Jake Paine
Programmer / Engineer
Programmer first. Engineer by consequence.Birmingham, UK · building at Instiller

I like writing
the code.

I’m Jake Paine, a programmer and software engineer working across product development, Linux infrastructure, networks, security and developer tooling. I care about the whole system, but I still genuinely enjoy sitting down and writing the thing.

CURRENTLY

PHP · Go · Rust
Percona · Rocky Linux
Ansible · Bun · OpenCode

Commercial work for / with
Premier InnRicher SoundsPost OfficeIcelandCoca-ColaTrustpilotApteco
Selected work

Things I’ve
actually built.

Personal tools, operator software and product work. A preference for small systems with clear boundaries over architecture astronautics.

01Flagship / Rust / sandboxed code review

Caduceus

I architect and orchestrate Caduceus, a Rust daemon that reviews pull requests in a constrained OCI worker and turns labelled GitHub issues into bounded implementation runs. Scheduling, state, worktrees and GitHub operations stay outside the non-deterministic worker.

RustGitHubOCIHermes
02Infrastructure / Go / secrets tooling

Keyseal

A small Go CLI built to solve a real production problem: making SOPS, age and Git-backed secret workflows predictable. It handles encrypted-file lifecycle, validation, rendering and deploy-time secret injection without becoming another secrets platform.

GoSOPSageGitInfrastructure
03Product / SaaS

Barkway

A grooming-business platform built from an actual small operator's perspective: scheduling, clients, services, reminders, payments and the operational details that decide whether software is useful in the real world.

LaravelPHPMySQLRedisProduct
04Developer tooling / AI

SpecOps

A lightweight OpenCode plugin for spec-driven development. Specialist models investigate, plan, design, implement and review changes while OpenSpec stays the durable source of truth and the TypeScript layer stays deliberately boring.

TypeScriptBunOpenCodeOpenSpec

Also: Signal House, a local-first operator dashboard for AI-assisted development · Lumen, a brighter Hermes Desktop theme

// 20+ years around Linux
“If it compiles in Rust, it probably works.”
Probably.

I started with Ubuntu 4.10 and once spent my free time trying to get Halo running through Cedega. Since then I’ve bounced through Ubuntu, Arch and Fedora, built networks, datacentres, deployment systems and plenty of software on top of them.These days Fedora is home.

A career spent
getting closer to the system.

Nov 2015 - PresentCurrent
InstillerDeveloper

Software, infrastructure & security

I joined as a developer with Linux experience as a useful extra. Over time the role expanded into owning much of the system around the software: infrastructure, networking, monitoring, access, integrations and security, while still doing hands-on backend development.

Infrastructure

Helped plan, specify and build multi-site bare-metal infrastructure, including redundant 10Gb networking, disaster-recovery capacity, ZFS and DRBD-backed storage.

Software & operations

Backend PHP on Instiller's own framework, API and Zapier integration work, PowerMTA infrastructure, Ansible automation, Zabbix and bespoke network/domain health monitoring.

Security & ownership

Infrastructure hardening, AWS/S3 permissions, VPN access and customer security/audit questions. Often the job is simply: here’s the problem, go and figure out the right way to solve it.

Worked across

PHP · JavaScript · TypeScript · Python · Bash · Rocky Linux · Ansible · ZFS · DRBD · Zabbix · PowerMTA · AWS · Git

Apr 2014 - Nov 2015
Tomorrow PeopleBackend Developer

Bespoke development under pressure

Continued freelance work for the agency into roughly 2016.

A fast-paced city-centre agency where I worked across campaigns, websites, APIs, integrations and mobile projects. It was intense, occasionally ridiculous and excellent experience: I learned how to move quickly without treating speed as an excuse for bad engineering.

A particularly uncompromising code review from a developer who became a long-term mentor was one of the defining moments of my early career. It raised my quality bar at exactly the point I needed it.

Client systems

Worked on Trustpilot's B2B web presence and rebuilt Apteco's Drupal site and partner portal/integration layer for software downloads, patches and platform connections.

Breadth

Drupal and WordPress customisation, AngularJS and CoffeeScript, Node.js apps, PhoneGap mobile work, campaign builds, email templates and bespoke APIs and tools.

Workflow & ownership

Personally pushed and implemented the move from FTP/SVN to Git, and increasingly took on heavier project work, technical decisions and client-facing meetings as the team changed.

Worked across

PHP · JavaScript · TypeScript · CoffeeScript · AngularJS · Node.js · Drupal · WordPress · Sass · PhoneGap · Git · Linux

Oct 2009 - Apr 2014
Fairfax SchoolSystems Engineer

In-house software & networks

I started on the systems side and gradually found myself building more software. This was where virtualisation, proper networking and mixed-platform infrastructure first became part of the job — and where programming stopped being something I only did on the side.

Systems & networks

Windows Server, VMware ESXi, managed switching, VLANs, wireless and Linux/Unix systems. CCNA training here became a foundation I still lean on when designing networks.

Software

Built DigitalSignage in PHP/CodeIgniter, ProxySwitch in C#/.NET and a secure GCSE-options web app. ProxySwitch was shared on GitHub and EduGeek and picked up by other schools.

Platform integration

Set up the school's Mac estate around Mac OS X Server/Open Directory and integrated it with Active Directory, using existing Mac knowledge to make the mixed environment behave properly.

Worked across

C# / .NET · PHP · CodeIgniter · JavaScript · Windows Server · VMware ESXi · Active Directory · Open Directory · Linux / Unix · VLANs · Networking

Code is the craft.
The system is the job.

I prefer programming to talking about programming, but good engineering means caring about what happens before and after the compiler.

01

Open by default

Open source is my default instinct: Linux, open tooling, self-hosted infrastructure where it makes sense, and open-weight models. I like being able to inspect, own and understand the stack I depend on.

02

Security is a property

It isn't a checklist bolted on at the end. I think about secrets, networks, permissions, dependencies, failure modes and now AI-tool boundaries as part of the design.

03

AI is a tool

OpenCode is my harness and Hermes is my agent. I use Zed with its AI layer switched off. The agent can implement; I still architect the work, read the code and genuinely enjoy writing stuff myself.

04

Better workflows

I've led FTP/SVN → Git migrations at two companies and introduced infrastructure-as-code at Instiller. Improving how software gets built is part of building software.

Strong opinions,
loosely held.

PHP gets real products shipped. Go makes backend services pleasantly boring. Rust makes correctness feel tangible. Percona is still my favourite way to run MySQL. I reserve the right to change my mind when the evidence gets better.

LanguagesPHP / Go / Rust / TypeScript / Python / Bash
DataMySQL / Percona / Redis / SQLite
SystemsFedora / Rocky Linux / Ansible / Docker / ZFS
ProductLaravel / React / Vue / Astro / APIs
Runtime & toolingBun / Node.js / Git / Zsh / Zed / OpenCode / CI

Usually somewhere
on the mats.

When I’m not at a keyboard, I’m usually training Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It scratches much the same itch as a good technical problem: lots of moving parts, incomplete information, constant feedback, and absolutely no room for pretending something works when it doesn’t.

I train out of Immortal MMA and compete in both gi and no-gi. It’s a good excuse to stop thinking about software for a couple of hours. Usually trying to find a leg, occasionally remembering there are other submissions.

Brazilian jiu-jitsuImmortal MMA ↗Gi + no-gi competition
Jake sitting on the mats at Brazilian jiu-jitsu training
Somewhere between rounds.Photo:T1 MEDIA ↗