubernetes, on-call experience required, Python preferred.","verdict":"strong"},{"assessment":"My entire career has been B2B infrastructure. I understand consumer patterns intellectually but haven't shipped consumer products. The API architecture work transfers; growth and experimentation isn't my wheelhouse.","heading":"Probably not your person","role":"Head of Product, consumer mobile app. Deep mobile experience and a growth/experimentation background required.","verdict":"weak"}],"generated":"2026-10-27T00:26:17Z","plan":{"text":"Currently:\n  * Building MCP integrations and agent workflows on Fusion, Enablis's\n    agentic AI platform (AWS Bedrock AgentCore)\n  * Tech Lead on the next generation of NHS healthcare worker APIs\n  * Rebuilt this site. The AI chatbot has gone - there's an MCP server\n    instead, so you can point your own agent at my CV\n\nTinkering:\n  * Trackballs. Still threatening to build my own; trying kits first\n\nReading:\n  * Notes on what I've read go up as I get round to them","updated":"2026-10-20"},"posts":[{"date":"2026-02-23","summary":"Experimenting with making notes about books I read during the year. Fiction/Non-Fiction anyway, technical books may or may not make the list Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway Harkaway doing his Dad’s legacy proud I thought I had exhausted the George Smiley canon a while ago and was quite excited to …","tags":["books"],"title":"January 2026 Books","url":"https://jolyonbrown.com/posts/january-2026-books/"},{"date":"2026-02-16","summary":"I got properly nerd sniped by @elonmusk a couple of days ago. I’d been mulling over where the AI code writing trend might be heading and procrastinating on a half-finished essay draft for a couple of weeks. Then Elon summarised it in a single sentence and I kicked myself. “Code itself will go away …","tags":["ai","software"],"title":"The Last Human-Readable Layer","url":"https://jolyonbrown.com/posts/the-last-human-readable-layer/"},{"date":"2026-02-05","summary":"The following piece was submitted to The Spectator, January 2026 The feeling of renewal that comes with New Year often dissipates as the return to work hoves into view. January blues set in. This time around, though, I’ve been unable to shake an ennui not brought on by middle age, my daughter …","tags":["ai","writing"],"title":"Rejected magazine submissions #1","url":"https://jolyonbrown.com/posts/rejected-magazine-submissions-1/"},{"date":"2025-12-23","summary":"I saw quite a lot of comment on this job advertisement on LinkedIn by Galen Hunt, who is a distinguished engineer at Microsoft. 1 million lines? Surely not everyone said There was widespread derision on Twitter/X in response to this which I think is a bit unfair. Quite a lot of it seemed to be about …","tags":["ai","software"],"title":"1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code","url":"https://jolyonbrown.com/posts/1-engineer-1-month-1-million-lines-of-code/"},{"date":"2025-11-30","summary":"It used to be a given that every programmer would eventually end up writing their own compiler and language. I’m not quite there - yet - but I am at the point where I want to build my own peripherals - starting with a trackball. I’ve always liked them as an element of an interface. I think it harks …","tags":["hardware"],"title":"Hardware hankerings","url":"https://jolyonbrown.com/posts/hardware-hankerings/"},{"date":"2025-09-25","summary":"I’ve always had a problem of wanting to do to many things and having too many interests. Of course the advice and sensible thing to do is to realise what you can and can’t achieve and concentrate on one thing or a small number at most. Ideally you find your passion and go all in for a while. I’ve …","tags":["ai"],"title":"LLMs and me","url":"https://jolyonbrown.com/posts/llms-and-me/"}],"profile":{"contact":{"email":"jolyon@limilo.com","github":"https://github.com/jolyonbrown","linkedin":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jolyon-brown","website":"https://jolyonbrown.com"},"headline":"Forward Deployed Engineer","name":"Jolyon Brown","status":"Open to Forward Deployed Engineering \u0026 Agentic AI roles","summary":["An engineer with a DevOps background and thirty years of production operations experience across banking, healthcare, and payment systems. A natural tinkerer, I stay close to the leading edge of AI tooling - constantly trying new things out, building prototypes, and turning experiments into things that ship.","My career has spanned every scale, from founding my own consultancy to national critical infrastructure at NHS England, HBOS, and TSYS. I've led Unix teams and designed anti-fraud and payment architectures, but most of it has come down to the same thing: being dropped into something unfamiliar and making it work.","Most recently I've been a consulting engineer on Fusion (Enablis's agentic AI orchestration platform, built on AWS Bedrock AgentCore), where I built out the platform's MCP integration layers, and Tech Lead of a team building the next generation of healthcare worker APIs.","Much of my career has been in security-critical, regulated environments: secure banking infrastructure, PCI-compliant payment design, and identity and access management at NHS England."],"tagline":"Thirty years of production operations, now building agentic AI that ships."},"projects":[{"links":[{"title":"How to connect","url":"/cv/#ask-your-agent"}],"name":"MCP server for this site","status":"shipped","summary":"Replaced the AI chatbot on my CV with a read-only MCP server. Point your own agent at it and ask whatever you like - it reads the same data as this site, costs me nothing to run, and there's nothing to jailbreak.","year":2026},{"links":[{"title":"Source","url":"https://github.com/jolyonbrown/jolyonbrown.github.io"}],"name":".plan","status":"ongoing","summary":"This site. Moved off Ghost onto Hugo and GitHub Pages, then rebuilt around the idea of a Unix .plan file. Try `curl jolyonbrown.com/.plan`.","year":2025},{"links":[{"title":"Hardware hankerings","url":"/posts/hardware-hankerings/"}],"name":"Custom trackball","status":"idea","summary":"My thumb has had enough of the MX Ergo. Plan is to try a few DIY kits (Ploopy Adept, Nano 2, efog Endgame) and then design my own from the ground up.","year":2025},{"links":[{"title":"Bluesky","url":"https://bsky.app/profile/presidencyprogress.bsky.social"},{"title":"LLMs and me","url":"/posts/llms-and-me/"}],"name":"presidencyprogress bot","status":"shipped","summary":"A silly little Bluesky bot, written in a language I wanted to learn. One of the backlog projects that only exists because LLMs removed the initial friction.","year":2025},{"links":[{"title":"January 2026","url":"/posts/january-2026-books/"}],"name":"Reading notes","status":"ongoing","summary":"Short notes on the books I read through the year. Technical books may or may not make the list.","year":2026}],"publications":[{"dates":"2014 - 2017","summary":"Monthly sysadmin column for the UK's best-selling Linux magazine.","title":"Linux Format magazine - \"Administeria\" column","url":"/administeria/"}],"self_assessment":{"gaps":["Frontend development - haven't done it professionally","Traditional enterprise Unix (Oracle, AIX, WebLogic) - knew it well once, rusty now","Java - can read it, wouldn't claim to write production Java","Rust / Zig - hobbyist interest only","Consumer and mobile products - my whole career has been B2B and infrastructure"],"moderate":["Databases (operational, not a DBA)","Chef / Ansible","ML model development (I work on the infrastructure and applied agents, not training models)"],"strong":["Agentic AI (Bedrock AgentCore, MCP, Claude Code, Codex)","Production infrastructure \u0026 operations","AWS / Azure / Terraform","Kubernetes / Docker / ECS","Python (APIs, automation, tooling)","CI/CD \u0026 GitOps","Security \u0026 compliance (IAM/LDAP, PCI-DSS)","Incident response \u0026 on-call","Technical writing"]},"site":"https://jolyonbrown.com/","skills":[{"area":"Agentic AI","items":["AWS Bedrock AgentCore","MCP (server \u0026 integration design)","Claude Code","Codex","Agentic workflow design"]},{"area":"Cloud \u0026 Infrastructure","items":["AWS","Azure","Terraform","HA architecture"]},{"area":"Security \u0026 Compliance","items":["Identity \u0026 access management (LDAP)","PCI-DSS audit compliance","Anti-fraud platform design","Secure infrastructure"]},{"area":"DevOps \u0026 Automation","items":["Ansible","Chef","CI/CD","GitOps","Infrastructure as Code"]},{"area":"Containers \u0026 Orchestration","items":["Docker","Kubernetes","ECS"]},{"area":"Observability","items":["Splunk","Prometheus","Performance analysis","Incident investigation"]},{"area":"Development","items":["Python","Bash","Git/GitHub"]},{"area":"Systems","items":["Linux","HAProxy","MySQL","PostgreSQL","HA clustering","24/7 production support"]}]}